Integrating Dependency on the Leader and Empowerment into Transformational Leadership - Creative Performance Relationship

Abstract

Previous literature highlights employees’ creativity as an important means of fostering innovation and competitive advantage in companies. Transformational leadership is an approach aimed at stimulating and encouraging the creative performance of employees. However, contradictory empirical fi ndings indicate that the relationship between transformational leadership and creativity may be more complex than a simple direct link. Drawing from the existing literature, we propose that dependency on the leader is a partial mediator of this relationship, impeding employees’ creativity. Synthesizing theories of leadership and creativity, we propose that empowerment, as a moderator, is able to reduce the dependency on the leader caused by transformational leadership as well as contribute to turning possible negative outcomes of transformational leadership on creative performance into positive outcomes. The fi ndings of a PLS analysis of 271 employees support the predicted mediating and moderating effects. Our results indicate that the transformational leadership style should be combined with empowering behavior to enhance employees’ creative performance.