Follower transformation as the linchpin of transformational leadership theory: A systematic review and future research agenda

Satisfied on our own, yet ready to leave together: An actor-partner interdependence mediation model on job satisfaction and turnover intentions in leader-follower dyads

Drawing on conservation of resources theory and job embeddedness, this study aims to investigate crossovers of positivity and negativiy between leaders and their followers with respect to work-related variables (i.e. work engagement, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and turnover intentions). Two waves of multisource data were collected from 244 leader-follower dyads. An actor-partner interdependence model extended to mediation (APIMeM) was used to test two mediation models and examine crossovers between leaders and their followers. Findings show that negative events are positively associated with emotional exhaustion of leaders (followers), which in turn is positively associated with leaders' (followers') own turnover intention as well as that of their followers (leaders). Positive events are positively associated with work engagement of leaders, which in turn is positively associated with leaders' own job satisfaction, but not with the job satisfaction of their followers. In other words, negative events have cross-over effects, while positive events do not. In essence, we found evidence of a crossovered negativity bias. This study is unique in using a dyadic approach to analyse leader-follower crossovers with respect to job satisfaction and turnover intention. This study reveals the mediating and cross-over effects of work engagement and emotional exhaustion on the links between positive (negative) events and work outcomes.

Do Chameleons Lead Better? A Meta-Analysis of the Self-Monitoring and Leadership Relationship

The relationship between self-monitoring and leadership has been debated. We attempt to resolve this debate through a meta-analysis (N = 9,029 across 55 samples). Since this is the first meta-analysis that focuses on this relationship, we were able to study both focal constructs at a granular level. As hypothesized, self-monitoring is positively associated with leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness. Whereas self-monitoring is positively related to managerial leadership, its relationship with transactional leadership is non-significant. Contrary to our prediction that self-monitoring is negatively related to authentic leadership and to transformational leadership, we found positive relationships. Importantly, the relationship between self-monitoring and leadership variables is typically non-significant when the latter is measured by subordinate ratings. This casts doubt on the general finding that self-monitoring is positively related to leadership. Also, the relationships significantly differ when self-monitoring was measured by different scales. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The impact of empowering and transformational leadership on innovative behaviour: the mediating role of psychological empowerment in health-care sector

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to test a four-variable research model using organizational behavior, social and technical systems, and leadership theories. This study set out to determine how different leadership philosophies, such as transformational leadership and empowering leadership, affected innovation. In addition, the model's mediating role for psychological empowerment was quantified.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

This study used a quantitative approach, which is primarily a questionnaire, to gather information from 320 health-care sector workers at four public hospitals in the Basrah Governorate.

FINDINGS

The majority of the relationships in the research model were shown to be positive by data analysis outcomes. The findings also showed how crucial the mediating variable was in preserving the link between the independent and dependent variables. Discussions were made on the theoretical and practical ramifications and suggestions for additional research.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This study concentrated on the application of contemporary leadership styles, gathered information on them and combined them into a single model to boost innovation. This study, which was conducted in the setting of the Iraqi health-care industry, stands out from previous studies because it used a large sample to provide conclusive and significant results, making it a valuable resource for academicians who seek to cultivate innovation.

The impact of leadership styles on employee safety behaviour among Chinese healthcare workers: The moderating role of cooperation facilitation

With the support of social exchange theory and social impact theory, this study aimed to examine the impact of transactional and transformational leadership on safety behaviour with the moderating role of cooperation facilitation in Chinese healthcare workers. This study used a simple random sampling method and data were collected from healthcare workers in Zhenjiang city, Jiangsu province, China. A total of 376 questionnaires were utilised and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was used for data analysis. The result showed that transactional and transformational leadership positively impact safety behaviour of health care workers. The findings also indicated that cooperation facilitation positively moderates the relationship between transactional and transformational leadership on safety behaviour. This study provides an insightful contribution that leadership must encourage the workers to cooperate in safety-related activities to make the work environment healthier and safer. Lastly, this study also discussed some theoretical and practical implications for researchers and policymakers.

