Investigating leadership and employee well-being in higher education

Purpose: This article aims to understand the underlying mechanisms through which transformational leadership influences employee job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Specifically, the study explores the mediation role of employee well-being on the relationships between leadership and both employee job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Design/methodology/approach: Employing a quantitative research method, data were collected from 280 academics and professional staff from an Australian regional university. The Mplus software was used for data analysis. Findings: The results showed that transformational leadership had significant positive impact on employee well-being and job satisfaction while it alleviated employee turnover intentions. Furthermore, employee wellbeing mediated the effect of transformational leadership on employee job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Research limitations/implications: The research was cross-sectional, and data were collected from a convenient sample and therefore minimises our ability to generalise the findings to other contexts. Practical implications: Effective leadership, employee well-being, job satisfaction and employee turnover are of strategic importance in the higher education sector in Australia and internationally. These findings will therefore provide a basis for university policy makers to craft relevant policies that promote effective leader behaviours and enhance employee well-being as they facilitate employee job satisfaction and minimise turnover intentions among higher education sector employees (i.e. academics and professional staff). Originality/value: Our study provides a unique contribution to knowledge as it explains the mediation effect of employee well-being on the relation between transformational leadership a, job satisfaction and turnover intentions.