Faced with its current challenges, there is a need for the public sector to focus on employee as a source of value particularly in relation to the creation of a high performance public service culture that is envisioned by Malaysia. In this milieu, current thinking and trend of recent researches indicate leadership and employee engagement as the key potential constructs aptly worthy of consideration in this study. Nonetheless, review of literature points to the dearth of researches in the academia with regards to the transformational leadership style and employee engagement. hence, this study intends to fill this gap and investigate the relationship between the two above mentioned primary components of a public sector organization, based on transformational leadership model that was widely regarded as the most effective leadership style and employee engagement, with turnover as the organizational outcome in the Malaysian context. A division of a Ministry provides the scope of this study, represented by 142 respondents (n) from various levels of the organisation. The instrument utilised in this study is a questionnaire based on the adaptation of established measurements of Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Form 5X, Utrecht Work Engagement Survey and Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire, to analyse the aspects of leadership style, employee engagement and turnover intention respectively. In terms of data analysis, comparison of means, regression analysis and Sobel Test were performed to address the research objectives accordingly. The study findings point to transformational leadership style positive relationship with employee engagement and a negative relationship with turnover intention. the Sobel Test results points to only one significant indirect effect of Transformational-Laissez-Faire interaction variable to turnover intention via employee engagement as mediator.
