This cross-sectional study examines the relationship between engaging leadership and two nurse workforce outcomes — quiet quitting and work engagement — among a convenience sample of 404 Greek nurses surveyed in October 2024. The authors argue that engaging leadership, grounded in Self-Determination Theory, reduces quiet quitting and improves work engagement by fulfilling nurses' fundamental psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Using three validated instruments (Engaging Leadership Scale-12, Quiet Quitting Scale, and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-3), and applying multivariable linear regression adjusted for sex, age, shift work, understaffing, and work experience, the study finds that the 'connecting' dimension of engaging leadership is negatively associated with detachment and lack of initiative, while the 'inspiring' dimension is negatively associated with detachment and lack of motivation, and positively associated with work engagement. Notably, 66.6% of participants were classified as quiet quitters, and mean work engagement was moderate. The authors position this as the first study to examine engaging leadership and quiet quitting in nursing, and the second to examine engaging leadership and nurse work engagement. Cross-sectional design, convenience sampling, and self-report bias are acknowledged as key limitations. Key insights: 66.6% of the 404 Greek nurses in the sample were classified as quiet quitters using the recommended cut-off score of 2.06 on the Quiet Quitting Scale, indicating a high prevalence in this population. Among the four dimensions of engaging leadership, 'inspiring' was the only dimension independently associated with work engagement in multivariable analysis (adjusted beta = 0.400), while 'connecting' and 'inspiring' were the dimensions associated with reductions in specific quiet quitting factors. The multivariable models explained only 13.7% to 23.4% of variance in quiet quitting factors and 16.4% of variance in work engagement, indicating that engaging leadership is one of multiple contributing factors and the majority of variance remains unexplained. Practical takeaways: Organizations examining supervisor behavior in nursing contexts may find the 'inspiring' and 'connecting' dimensions of engaging leadership to be the factors most associated with reduced quiet quitting and improved work engagement in this Greek sample. The high proportion of nurses working in understaffed wards (82.2%) and on rotating shifts (71.8%) in this sample represents a contextual condition that co-occurs with quiet quitting, though the study's design cannot establish causal direction.