Linking transformational leadership to nurses’ extra-role performance: the mediating role of self-efficacy and work engagement

TLDR

Transformational leadership is known to enhance employee extra‑role performance, but the psychological mechanisms linking it to nurses’ extra‑role behaviours remain poorly understood. The study examines how supervisors’ transformational leadership influences nurses’ extra‑role performance through self‑efficacy and work engagement. Using a cross‑sectional survey of 280 nurse–supervisor dyads from a Portuguese hospital, the authors applied structural equation modelling to test a mediation model linking transformational leadership, self‑efficacy, work engagement, and extra‑role performance. Results showed that transformational leadership fully mediated nurses’ extra‑role performance via self‑efficacy and work engagement, with a direct positive link to engagement, thereby boosting hospital efficacy.

Abstract

This paper is a report of a social cognitive theory-guided study about the link between supervisors' transformational leadership and staff nurses' extra-role performance as mediated by nurse self-efficacy and work engagement.Past research has acknowledged the positive influence that transformational leaders have on employee (extra-role) performance. However, less is known about the psychological mechanisms that may explain the links between transformational leaders and extra-role performance, which encompasses behaviours that are not considered formal job requirements, but which facilitate the smooth functioning of the organization as a social system.Seventeen supervisors evaluated nurses' extra-role performance, the data generating a sample consisting of 280 dyads. The nurses worked in different health services in a large Portuguese hospital and the participation rate was 76·9% for nurses and 100% for supervisors. Data were collected during 2009. A theory-driven model of the relationships between transformation leadership, self-efficacy, work engagement and nurses' extra-role performance was tested using Structural Equation Modelling.Data analysis revealed a full mediation model in which transformational leadership explained extra-role performance through self-efficacy and work engagement. A direct relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement was also found.Nurses' supervisors with a transformational leadership style enhance different 'extra-role' performance in nurses and this increases hospital efficacy. They do so by establishing a sense of self-efficacy but also by amplifying their levels of engagement in the workplace.