Employee psychological well-being, transformational leadership and the future of hospitality jobs

Employee psychological well-being is a central concern for hospitality establishments as it impacts talent retention. This empirical research explores the relationship between transformational leadership and employee psychological well-being. This relationship is tested through a mediation model where transformational leadership is proposed to explain the effect on the psychological well-being of hospitality employees (hedonic and eudaemonic well-being) through the affective mediators thriving at work and employees’ amplification of pleasant emotions and employee engagement. The cross-sectional data came from 133 5-star hotel employees in the Netherlands. Analysing the responses showed that eudaemonic well-being had to be split into four new variables: growing and giving, liveliness, self-esteem and managing oneself. Furthermore, thriving at work and employee engagement fully mediated between transformational leadership and hedonic well-being, thriving at work fully mediated between transformational leadership and growing and giving, while thriving at work and employees’ amplification of pleasant emotions fully mediated between transformational leadership and self-esteem. A direct relationship was found between transformational leadership and managing oneself. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed in detail.