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

Abstract

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.

Modeling the turnover intentions of Thai health-care personnel in pandemic times: moderating role of Covid-19 burnout

“…Second, according to our findings, TL has no significant effect on JTI directly; however, job satisfaction significantly mediates TL–JTI relationship, suggesting that TL is a pathway to cultivate JS among Thai hospitals then employees will associate to the JTI. These findings are in line with Curado and Santos (2021), where TL showed insignificant predictive ability to employee performance; however, the mediating role of job satisfaction increases job satisfaction, which in turn affects the employee performance. Besides, the insignificant relations can be discussed under the continuum model (Dépret and Fiske, 1999), suggesting that TL practices are effective for followers in threat because of outcome dependency conditions (Eberly et al , 2017) or because of social exchange (organization-based or supervisor-based) (Herman et al , 2013).…”

“…According to Statista, 36.47 thousand doctors and 174.29 thousand nurses are working in hospitals in Thailand [3]. However, the general practice is using minimum of 10 times the total number of items or indicators of all constructs in the model (Curado and Santos, 2021). A total of 20 indicators led to choose minimum of 200 sample size (20 × 10 = 200).…”

“…In an overview, transformational leadership theory (Shamir et al , 1993; Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985) suggests transformational leadership is a procedure of stimulating employees intellectually through motivation, coaching, individual attention and monitoring in finding potential solutions to problems. Leaders are able to motivate and inspire their followers, which leads them to achieve target goals and sense of collectivity in the organization (Curado and Santos, 2021). Hence, transformational leaders bring change in employees’ outcome as well as behavior and attitude (Bass, 1990; Shamir et al , 1993) and may increase the JS (Curado and Santos, 2021; Puni et al , 2018; Choi et al , 2016) and reduce the KH (Scuotto et al , 2022; Ladan et al , 2017a) and JTI (Mittal, 2016).…”

“…Leaders are able to motivate and inspire their followers, which leads them to achieve target goals and sense of collectivity in the organization (Curado and Santos, 2021). Hence, transformational leaders bring change in employees’ outcome as well as behavior and attitude (Bass, 1990; Shamir et al , 1993) and may increase the JS (Curado and Santos, 2021; Puni et al , 2018; Choi et al , 2016) and reduce the KH (Scuotto et al , 2022; Ladan et al , 2017a) and JTI (Mittal, 2016). The presence of JS is vital because it discourages JTI (Kuo et al , 2014).…”

“…Because of Covid-19, hospitals have become challenging workplaces where staff deal daily pressures that can influence job satisfaction (JS) (Curado and Santos, 2021) and JTI. Interestingly, transformational leadership (TL) can play an important role to minimize JTI (Yücel, 2021; Peachey et al , 2014; Wells and Peachey, 2011; Park and Pierce, 2020) in health-care sector.…”