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DOI: 10.1177/1742715013476083

2014 10: 269 originally published online 13 March 2014LeadershipTorsten J Holstad, Sabine Korek, Thomas Rigotti and Gisela Mohr

The moderating role of professional ambitionThe relation between transformational leadership and follower emotional strain:

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Article

The relation betweentransformational leadershipand follower emotional strain:The moderating role ofprofessional ambition

Torsten J Holstad, Sabine Korek, Thomas Rigotti andGisela MohrUniversity of Leipzig, Germany

Abstract

The present study tests a model of moderated mediation in the relationship between transform-

ational leadership and follower emotional strain. Based on the job demands-resources model, we

suggest that transformational leaders may be able to decrease follower emotional strain by

providing social support. It is also proposed that a protective effect of social support from a

transformational leader will depend on the employees’ level of professional ambition. Mediation

by social support may be stronger for ambitious employees, such that transformational leadership

may be associated with less emotional strain for these employees (moderated mediation).

A sample of 199 employees participated in a cross-sectional study in Germany. Results confirmed

the hypothesized moderated mediation indicating a health-promoting effect of supervisory social

support for ambitious employees (not found for low levels of ambition). The study suggests that

the idea of a general positive effect of transformational leadership on followers’ emotional strain is

not appropriate.

Keywords

Transformational leadership, job demands-resources model, follower emotional strain, follower

well-being, supervisory social support, professional ambition, moderated mediation

Prior research on the relation between transformational leadership and followers’ well-beinghas mainly tended to concentrate on the question of whether transformational leaders pro-mote followers’ well-being and on how transformational leaders achieve this, for example by

Corresponding author:

Torsten J Holstad, Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Leipzig, Seeburgstaße 14-20,

D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.

Email: [email protected]

Leadership

2014, Vol. 10(3) 269–288

! The Author(s) 2013

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providing social support (Nielsen and Daniels, 2012; Sosik and Godshalk, 2000) and enhan-cing work characteristics (Arnold et al., 2007; Nielsen et al., 2008). Less attention has beenpaid to moderating variables which determine when transformational leadership and fol-lowers’ well-being are more closely related (Franke and Felfe, 2011). The present studycombines both perspectives in a moderated mediation model, suggesting supervisorysocial support as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership andfollower emotional strain, but also investigating whether the strength of this mediationdiffers for employees with either high or low professional ambition.

Zhu et al. (2009) highlight the need to take into account followers’ characteristics in orderto understand differential effects of leadership. Franke and Felfe (2011) demonstrated thatorganizational commitment is a moderator of the relationship between transformationalleadership and follower strain, thereby providing original evidence of the importance offollower boundary conditions for this relationship. The present study focuses on the fol-lowers’ level of professional ambition, which is conceptualized as followers’ ‘persistent andgeneralized striving for success, attainment, and accomplishment’ (Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012: 759). In their recent article, Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller (2012) demon-strated that ambition is connected to life satisfaction through major life attainments. Basedon these findings, they emphasize the utility of studying ambition as a construct withinorganizational behaviour research. The present study investigates follower ambition in thecontext of transformational leadership. We focus on social support as a connecting mech-anism between transformational leadership and follower well-being, since social support hasbeen proposed to relate to follower motivation (Bakker et al., 2008). Ambitious followersmay appreciate their supervisor’s social support to a greater extent than those with lessambition because social support signals the supervisor’s appraisal (Frese, 1999), which isimportant for promotion (De Andres et al., 2010), and therefore may be especially mean-ingful for ambitious followers. Thus, we hypothesize that social support by a transform-ational leader will result in lower strain levels for followers with high levels of professionalambition. Conversely, for followers with low levels of ambition, a supervisor’s support maynot be as important.

As its theoretical basis, our study integrates transformational leadership (Burns, 1978)and the job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007; Demeroutiet al., 2001), suggesting that leaders can influence their subordinates’ emotional strainboth by imposing job demands and providing job resources (Tims et al., 2011).

