Leadership style and its influence on employee performance and retention in employee engagement mediation: evidence from Jordan's petroleum retailing sector

In this paper, a conceptual framework is proposed to understand the motivation and support extended by leaders to individual employees. It would improve the performance and retention of employees by the mediating effect of employee engagement, which is a critical and yet under explored antecedent of their effectiveness. This research adopted a constructed model based on research conducted through surveys. Data was collected from 425 supervisors in the petroleum retailing sector in Jordan. To run the measurement model and structural model, Smart-PLS was used. The findings confirm the hypotheses using PLS-SEM and demonstrate that transformational leadership (TSFL) and laissez-faire (LF) are significantly and positively related to employee retention (ER) and performance (EP), which are mediated by employee engagement (EE). The positive leadership of supervisors indicates that they feel engaged with the organisation's overall vision, which improves their followers' levels of performance. Leaders in petroleum retailing need to recognise that improving EP can be done by focusing on employee conditions to foster a sense of closeness and engagement among employees. Research can also be undertaken by examining issues related to leadership styles, EE, EP, and retention in other sectors as a comparison.