Transformational Leadership and Career Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

This article examines the impact of transformational leadership and psychological empowerment on career satisfaction in a Korean conglomerate. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that employees showed higher career satisfaction when they perceived high meaning, competency, self-determination, and impact from their work (i.e., psychological empowerment) and when they perceived idealized influence from their leaders (i.e., one dimension of transformational leadership). Among the demographic variables, educational level and the length of the leader-member relationship turned out to be significant. The results of the structural equation modeling analyses showed that psychological empowerment fully mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and career satisfaction. Finally, implications, limitations, and research recommendations are discussed.