Transformational leadership and follower emotional strain

Transformational leaders guide their followers by giving them an idea of a higher purpose intheir work, thereby stimulating their commitment to team goals (Bass and Riggio, 2006).Transformational leadership consists of the four sub-dimensions intellectual stimulation,idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and individual consideration. Most researchershave suggested that transformational leadership can promote follower well-being (seeSkakon et al., 2010, for a review). A health-promoting effect of transformational leadershiphas not only been found in cross-sectional studies (Arnold et al., 2007) but also longitudin-ally (Nielsen et al., 2008). Even in an experimental setting transformational leadershipresulted in lower ratings of followers’ negative affect than transactional leadership (Lyonsand Schneider, 2009). By contrast, transformational leadership has also been suggested topotentially impair employees’ well-being (Franke and Felfe, 2011). Rowold and Heinitz

270 Leadership 10(3)



(2008) found that transformational leadership resulted in elevated stress levels in a prospect-ive study with a time lag of 6 months. Thus, transformational leadership may have negativeconsequences in the long run. Other studies have demonstrated that the transformationalleadership component intellectual stimulation may relate to elevated burnout levels (Seltzeret al., 1989), while a different study by Stordeur et al. (2001) found that the total transform-ational leadership score was unrelated to burnout. Interestingly, these studies, which did notconfirm a positive relation between transformational leadership and well-being, used nega-tive indicators of follower well-being as opposed to positive indicators, as in other studies(Arnold et al., 2007; Nielsen et al., 2008). Since these results are not without contradiction,and the relation between transformational leadership and health outcomes varies acrossstudies, a closer look at potential moderating variables seems advisable. Skakon and col-leagues (2010) have encouraged investigating individual, situational, and relational factorswhich may account for the observed variance in correlations between leadership variablesand followers’ well-being in different studies.

The JD-R model

Examining the relation between leadership and follower well-being, we build on the JD-Rmodel (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007; Demerouti et al., 2001), an extension of the job-demand-control model (Karasek, 1979). According to the JD-R model job-strain resultsfrom a workplace situation characterized by high job demands and low job resources. TheJD-R model conceptualizes job demands as ‘physical, psychological, social, and organiza-tional aspects of the job that require sustained [. . .] effort or skills and are therefore asso-ciated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs’ (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007:312). Job resources refer to aspects of a job that reduce job demands and the associatedphysiological and psychological costs, facilitate goal achievement, and/or stimulate personalgrowth, learning, and development (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004: 296). Job resources may belocated at different organizational levels and include, for example, opportunities for devel-opment, feedback, support of one’s supervisor, role clarity, and task characteristics (Bakkerand Demerouti, 2007).

The main propositions of the JD-R model suggest that job demands will result in elevatedlevels of strain and that job resources have a motivating effect (Bakker and Demerouti,2007). Moreover, job resources have been proposed to buffer the relationship between jobdemands and job strain (Demerouti et al., 2001). Besides these well-known propositions ofthe JD-R model, Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) have suggested that poor job resources mayalso result in elevated strain levels. This effect of job resources on strain has received con-siderable empirical support (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004; Schaufeli et al., 2009; TenBrummelhuis et al., 2011). The present study investigates this link suggesting that socialsupport may be related to lower levels of job strain.

The JD-R model in a leadership context

Leadership may be an important factor for followers’ well-being (Skakon et al., 2010)because leaders have significant influence on both job demands and job resources (Timset al., 2011), both of which the JD-R model suggests will impact employees’ psychologicalhealth (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007). Transformational leadership behaviour explicitlyincludes the provision of resources (Bass and Riggio, 2006; Tims et al., 2011).

Holstad et al. 271



Leaders may for example listen to their employees’ problems showing that they care for eachof their subordinates (individual consideration). On the other hand, transformational leaderscan also impose demands, in the form of high performance expectations towards theiremployees, for example (inspirational motivation).

