Paper Title
The Effect of Perceived Transformational Leadership Style on Employee Engagement: The Mediating Effect of Leader’s Emotional Intelligence

Abstract
Employee engagement has been at the centre of attention for human resource personnel and researchers who stated that employee engagement can be a key driver of an organization's business success. Many researchers have found in recent research that transformational leadership styles a beneficial connection with employee engagement Thus, This study aims to find the causal effect of perceived transformational leadership on employee engagement through the mediating role of Leader’s emotional intelligence. Therefore, this study aims to address the aforementioned gaps and add to the richness of literature review of employee engagement and identify the causes of low levels of employee engagement. Regarding the study method, the researcher establishes the content validity through a series of expert review, pre-test and pilot testing using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Transformational leadership, employee engagement and emotional intelligence were assessed in an empirical study based on a sample of 328 full-time employees working in the ICT sector in Palestine. The results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) procedure found the transformational leadership style had a causal effect on employee engagement when we entering the mediating role of emotional intelligence. The relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement was found to be completely mediated by Leader’s emotional intelligence at work. The relationship between transformational leadership style, Leader’s emotional intelligence, and work engagement were examined theoretically and tested empirically in the Palestine context. Keywords- Transformational Leadership, Employee Engagement, Emotional Intelligence, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).