The empowerment–resilience pathway: how hybrid leadership drives adaptive performance in digitally stressed emerging markets

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how hybrid leadership enhances employee adaptive performance in Sierra Leone’s resource-constrained banking sector, testing psychological empowerment and employee resilience as mediating mechanisms and digital transformation stress (DTS) as a hierarchical boundary condition. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a cross-sectional survey design. Data were obtained from 303 employees across 8 commercial banks in Sierra Leone. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed as the analytical tool to test the hypotheses of the study. Findings Hybrid leadership was positively related to adaptive performance. Psychological empowerment partially mediated this relationship, while employee resilience did not. However, resilience positively influenced empowerment, suggesting a protective-enabling role. Digital transformation stress significantly moderated the effects of hybrid leadership on both empowerment and resilience, yet adaptive performance remained stable, indicating team-level buffering. Age – but not tenure – was a significant predictor of adaptive performance. Practical implications Banking executives and HR professionals should train and appraise leaders who can integrate transactional and transformational behaviors contextually, operationalize empowerment through bounded autonomy and strengthen team-based adaptive supports such as cross-training, shared crisis protocols and peer coordination mechanisms to sustain performance under digital stress. Originality/value This study extends Full-Range Leadership Theory to non-WEIRD, resource-constrained contexts by empirically validating configurational hybridity as a stress-responsive, resource-regulating practice. It clarifies that psychological empowerment functions as the primary motivational conduit while employee resilience serves a protective-enabling rather than direct performance-driving role. Critically, it identifies DTS as a hierarchical stressor ceiling that differentially impacts psychological and behavioral outcomes – a novel contribution to digitalization and occupational health scholarship.