Empirically, transformational leadership has been related to various job resources (Timset al., 2011), which again may relate to reduced strain levels of followers (Schaufeli andBakker, 2004). For example, positive relations have been found with social support (Nielsenand Daniels, 2012; Sosik and Godshalk, 2000), empowerment (Avolio et al., 2004), mean-ingful tasks (Arnold et al., 2007; Korek et al., 2010; Nielsen et al., 2008), a high level of jobcharacteristics (Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006; Purvanova et al., 2006), role clarity, and oppor-tunities for development (Nielsen et al., 2008).

The present study examines the effect of transformational leadership on follower emo-tional irritation (Mohr et al., 2006), a work-related indicator of emotional strain. Mohr andcolleagues (2006) define irritation as a state of mental exhaustion. Previous research hasfound irritation to mediate the relation between stressors and impaired sleep (Berset et al.,2011), psychosomatic symptoms (Hoge, 2009), and depression (Dormann and Zapf, 2002).These effects were found in both cross-sectional (Berset et al., 2011) and longitudinal studies(Dormann and Zapf, 2002). Irritation is a sensitive indicator of emotional strain, and there-fore best suited to capturing slight deviances from normal well-being that may be morecommon in the average working population.

As Skakon et al. (2010) conclude, most studies suggest that transformational leadershiprelates to better well-being of followers (Arnold et al., 2007; Nielsen et al., 2008) becausetransformational leaders provide a high level of job resources such as good working condi-tions. Fewer studies have linked transformational leadership to higher stress levels (Rowoldand Heinitz, 2008; Seltzer et al., 1989). Therefore, transformational leadership is hypothe-sized to relate negatively to follower emotional irritation.

H1: Transformational leadership relates negatively to follower emotional irritation.

Supervisory social support as a mediator

The present study investigates supervisory social support as a connecting mechanismbetween transformational leadership and follower well-being. Social support from the super-visor involves directly helping subordinates, providing affective support and confirming theappropriateness of the subordinate’s actions (Frese, 1999). A negative relationship betweensocial support and psychological health outcomes has been suggested theoretically (Schaufeliand Bakker, 2004) and could be empirically supported in various studies (for a meta-analysissee, Viswesvaran et al., 1999). Two different mechanisms have been suggested which mayaccount for this link (Cohen and Wills, 1985). First, social support may have a direct effecton employee well-being (Van der Doef and Maes, 1999) which may be based on regularpositive experiences in a social group. As these kinds of interactions provide reliable socialrelationships, positive affect and confirm employees’ self-worth, increased well-being is alikely consequence (Cohen and Wills, 1985). Second, social support may also function as astress buffer alleviating the relation between stressors and strain (Cohen and Wills, 1985;Dormann and Zapf, 1999). This buffer hypothesis suggests that social support may decreasenegative effects on individuals’ health, which may be triggered by stressors (Kahn andByosiere, 1992).




It is important to note that these two mechanisms are not mutually exclusive (Hausseret al., 2010). Some studies supported the proposed mechanisms (Janssen and Nijhuis, 2004;Frese, 1999) but others did not (McClenahan et al., 2007). This variability indicates thatthird variables may moderate the relationship between social support by the supervisor andfollower well-being (Hausser et al., 2010). The issue of moderators will be discussed in thenext section.

We propose supervisory social support as a mediator of the relation between transform-ational leadership and followers’ emotional strain. Although social support has mainly beenregarded as a moderator of the relation between job demands and follower strain (Bakkerand Demerouti, 2007), our positioning of this variable is in line with previous researchdemonstrating direct effects of social support on follower well-being (Hausser et al.,2010). As defined by Bass and Riggio (2006), transformational leadership behaviour expli-citly includes the provision of social support as it is an aspect of individual consideration.Empirically, transformational leadership was found to relate to higher perceived supervisorysocial support in an experimental study (Lyons and Schneider, 2009). Supervisory socialsupport, in turn, has been found to lead to lower stress (Sosik and Godshalk, 2000) and alower likelihood of burnout (Lee and Ashforth, 1996) among followers. The health-promot-ing effect of supervisory social support has also been found in a longitudinal study (Moyle,1998) and for objective indicators of psychological dysfunction (Frese, 1999). Moreover,transformational leadership was found to relate to reduced levels of stress (Sosik andGodshalk, 2000) and burnout (Nielsen and Daniels, 2012) through social support. Basedon the concept of transformational leadership as defined by Bass and Riggio (2006) and onprevious research, transformational leadership is expected to impact follower well-beingthrough social support. Consequently, we hypothesize:

H2: Social support by the supervisor mediates the relation between transformational leadershipand irritation.

