Transformational Leadership and Turnover Intentions: The Mediating Role of Employee Performance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The purpose of this research paper is to explain the impact of transformational leadership on employees’ turnover intentions in light of the mediating role of their individual performance. More precisely, we attempt to explain (a) how TL connects to employees’ turnover intentions, (b) how TL connects to employee performance, (c) how employee performance connects to turnover intentions, and (d) how employee performance mediates the connection between intentions and TL. Four hundred and seventy-eight Turkish healthcare professionals participated in this research. The results revealed that employee performance mediates the connection between turnover intentions and TL. In other words, transformational leaders encourage employee performance, which in turn decreases their turnover intentions. This research has important implications for reducing turnover in workplaces and increasing employee performance by facilitating a setting for high performance, since employees who are supported by their leaders are generally more committed to their organizations and exhibit better performance. This research answers calls to study the mediating function of the TL procedure, since the mediation clarifies the circumstances under which TL relates to the favorable results.

Transformational Leadership During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Strengthening Employee Engagement Through Internal Communication

“…Transformational leadership connects to other concepts, such as employee performance, employee creativity, work engagement, and organizational commitment and communication. Transformational leaders are critical to influencing employees’ performance to decrease their turnover intention ( Yücel, 2021 ). Transformational leadership is also critical to encourage employee creativity more effectively by creating an open climate for learning, innovation, and problem-solving ( Jyoti & Dev, 2014 ).…”

“…On the other hand, the transformational leadership style has been evaluated as an effective leadership style since it has a direct and strong ability to create a favorable work environment for higher employee engagement and higher service orientation ( Popli & Rizvi, 2015 ). This style enables employees to understand better the organization's activities, support, care, and values contributing to connections with the organization's members and developing a high degree of affective commitment to the organization ( Yücel, 2021 ). Moreover, transformational leadership can be a helpful tool for dealing with organizational crisis and management because it ensures job satisfaction and motivates employees to work well and effectively to achieve organizational goals ( Almohtaseb et al, 2021 ).…”

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

“…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. Previously, TL has positive effect on JTI among Chinese workers.…”

“…social exchange (Herman et al , 2013), trust, social identity (Cheng et al , 2016) and embeddedness (Eberly et al , 2017) are important sources to achieve intended outcomes in health-care sector. However, the role of transformational leaders in reducing JTI is not fully investigated around different sectors (Scuotto et al , 2022), particularly in Thai health-care setting, except, for Yücel (2021), who investigated the mediating role of employee performance between TL and JTI in Turkish private hospitals. The above inconclusiveness has motivated the need for further study.…”

Оrganizational Change as “Push Factor” of Employees’ Turnover Intention: Statistical Analysis of the Employees in the Republic of North Macedonia

“…As a result, employees try to remove all doubts and ambiguities by justifying the need for change, or by leaving the organization (Aladwan et al;. Transformation leadership is also a part of techno-structural changes and it is a crucial element for organizations who are willing to anticipate fundamental transitions and changes before they can encourage willingness of the workers and departments to recognize and implement those changes effectively in order to have an adequate environment for positive or adaptive changes through processes (for example, inspiration, motivation, alignment, and setting direction through vision) (Yücel, 2021).…”