The Mediating Role of Team Engagement in the Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Team Dynamics

Abstract: This study examines how Transformational Leadership (TL) affects Team Dynamics (TD) and Team Engagement (TE), with a focus on the mediating function of engagement. The particular research was conducted in order to understand the influence of Transformational Leadership behaviors on group performance in the context of Fiji National University, as well as in various private sector organizations. This piece of research is grounded in Transformational Leadership Theory (Bass & Riggio, 2006), where the authors propose that shared engagement as well as increased teamwork can be stimulated by leaders who encourage as well as help employees. It is a quantitative design that involved the use of questionnaires administered among 170 respondents. SPSS was used to analyze data collected in the study, with a focus on tests of relationships. It is evident that both TE (β = 0.697, p < 0.001) and TD (β = 0.519, p < 0.001) are greatly influenced in a favorable way by TL. Moreover, TE partially moderated the effects of leadership on TD, as evident in TD having a significant positive relationship with TE (β = 0.324, p < 0.001). These findings demonstrate that fostering psychological safety and participation is important in enhancing teamwork factors of trust, communication, and collaboration as a result of the positive influence of transformational leaders. By verifying that participation is a mediator in proving the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and the relevant factors of the process, this study makes a contribution to theory. Practically, the importance of building skills in transformational leadership behaviors of empathy, intellectual stimulation, and inspirational motivation in relation to enhancing the cohesiveness of a firm’s teamwork performance is highlighted. As identified in the findings, organizations must develop leadership qualities that are primarily transformational in nature, particularly in the public and academic spheres of society, in order to sustain cooperation through the element of employee engagement.