Employees’ self-determined motivation, transformational leadership and work engagement

While research on the role of employees’ characteristics as core to transformational leadership theory is burgeoning, limited research has focused on the differing aspects of employees’ self-determined motivation as mediating mechanism through which transformational leadership may impact outcomes. Drawing on the self-determined theory of motivation, we build and test a theoretical model linking employees’ perceptions of transformational leadership with engagement through an intervening variable of differing aspects of employees’ self-determined motivation. Data from a sample of 155 participants revealed that employees’ perceptions of transformational leadership were positively related to employees’ self-determined motivation (intrinsic, autonomous, and controlled) and work engagement. Specifically, self-determined motivation (intrinsic, autonomous) was positively linked with work engagement while intrinsic, autonomous and controlled dimensions of self-determined motivation mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the results.