Transformational Leadership and Procedural Compliance: A Four-Wave Mediation Study of Job Demands, Coworker Support, and Job Satisfaction

Moving beyond the traditional focus on safety-specific compliance, this study examines general procedural compliance across diverse work settings. Integrating transformational leadership theory and the Job Demands–Resources model, we investigated time-lagged associations between transformational leadership at T1, coworker support and quantitative job demands at T2, job satisfaction at T3, and procedural compliance at T4 (time lags of six, six, and twelve months, respectively). Four-wave panel data collected over two years included 3613 Norwegian employees who participated in at least one wave. Missing data were handled using multiple imputation and the model was estimated using WLSMV, treating the ordinal indicators and single dichotomous compliance outcome categorically. Transformational leadership was positively associated with subsequent coworker support and negatively associated with quantitative job demands. Transformational leadership and coworker support were positively associated with later job satisfaction, whereas quantitative job demands were negatively associated with it. In the primary model, both transformational leadership and job satisfaction were positively associated with later procedural compliance. Significant indirect associations between transformational leadership and compliance were found through coworker support and job satisfaction, and, to a smaller extent, through quantitative job demands and job satisfaction. After controlling for T3 compliance, job satisfaction remained positively associated with T4 compliance, and the total indirect association between transformational leadership and compliance remained significant. However, neither the direct nor the total association between transformational leadership and compliance was statistically significant in this specification. The findings support a temporally ordered mediation model linking transformational leadership and psychosocial work factors to later self-reported general procedural compliance. Although accidents were not measured, procedural compliance may be relevant to occupational public health as one of several organizational factors potentially associated with adverse occupational outcomes.