The impact of transformational leadership on the turnover intention of the new generation of knowledgeable employees: A moderated mediation model

The relationship between transformational leadership and employee behavior has been a popular topic in organizational research. However, while various factors have been identified for the influence of transformational leadership on employee behavior, researchers have so far failed to explore the impact of transformational leadership on the turnover propensity of the new generation of knowledge workers in terms of a specific orientation. Based on the social exchange theory, this study explored the influence of transformational leadership on the turnover intention of the new generation of knowledgeable employees, considering the mediating role of person-organization fit and the moderating role of job embeddedness. Through using SPSS 25.0, Amos 24.0, and PROCESS 3.3 to analyze the data of 326 workers, the results showed that transformational leadership has a negative predictive effect on the turnover intention of the new generation of knowledgeable employees. Person-organization fit plays a partial mediating role between transformational leadership and the turnover intention of the new generation of knowledgeable employees. The relationship between transformational leadership and person-organization fit is positively moderated by job embeddedness. Therefore, there is a moderated mediation model between transformational leadership and the new generation of knowledgeable employees. This research is a good reference and guide for management practices between transformational leadership and the new generation of knowledge workers.

Transformational Leadership and Emotional Labor: The Mediation Effects of Psychological Empowerment

In order to survive the fiercer competition, more and more service firms emphasize front-line employees' role of creating excellent customer experience by displaying positive emotions during the service interactions. However, the underlying mechanisms for the relationship between transformational leadership and front-line employees' emotional labor remain unclear. Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study develops a conceptual model in which transformational leadership influences front-line employees' emotional labor through the mediator of psychological empowerment. By collecting data from 436 employees in five call centers, we tested our model and hypotheses through PROCESS 3.3 macro for SPSS developed by Hayes. The results show that transformational leadership shows positive and negative effects on deep acting and surface acting, respectively. The positive effect on deep acting is partially mediated by psychological empowerment, while the negative effect on surface acting is fully mediated by psychological empowerment. Specifically, two dimensions of psychological empowerment (impact, self-efficacy) play negative mediating roles between transformational leadership and surface acting, while impact, self-determination, and self-efficacy play positive mediating roles of transformational leadership and deep acting. The findings advance our understanding about how transformational leadership influences front-line employees' emotional labor by introducing psychological empowerment as a mediator.

Millennials and the motivation to lead: is a transformational leader a catalyst or barrier?

Purpose

Leaders influence individuals to understand and agree upon goals and methods to accomplish shared objectives. However, how leaders motivate others to assume a leadership role is an open question. This paper aims to examine how employee perceptions of their supervisors’ transformational leadership behaviors might affect a millennial and their motivation toward leadership. This paper also investigated the relationship within a spiritually based organizational context since workplace spirituality has become increasingly popular within contemporary corporate cultures.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper offers propositions, which examine two areas: first, the impact of a spiritual work context on a millennial’s motivation to lead and, second, the proposed moderating impact of a transformational leader on these relationships.

Findings

These linkages are important for organizational leaders to examine, as millennials will be the largest portion of the workforce by 2025. In addition, the influence of a transformational leader may not be as powerful as previous research has demonstrated. This difference is based on aspects of millennials, which are different from previous generations. Organizations spend thousands of dollars on the development of transformational leaders and spiritual (meaningful) workplaces; however, this may not be useful in the future.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, to date no research has examined the impact of a transformational leader on a millennial’s motivation toward leadership in a spiritual work context.

