Thriving when exhausted: The role of perceived transformational leadership

The role of leadership is especially important for employees’ personal growth at work. In the present two-wave study (time lag 3 months), we investigated the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the transformational leadership style of their school principal and their thriving. Specifically, we examined the role of individuals’ energy resources (i.e., emotional exhaustion) in the relationships between perceived transformational leadership and thriving, as well as two aspects of work performance (task mastery and proactivity). Findings from 200 teachers revealed no direct relationship between perceived transformational leadership and teachers’ thriving. However, as expected, teachers’ emotional exhaustion moderated the relationship between perceived transformational leadership and thriving; teachers’ perceptions of the transformational leadership style was associated with a decrease in thriving when they reported moderate levels of emotional exhaustion. When teachers were very low in emotional exhaustion, perceived transformational leadership was associated with an increase in thriving. Moderated mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects for proactivity for lower and higher levels of emotional exhaustion. We discuss the implications of the findings for theories of personal growth.