An organization‘s ability to achieve its goals depends on the quality of its leaders and their
ability to produce a highly engaged workforce. High levels of employee and managerial turnover
and burnout can impede an organization‘s workforce engagement and ability to grow and be
successful. To minimize the impact of these 2 constructs (turnover and burnout), this study
examined the link between leadership behavior practice patterns and employee work engagement
in a nonprofit that supports the homeless. Responses from 48 non-managerial employees were
used for this study. To investigate this study data were collected using 2 survey instruments: the
Leadership Practice Inventory (LPI) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Both
surveys were completed by the same population on the same day. The combination of crosssectional
survey designs using quantitative and descriptive correlational research methods helped
the researcher analyze the data to identify relationships between the variables under
investigation. According to the respondents‘ ratings, a positive correlation was found to exist
between leaders‘ behavior practice patterns and employee work engagement. Moreover, the
results found no negative correlations between the LPI scores and the UWES scores. High
employee engagement in a nonprofit organization leads to better economic outcomes for the
community and a better workplace for employees who feel their organization cares about their
health and well-being, which leads to a more tenured workforce and effective group of leaders.
Future directions for research include exploring other variables (leader responses and gender) to
potentially predict different work engagement levels and leadership behaviors that could impede
employee burnout and turnover.