How does transformational leadership relate to leaders’ own well-being and flow?

Transformational leadership research has overwhelmingly examined how leaders shape followers’ outcomes, leaving little attention to how enacting leadership relates to the leader’s own psychological functioning. This exploratory, cross-sectional study examines whether transformational leadership is associated with four psychological resources in the leader — self-efficacy, intrinsic job satisfaction, extrinsic job satisfaction, and work engagement — and whether these resources are differentially associated with two forms of the leader’s own positive experience. Two structural models differing only in outcome were estimated and compared on the same sample: a primary model with subjective well-being as the outcome, and a rival model with flow as the outcome. Data were collected from middle managers and supervisors in the footwear manufacturing industry of the Bajío region, Mexico (n = 104 managers with complete data) and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling with bootstrapped confidence intervals. Transformational leadership was positively associated with all four resources, although the associations with intrinsic satisfaction, extrinsic satisfaction and engagement were sensitive to a conservative common-method adjustment, which may over-correct, and its direct association with both outcomes was not distinguishable from zero. Of the four resources, only extrinsic satisfaction had a significant indirect association with subjective well-being, consistent with a pattern previously reported in this same population, whereas engagement and intrinsic satisfaction had significant indirect associations with flow. A paired bootstrap indicated that the pattern of associations differed between the two outcomes for engagement, intrinsic satisfaction and extrinsic satisfaction; this contrast is exploratory, and the flow findings are preliminary because flow was measured with two indicators and its discriminant validity from engagement was not established. Given the cross-sectional, self-reported design, the results are consistent with, but cannot demonstrate, a resource gain-spiral process. The findings contribute to the small stream of research on leader-centred outcomes of transformational leadership and suggest that leader-related resources may relate differently to different forms of positive experience, with tentative implications for leadership-development programmes.