The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership Styles and University Adjunct Faculty Work Engagement

Adjunct faculty bring on-the-job experience and reality to the classroom. The problems associated with using adjuncts include lack of teaching experience, and not being fully engaged with the students. The purpose of this quantitative correlation study was to determine whether relationships exist among adjunct faculty work engagement and their perceptions of the transformational leadership styles of the campus academic director. Study participants were asked to respond to two validated and reliable survey instruments: the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-17). Results revealed that all five transformational leadership styles of university campus academic directors showed a moderate to strong relationship to adjunct faculty work engagement (p<.001); Pearson’s r ranged from .35 to .43.