The moderating role of professional ambition

The present study hypothesizes that transformational leadership may be more closelyrelated to followers’ emotional strain through supervisory social support for employeeswith high levels of professional ambition. Previous research has demonstrated that subor-dinates differ with respect to their susceptibility to transformational leadership (Dvir andShamir, 2003) as well as in regards to their reactions to social support (Beehr et al., 2010).Regarding transformational leadership, Zhu et al. (2009) found a stronger relationshipwith work engagement for employees who characterized themselves as innovative andwilling to take risks. By contrast, Hetland and colleagues suggest that some followersmay ‘experience increased stress due to the intense and emotionally charged interactionsbetween leader and subordinates’ (Hetland et al., 2007: 68). Dvir and Shamir (2003)proposed that different receptiveness to transformational leaders may depend on followers’motivation. For example, not everyone may be willing to go beyond the call of duty asdemanded by transformational leaders. Therefore, follower motivation, more preciselyprofessional ambition, is proposed to determine the strength of the mediation of super-visory social support in the relation between transformational leadership and followers’emotional strain as the supervisor’s support may be of higher relevance for highly moti-vated followers.

Holstad et al. 273



Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller (2012) conceptualize ambition as a middle-level trait(Cantor, 1990), which tend not to be as stable as more distal traits, but also not as situationalas goals, behavioural intentions or attitudes. Professional ambition is characterized by astrong motivational component which is also inherent in transformational leadership.Ambitious employees strive to attain work-related goals, and seek professional advancementand promotion (Kieschke and Schaarschmidt, 2008; Schaarschmidt and Fischer, 2003;Voltmer et al., 2011). Schaarschmidt and Fischer (2003) describe professional ambition asan indicator of psychological health, thus differentiating ambition from type A personality(Friedman and Rosenman, 1974). Professional ambition is related to organizational com-mitment (Allen and Meyer, 1990) and work engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2002) but can bedifferentiated conceptually. Unlike work engagement, professional ambition does not referto actual energy and functioning in the workplace (Bakker et al., 2008). It also has a differentfocus since it is not directed at a specific organization in the way that organizational com-mitment is (Allen and Meyer, 1990) but rather, captures the individuals’ dedication to theircareer (Schaarschmidt and Fischer, 2003).

We propose that the extent to which the relationship between transformational leadershipand follower emotional irritation is mediated by supervisory social support, may differ forfollowers with high versus low professional ambition (Figure 1). The moderator professionalambition can either affect path a (the relation between transformational leadership andsocial support) or path b (the relation between social support and strain), or both. Weassume only a moderation of path b. We will first explain why an effect of professionalambition on the relationship between transformational leadership and social support is notexpected.

Transformational leadership is often addressed to the whole group (Korek et al., 2010;Nielsen and Daniels, 2012) by setting group goals, developing a specific group climate orfostering team spirit. It is one of the central tenets of transformational leadership to establishgroup cohesion, collective efficacy and identity (Shamir et al., 1993). Feinberg et al. (2005)even noted that building consensus is one of the main tasks of transformational leadership.This implies that transformational leaders will treat followers equally and not substantiallydiffer in the amount of social support they give. Therefore, we do not expect path a to bedependent on the level of professional ambition of followers.

By contrast, the role of social support as a mediator between transformational leadershipand emotional irritation is expected to differ for followers with high vs. low ambition.

