Influence of Transformational Leadership on Emotional Labor of Employees: —Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

Abstract

Based on the job demands-resources model, this paper explores the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the process of transformational leadership impacts the effects of employees’ emotional labor. We report empirical results indicating that transformational leadership has a strong negative relationship to surface behavior and a strong positive relationship to deep behavior, while psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employees' emotional labor. Specifically, transformational leadership can indirectly influence the deep acting of front-line employees through meaning, influence, self-determination and self-efficacy; Transformational leadership can indirectly influence front-line employees' surface acting through influence, self-determination and self-efficacy, while meaning has no significant influence on surface acting.