Investigating the Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Job engagement with the Mediating Role of Emotional Creativity among Primary School Teachers

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership and job engagement with the mediating role of emotional creativity among elementary school teachers.

This research was descriptive-correlational in terms of method. The statistical population of the study included all elementary school teachers in 2019-2020, and the statistical sample (191 people) was selected through stratified random sampling method. The data collecting instruments were Bass’s (1985) transformational Leadership questionnaire (α=0/90), Schaufeli’s (2001) job engagement scale (α=0/78), and Averil’s (1996) emotional creativity questionnaire (α=0/70). The data were analyzed at two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics, and structural equation modeling analysis and SPSS 22 were used to analyze the hypotheses.

Findings indicated the role of emotional creativity as a mediator between transformational leadership and job engagement. There was a positive and significant relationship between the components of transformational leadership (inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence & individual consideration) and job engagement. Also, there was a positive and significant relationship between the components of transformational leadership (inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence & individual consideration) and emotional creativity (P<0/01).

This study showed that there was a significant positive relationship between the components of transformational leadership and teachers' job engagement and emotional creativity. According to this finding, if managers see transformational leadership strategies as a requirement on their leadership style, they can make teachers enthusiastic about their work. On the other hand, by confirming the role of emotional creativity as a mediating variable, it is suggested that in order to increase the job engagement of elementary school teachers, managers can promote their emotional creativity.