Professionalambi�on

Social support by supervisor

ba

Emo�onalirrita�on

Transforma�onalleadership c

Figure 1. Moderated mediation: The indirect effect of transformational leadership on emotional irrita-

tion through supervisory social support is conditional upon professional ambition.




This refers to a moderation of path b. Followers with low and high levels of ambition mayevaluate the supervisor’s social support differently. That is, individual appraisal processesmay account for different relationships between supervisor support and follower strain. Thedegree to which the supervisor’s behaviour is considered valuable by a follower may dependon individual factors like professional ambition.

Previous research suggests that followers may benefit from transformational leadershipto different degrees (Franke and Felfe, 2011; Zhu et al., 2009). We expect the health-promoting effects of transformational leadership to be most apparent for ambitious fol-lowers because the leader’s support may be considered more important to them. First,social support by the supervisor indicates that the subordinate is a valued member of theteam (Sarason et al., 1996). This appreciation by the supervisor may be especially valuedby ambitious followers. Second, as careers are very important to ambitious followers, andthe leader has considerable influence on their professional advancement, the leader’sapproval may also be more relevant for ambitious followers because it is a preconditionof promotion (De Andres et al., 2010). Moreover, ambitious employees may be especiallyreceptive to transformational leaders because of high goal congruence with their leader(Bono and Judge, 2003). For example, followers reporting high performance orientationwere found to evaluate transformational leadership more positively (Ehrhart and Klein,2001) which might be associated with improved well-being. Being very performance-oriented, this should be true for ambitious followers as well. High importance attachedto the leader’s social support in combination with high goal congruence and similaritybetween leader and follower is hypothesized to result in reduced strain levels for ambitiousfollowers.

By contrast, for followers with low professional ambition the leader’s support may be lessimportant and may thus have a smaller impact on the well-being of these followers. As lessambitious followers are not striving as much for professional advancement (Schaarschmidtand Fischer, 2003), they are less dependent on the leader’s goodwill and positive evaluationwhich is indicated by supervisory social support (Sarason et al., 1996). Moreover, socialsupport may have detrimental effects under some conditions, for example, when the provi-sion of help represents stressful working conditions (Beehr et al., 2010). We suggest thatsocial support from a transformational leader may at least have less positive effects on lessambitious followers as it is associated with high performance expectations (Bass and Riggio,2006), which may seem especially stressful to these followers. Furthermore, less ambitiousfollowers may perceive the leader’s support as a means of pushing them to achieve improvedperformance, which is not their own goal. As a consequence, these followers may not regardthe leader’s support as a resource. Thus, the leader’s support may affect follower well-beingto a lesser extent.

Concluding, we hypothesize that the followers’ evaluation of the leader’s behaviour (butnot the leader’s behaviour itself) may differ according to the followers’ level of professionalambition. Consequently, individual appraisal processes (path b, see Figure 1) but not differ-ential leader behaviour (path a) are proposed to determine the degree to which the followerregards the leader’s support as a resource. We propose a moderated mediationmodel (Figure 1):

H3: The mediation effect of social support in the relation between transformational leadership

and irritation is contingent upon professional ambition. In the case of high ambition, we expect astronger mediation effect of social support than in case of low ambition.

Holstad et al. 275



Method

Participants and procedure

A paper–pencil questionnaire was distributed to employees from financial and service sec-tors, and from real estate firms in a cross-sectional study in Germany. From a theoreticalperspective, a study of professional ambition demands a careful sampling strategy to includeboth ambitious and less ambitious participants. Organizations practicing an up-or-out strat-egy, for example, would be inappropriate, as selection processes may be in effect in suchorganizations that could bias the study’s results. We therefore approached organizationswhich offer career opportunities but do not claim that their employees strive for professionaladvancement. In this regard, German public banks were deemed to be an ideal sample.Second, as leadership is the focus of the present study, frequent interaction between teamand leader is important. Interactions on a regular basis may be necessary to develop thehypothesized effects of leadership characteristics on followers’ emotional strain. The health-promoting effect of supervisory social support especially demands close and frequent con-tact. We focused on financial institutions, the service sector, and real estate firms becauseemployees in these fields typically have daily interactions with their leaders. Sixteen of theparticipating organizations were from the financial sector while three organizations were realestate firms and one organization was from the service sector. The participants were asked tofill in the questionnaire during their working hours. Participation was voluntary and ano-nymity assured. Small groups of up to 10 employees filled in the questionnaire at the sametime in the presence of a researcher. Thus, all participants handed in a questionnaire. Twohundred and eleven questionnaires were returned, of which 199 questionnaires contained nomissing values. Participants reported a mean age of 35.87 (SD¼ 9.96) years and a meantenure of 116.11 (SD¼ 73.69) months. Sixty-one percent were female and 39% were male.Thirty-one percent had a university degree.