CEOs' leadership behaviors and new venture team stability: The effects of knowledge hiding and team collectivism

PURPOSE

The reasons for new venture team instability gradually have become a vital issue in the entrepreneurship literature. While chief executive officers' (CEOs) leadership behaviors is regarded as a critical element of governance within new venture teams, few studies explored the role played by CEOs' leadership behaviors in new venture team stability. Drawing on the transactional-transformational leadership model, this study divides CEOs' leadership behaviors in new ventures into two categories, namely, transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. Based on the social exchange theory and the social information processing theory, this study constructs a moderating mediation model to understand how transformational and transactional leadership affects new venture team stability. In this model, knowledge hiding is used as mediating role and team collectivism is used as moderating role.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

Three-wave and two-source data was collected from 66 new ventures in China and an ordinary least squares hierarchical regression model and Hayes' moderated-mediation approach were applied to test the hypotheses.Findings-The results show transformational leadership and transactional leadership are positively related to new venture team stability. Knowledge hiding mediates the association between transformational leadership and new venture team stability and that between transactional leadership and new venture team stability. Moreover, a high level of team collectivism corresponds to a stronger relationship between transformational leadership and knowledge hiding and a greater indirect effect of transformational leadership on new venture team stability through knowledge hiding.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This study explores the mechanisms and boundary conditions of the effect of transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and new venture team stability, which is an enrichment to the study of governance within new venture teams. It enlightens managers to take effective measures to reduce knowledge hiding and maintain team stability in new venture teams.

Changing the Office Design to Activity-Based Flexible Offices: A Longitudinal Study of How Managers' Leadership Behaviours Are Perceived

This longitudinal study examines the impact of office type on employees' perception of managers' leadership behaviours, which is an unexplored area. The expanding research related to activity-based flexible offices (AFOs) has mainly focused on employees' working conditions and health outcomes, not on the changes in leadership behaviours when moving from traditional offices to AFOs. Office workers (n = 261) from five office sites within a large Swedish government agency were included in a controlled study of a natural intervention. At four sites, traditional offices were replaced by AFOs, while workers at one site with no relocation acted as the control. The same employees rated different leadership behaviours in a web-based questionnaire at baseline and at one follow-up. The analyses showed that relocations from cell and open-plan offices to AFOs were clearly related to a decrease in the perception of relation-oriented leadership behaviours. However, coming from open-plan offices to AFOs also decreased the perception of the other leadership dimensions. As expected, the control group was stable over time in their perceptions. This emphasises the need for organisations to provide managers with prerequisites so they can keep up with behaviours that support employees' performance and health when office designs and ways of working are changed.

The moderating role of transformational leadership on the relationship between deviant workplace behaviors and employee turnover intentions in China

This study aimed to analyze the effect of deviant workplace behaviors, such as mistreatment, bullying, and incivility on employee turnover intention and identify the transformational leadership role as a moderator. The data was collected through a survey questionnaire with the help of a purposive sampling technique. A total of 318 respondents’ data was gathered from university academic and general staff in China. The results were analyzed through SPSS and structural equation modeling structural equation modeling (SEM) software. The findings indicate that deviant workplace behavior, i.e., mistreatment, bullying, and incivility, significantly affect employee turnover intention. Moreover, a result shows that transformational leadership has a significant moderating role on the relationship between turnover intention and workplace bullying and incivility but was insignificant between turnover intention and workplace mistreatment. Lastly, implications and limitations were also discussed in this article.

Exploring the Determinants of Young Inclusive Leadership in Thailand: Research Taxonomy and Theoretical Framework

Inclusive leadership has recently become an active topic in the literature on leadership and in the field of organizational behavior. However, there is currently a lack of consensus regarding whether the younger generation of inclusive leaders perceive and behave differently from the older generation. This study seeks to determine the traits, characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors of young inclusive Thai leaders who today play an increasingly influential role in various sectors of the Thai economy. The ultimate intent is to develop a theoretical framework for young inclusive leadership. Building on relational leadership theory and adopting the framework of Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) and Hollander’s 4Rs of Inclusive Leadership, the authors use interviews with 12 young Thai leaders to classify the crucial attributes of young inclusive Thai leaders into five categories: role model, luminary, pioneer, motivator, and nurturer. These attributes reflect how young leaders express their inclusiveness in conjunction with relational, entrepreneurial, and transformational leadership and serve as the basis for a holistic framework for young inclusive leadership.

