In the tumultuous context of organisational change and disruption, employee engagement has been identified as a key leadership priority. Employee engagement is suggested to be closely associated with strategic leadership and organisational outcomes. Despite this, a cohesive conceptual model linking these variables has not been addressed by the literature.
Following a futures studies methodology guided by the generic foresight process, a scenario development approach was adopted investigating strategic leadership and employee engagement in Singapore by 2030. This was recognised as being of national and organisational significance. The mixed methods study combined environmental scanning, quantitative statistical analysis and a Delphi study to develop the scenarios.
Emerging from the study was a the methodological insight that Strategic Leadership Theory (SLT) provides a rigorous framework for anticipating possible futures of organisations based on extrapolating leaders’ foresight and strategic thinking capability profiles. Based on quantitative measures of foresight and strategic thinking capabilities, leader profiles were used by Delphi experts to anticipate employee engagement in Singapore and develop a set of scenarios. A unique SLT / employee engagement conceptual model was also validated.