Measures

Transformational leadership. The present study used the German version (Felfe, 2006) ofthe Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass and Avolio, 1995) to measure transform-ational leadership. This scale consists of 20 items and assesses the four sub-dimensions oftransformational leadership: Inspirational motivation, idealized influence (attributedand behaviour), intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration. Previous researchhas demonstrated these sub-dimensions to be highly interrelated (Judge and Piccolo,2004). Consequently, they cannot be regarded as independent factors (Carless, 1998). Inline with other research (Liaw et al., 2010), the present study therefore utilises the totalscore for the construct. The reliability figures indicate very good internal consistency(Cronbach’s a¼ 0.93). Responses were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1(never) to 5 (regularly, almost always).

Irritation. Emotional strain was measured by the emotional irritation scale (Mohr et al.,2005), which consists of five items. A sample item is ‘I get irritated easily, although Idon’t want this to happen’. Regarding construct validity, irritation has been found torelate positively to stressors (Mohr et al., 2006). Moreover, irritation has also been demon-strated as an antecedent of depression (Dormann and Zapf, 2002), psychosomatic symptoms(Hoge, 2009), and impaired sleep (Berset et al., 2011). The irritation scale displayed good




reliability in the present sample (Cronbach’s a¼ 0.81). It was combined with a 7-point Likertscale ranging from 1 (not true at all) to 7 (almost completely true).

Social support by supervisor. Participants indicated the degree of work-related social supportthey receive from their supervisor. A scale by Frese (1989) was used consisting of five items.A sample item is ‘How much is your supervisor willing to listen to your work-related prob-lems?’ The scale displayed good reliability in the present study (Cronbach’s a¼ 0.83).Participants rated the social support provided by their supervisor on a 4-point Likertscale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 4 (completely).

Professional ambition. The measure of professional ambition employed in the present study wastaken from the AVEM (Schaarschmidt and Fischer, 2003), an instrument for the assessmentof health-relevant behaviour and experiences in the workplace. High levels of ambition arerelated to psychological health and distinguished from the risk pattern known as type Apersonality (Friedman and Rosenman, 1974) which is associated with a lack of detachmentfrom work and a susceptibility to risking depletion of resources. We used the four items withthe highest item-total-correlations as reported by Schaarschmidt and Fischer (2003). Asample item is: ‘I want to achieve more in my career than most people I know’. Internalconsistency indicated good reliability (Cronbach’s a¼ 0.87). Likert response categoriesranged from 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true).

Control variables. In order to control for possible biases, demographic data were also collectedwhich may impact followers’ emotional strain; the study controlled for the effects of sex, age,weekly working hours, and education. Sex was coded 0 for women and 1 for men. As menindicated significantly higher professional ambition than women in our sample, we includedsex as a control variable in our analyses. Controlling for the effects of age was deemedappropriate in the context of health. We also controlled for weekly working hours as aproxy for work demands, which is mostly unable to be influenced by the leader. Finally,the study controlled for the effect of education since education may relate to professionalambition and followers’ emotional strain. Participants indicated their highest educationallevel. According to the tripartite German educational system, education was classified asfollows: 1 ¼ basic secondary school, 2 ¼ secondary school, 3 ¼ higher secondary school, 4 ¼vocational education, 5 ¼ vocational academy, 6 ¼ university.