Pursuing Consultant Performance: The Roles of Sustainable Leadership Styles, Sustainable Human Resource Management Practices, and Consultant Job Satisfaction

Human resource management (HRM) consultants have a paramount role in solving current company problems, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They are professionals who work for HRM consulting firms. This research aims to investigate the positive effects of sustainable leadership styles and HRM practices on consultant job satisfaction and performance in firms in Indonesia. We standardized and tested seven hypotheses and engaged the Snowball sampling method for collecting primary data. Then, we sent a self-report questionnaire with 27 items to respondents. Four hundred consultants are the target respondents in cross-sectional data collection from the beginning of January to the beginning of February 2022. The confirmatory factor analysis has produced valid and reliable items in total. The goodness of fit test has issued a fit model. Hence, first, the chief executive officers’ (CEOs) sustainable leadership styles and HRM practices positively affect consultant job satisfaction. Second, consultant job satisfaction positively affects consultant performance. Therefore, sustainable leadership styles and sustainable HRM practices are independent variables. Job satisfaction is the mediating one.

Multilevel analysis of resonant leadership and subordinate's work performance during COVID-19: a study of the indian software industry

This study examined the multilevel model that explains how the interaction effect of resonant leadership and gender identity influences proposed outcomes through the mediating role of psychological capital. We performed a multilevel analysis by conducting an online survey using multisource data from the 104 team/project leaders and 527 team members of nine major Indian IT companies. The results demonstrated that psychological capital positively and significantly mediated the relationship between resonant leadership and work performance. The mediation role was stronger when androgynous identity attenuated the relationship between resonant leadership and psychological capital at a higher level. The study adds a unique lens to the literature of resonant leadership and proposes outcomes by validating it through the hierarchical linear modelling principle and efficient statistical procedures. This is the first study to empirically confirm the multilevel moderation mediation process wherein psychological capital mediates the relationship between resonant leadership and work performance, subject to the leader's androgynous identity level.

Transformational leadership and work performance in health care: the mediating role of job satisfaction

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation among transformational leadership, job satisfaction and adaptive performance of health-care professionals and administrative personnel of Portuguese non-profit health-care organizations.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

This study collects data using an online survey sent to a nationwide database. This study uses a structural equation modeling approach to specify and estimate models of linear relations among the variables. This study tests the direct and mediated effects proposed by the hypotheses using a sample of non-profit 192 health-care organizations.

FINDINGS

The results show (regardless of being direct health-care professionals or employees performing support functions) that job satisfaction fully mediates the relation between transformational leadership and adaptive performance. Transformational leadership alone and directly seems to have no effect on adaptive performance.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS

The theoretical implications of this study concern the influence that transformational leadership has on job satisfaction and the consequent indirect influence on performance regardless of being direct health-care professionals or employees performing support functions.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The main managerial contribution of the study regards how health-care organizations' leaders may contribute to increase employees' performance by ensuring job satisfaction.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

Despite the numerous studies that relate transformational leadership to job satisfaction and performance, there is a gap on research run in health care settings involving both health care and administrative personnel. Transformational leadership can increase the satisfaction of health-care professional and consequently job satisfaction has a positive influence on employees' adaptive performance.

All you need is love: the relationship between agape and work outcomes

Purpose

The purpose of this paper was to lay the necessary conceptual and empirical groundwork of agape in organizations. Specifically, the authors reviewed literature on agape; advanced formal definition of agape; explained the relationship of agape with related variables; developed a scale to measure agape and provided evidence of its reliability and construct validity; showed how agape uniquely predicted employee outcomes beyond transformational leadership; and showed how agape compensated for the lack of transformational leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a survey with 214 working executives who rated their manager on transformational leadership and agape behaviours, and later indicated their own work attitudes. Next, the authors conducted a 20-min between-subjects vignette experiment with 147 business management students who were provided with a description of a supervisor and asked to indicate their work attitudes under the supervisor.

