Transformational Leadership and Project Success: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

Abstract

Through the lens of social cognitive theory (SCT), we formulated hypotheses and tested the mediating role of psychological empowerment (PE) in linking transformational leadership (TL) to project success (PS). A structured questionnaire was used to gather responses from 356 team members, project managers, and stakeholders. Our findings demonstrated that PE and TL had a substantial influence on PS. Furthermore, we determined that PE partially mediates the relationship between TL and PS. This study sought to give insights into this relationship and identified PE as a precondition for TL effectiveness. These findings have implications for theorists and practitioners because they assert that the association between TL and PS may be explained by psychological empowerment as the underlying mechanism. By demonstrating how leaders inspire their followers to become leaders themselves, we elucidate how these findings add to the literature on leadership. We also go into further detail about the use of leadership training.