Impact of Transformational Leadership on Readiness for Change: Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment and Moderating Role of Workgroup Support

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of Transformational Leadership (TL) on Readiness for Change (RC) through the mediating role of psychological empowerment (PE) and the moderating role of workgroup support (WS). The study exhibited an innovative framework with direct impact of TL on RC and with mediation of PE, and with moderation of WGS, as the connection between PE and RC was never tested before and WGS is a significant element that promotes a supportive and collaborative environment and increases organizational efficiency for change, the study contributed to fill this gap in the context of the telecom sector. A self-administered questionnaire is scripted through online Google Forms and surveyed 289 targeted employees, using SPSS software for data analysis, time time-lagged approach and a snowball sampling technique for data collection in the telecommunication sector of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The findings are extracted by Magnifying Self-Determination Theory (SDT) that significantly interpreted that transformational leadership positively impacted on readiness for change and psychological empowerment partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and readiness for change, whereas workgroup support moderated the syndication between psychological empowerment and readiness for change.