Findings

The authors advanced an operational definition and a scale to measure agape. The findings of this study indicated that agape was a unidimensional construct with high reliability. It had significant positive relationships with followers’ job satisfaction, faith and loyalty, team commitment, satisfaction and risk-taking; explained incremental variance in employee outcomes beyond transformational leadership; and compensated for the lack of transformational leadership.

Research limitations/implications

The present research has the potential to inform recruitment, selection, training, promotion and performance evaluation decisions in organizations.

Originality/value

The authors responded to calls for developing a clear and consistent conceptualization and operationalization of agape for improving scholarly research and leadership training and development.

The antecedents and outcomes of transformational leadership: leader's self-transcendent value, follower's environmental commitment and behavior

Purpose

The primary purpose of this paper is to identify the antecedent (i.e. leader's self-transcendent value) and outcomes (i.e. follower's environmental commitment and behavior) of transformational leadership. The second purpose is to examine the mediating role of transformational leadership plays in the relationship between leader's self-transcendent value and follower's environmental commitment and behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

Multi-source data were collected at multiple times in China. A total of 262 employees and their 64 supervisors completed the survey. The authors conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to verify the validity of the constructs and adopted the SPSS PROCESS macro with bootstrapping techniques to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The authors find that leader's self-transcendent value is an important antecedent of transformational leadership, and transformational leadership can enhance followers' environmental commitment and foster their environmental behavior. Besides, transformational leadership plays a significant mediating role between leader's self-transcendent value and follower's environmental commitment and behavior.

Originality/value

This study has developed an integrated model of the antecedents and outcomes of transformational leadership in the Chinese context. It also confirmed that transformational leadership mediates the process through which leader's self-transcendent value has a positive impact on follower's environmental commitment and behavior.

Transformational leadership and organizational performance of Omani SMEs: the role of market orientation

Purpose

This study proposed and tested a model on the relationship between transformational leadership (TL) and organizational performance (OP) with a possible intervening effect of market orientation (MO) at Omani small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Design/methodology/approach

The study followed a quantitative research design and the deductive approach. Data were collected from 259 employees working in Omani SMEs and were analyzed using structural equation modeling SEM AMOS V24.

Findings

The findings supported positive direct effects of transformational leadership on Omani SMEs' business performance and market orientation. The results also supported the effect of market orientation on business performance. Further analysis showed that market orientation partly mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and business performance.

Practical implications

The results motivate Omani SMEs' leaders to use intangible capabilities (i.e., market orientation practices) to improve the different aspects of organizational performance. It also suggests that developing SMEs leaders' transformational skills on envisioning the future, adopting open communication styles, motivating employees and stimulating their creativity influences Omani SMEs' performance.

Originality/value

Due to the mixed results regarding the TL–OP relationship and the recommendations for further exploring this relationship, this study contributes to theory and practice. It is among the few studies to explore the mediating role of MO between TL and OP in a developing country's SMEs environment.

The nexus of transactional leadership, knowledge sharing behavior and organizational creativity: empirical evidence from construction workers in Jakarta

Purpose

This research aims to examine the role of knowledge sharing (KS) as mediation in the relationship between transactional leadership (TSL) and organizational creativity (OC) among construction workers in Jakarta.

Design/methodology/approach

The population in this research was the construction workers working in Jakarta. The sample used in this research consisted of 210 respondents. The validity of the hypothesis model was analyzed using the structural equation modeling–partial least squares (SEM-PLS) approach with the help of SmartPLS 3.2.8.

Findings

TSL affects KS and OC. Another most important thing is that KS acts as a partial mediator for the relationship of TSL to OC.

