Spiritual employee engagement as a mediator between strategic leadership and turnover intention: Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

The study investigates how strategic leadership affects millennials’ turnover intention, with spiritual employee engagement as a mediator. According to the social exchange theory, employees will be devoted and loyal to leaders who treat them well. The study explores how leadership influences employee retention through meaningful engagement. The SmartPLS 4.0 is used to analyze data (n= 345) using the structural equation model with partial least squares (SEM-PLS) method. Findings of the study show that strategic leadership has no direct impact on turnover intention; however, it significantly improves spiritual engagement, employees’ sense of meaning, purpose, and alignment with organizational values, which in turn lowers the intention to leave the organization. This result indicates that spiritual employee engagement, as a novelty, completely mediates the connection between strategic leadership and turnover intention. This study integrates spiritual dimensions into retention frameworks by promoting a theoretical understanding of turnover dynamics among millennial employees. To foster millennial employee retention, leaders should develop a value-driven purpose to enable meaningful work and implement flexible working policies. The results of this study have broader relevance for millennial talent management in other industries that struggle to retain millennials. Additionally, this study bridges the gap between spirituality and organizational behavior, offering actionable methods to improve engagement. Future research should confirm these findings across diverse cultural, industrial, and national contexts, particularly in developing countries.