Originality/value

Originality in this research is the use of variable KS to mediate the relationship between TSL and OC in the research conducted in the scope of construction in Jakarta. Other theoretical implications for TSL are added by this research. This research has never been conducted in the construction sector in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Do Environmental Transformational Leadership Predicts Organizational Citizenship Behavior towards Environment in Hospitality Industry: Using Structural Equation Modelling Approach

Voluntary pro-environmental behaviors in the workplace such as organizational citizenship behavior towards environment (OCBE) are pertinent for the organizations striving to become environmentally responsible entities. The significance of OCBE for green organizational initiatives has led scholars to strive for expanding its nomological network. Approaching from the theoretical angle of the social information processing approach, this quantitative, survey-based study theoretically links and empirically tests the impact of environmental transformational leadership on organizational citizenship behavior towards environment (OCBE) via mediating mechanism of perceived meaningful work. Data from a sample of 311 employees working in Pakistan’s hospitality sector were collected and analyzed to test the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modelling. Results indicated the indirect effect of perceived meaningful work on the relationship between environmental transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior towards environment. Implications of both theoretical and practical nature are laid out in the relevant sections of the paper.

Advancing quality culture in health professions education: experiences and perspectives of educational leaders

The concept of quality culture has gained increased attention in health professions education, drawing on insights that quality management processes and positive work-related attitudes of staff in synergy lead to continuous improvement. However, the directions that guide institutions from quality culture theory to educational practice have been missing so far. A prospective qualitative case study of three health professions education programmes was conducted to explore how a quality culture can be enhanced according to the experiences and perspectives of educational leaders. The data collection was structured by an appreciative inquiry approach, supported with vignette-based interviews. A total of 25 participants (a selection of course coordinators, bachelor coordinators and directors of education) reflected on quality culture themes to learn about the best of what is (Discover), envision positive future developments (Dream), identify actions to reach the desired future (Design), and determine how to support and sustain improvement actions (Destiny) within their own educational setting. The results are presented as themes subsumed under these four phases. The experiences and perspectives of educational leaders reveal that peer learning in teams and communities, attention to professional development, and embedding support- and innovation networks, are at the heart of quality culture enhancement. An emphasis on human resources, (inter)relations and contextual awareness of leaders stood out as quality culture catalysts. Educational leaders are therefore encouraged to especially fuel their networking, communication, coalition building, and reflection competencies.

Take a "Selfie": Examining How Leaders Emerge From Leader Self-Awareness, Self-Leadership, and Self-Efficacy

It is important to understand the processes behind how and why individuals emerge as leaders, so that the best and most capable individuals may occupy leadership positions. So far, most literature in this area has focused on individual characteristics, such as personality or cognitive ability. While interactions between individuals and context do get research attention, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how the social context at work may help individuals to emerge as leaders. Such knowledge could make an important contribution toward getting the most capable, rather than the most dominant or narcissistic individuals, into leadership positions. In the present work, we contribute toward closing this gap by testing a mediation chain linking a leader's leader self-awareness to a follower's leadership emergence with two time-lagged studies (n_study1 = 449, n_study2 = 355). We found that the leader's leader self-awareness was positively related to (a) the follower's leadership emergence and (b) the follower's nomination for promotion and that both relationships were serially mediated by the follower's self-leadership and the follower's leader self-efficacy. We critically discuss our findings and provide ideas for future research.

Crowdworking: Neue Realitäten der Führung

Dieser Beitrag in der Zeitschrift „Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation.“ erhellt im Rahmen einer aktuellen qualitativen Befragung von Crowdworkern, welche Motive und Erwartungen in diesem gegenwärtig stark wachsenden Bereich der sog. neuen Arbeitswelt auf deren Seite bestehen. Deutlich wird u. a., dass die Personalführung im plattformbasierten Raum diffuser wird. In unpersönlichen, digitalen Arbeitswelten existiert neben der zunächst offensichtlichen Führungssubstitution durch Selbstmanagement letztlich dennoch eine dem virtuellen Raum angepasste Führungserwartung der Crowdworker. Diesen Erwartungen müssen Portale wie Kunden im Sinne einer für alle Seiten effektiven Leistungsbeziehung gerecht werden.