Analyses

As transformational leadership and supervisory social support are conceptually related, aconfirmatory factor analysis was computed using the software Amos 20.0 (Arbuckle, 2011)to ensure that they can be treated as two distinct concepts. We compared a one-factor model(�2 (275)¼ 770.73, CFI¼ 0.79, RMSEA¼ .10) to a two-factor model which treated trans-formational leadership and social support by the supervisor as distinct but related constructs(�2 (274)¼ 653.64, CFI¼ .84, RMSEA¼ 0.08). A chi-square difference test indicatedthat the two-factor model achieved a significantly better fit to the data than the moreparsimonious one-factor model (��2 (1)¼ 117.09, p< 0.001). Although the fit of the two-factor-model is not good, the results indicate that transformational leadership and super-visory support are distinct concepts. Moreover, as the most critical point is to demonstratethat individual consideration can be differentiated from supervisory social support,

Holstad et al. 277



we additionally compared a one-factor model (�2 (27)¼ 86.01, CFI¼ .91, RMSEA¼ .11) toa two-factor model (�2 (26)¼ 51.26, CFI¼ .96, RMSEA¼ 0.07) in which items referring toindividual consideration and items referring to supervisory support loaded on separate fac-tors. The two-factor model displayed significantly better fit (��2 (1)¼ 34.75, p< 0.001).Consequently, it can be concluded that both transformational leadership, as a compoundmeasure, as well as individual consideration can be distinguished from supervisory support.

Statistical approach

All hypotheses were tested using regression analysis in combination with bootstrapping, astatistical re-sampling method. Bootstrapping involves the drawing of a large number ofsubsamples from the original sample, within all of which the analyses are performed. Thenumber of re-samples was set to N¼ 5000 as suggested by Hayes (2009). Hypothesis 2 wastested by applying a macro for indirect effects by Preacher and Hayes (2008). Contrary to theclassic causal step procedure (Baron and Kenny, 1986), the procedure by Preacher andHayes (2008) can directly estimate indirect effects. Consequently, an indirect effect can bedetected even when a direct effect is missing (Hayes, 2009). Confidence intervals for the truescore of the indirect effect are specified and the null hypothesis is rejected if the confidenceinterval excludes zero. Since bootstrapping does not assume a normal distribution of thedata, it has been demonstrated to result in more accurate confidence intervals of indirecteffects compared to the classic stepwise procedure (MacKinnon et al., 2002). Hypothesis 3proposed that the effect of transformational leadership on irritation would be mediated bysocial support and that this mediation effect would be moderated by professional ambition(moderated mediation, see Figure 1). Again a macro for SPSS (Preacher et al., 2007) wasapplied to estimate the moderated mediation involving a bootstrap procedure. In a moder-ated mediation either path a or path b or both may be moderated by a third variable.Significance of the conditional indirect effect is indicated by the bootstrap confidenceinterval.

Results

Means, standard deviations, correlations, and internal consistencies for all study variablesare presented in Table 1. All regression analyses controlled for age, gender, education, andweekly working hours as these variables may relate to occupational health. Moreover, allpredictors were mean centred as suggested by Aiken and West (1991) to avoid multicolli-nearity with their product terms.

In order to test the first hypothesis a regression analysis was computed. Irritation wasregressed on transformational leadership. Results are presented in Table 2. Contrary toexpectations, the constructs were unrelated and the confidence interval included zero.Thus hypothesis 1 was not supported.

Second, it was proposed that supervisory social support would mediate the relationbetween transformational leadership and irritation. The hypothesis was assessed using amacro for indirect effects (Preacher and Hayes, 2008). As the confidence interval containedzero, mediation by supervisory social support was not supported. Though path a of themediation model was significant (B¼ 0.57, p< 0.001), path b was not (B¼ -0.25, n.s.). Aspreviously mentioned, a direct effect of transformational leadership on irritation (path c) was




not found. Nevertheless, according to Preacher and Hayes (2008) a significant path c is notnecessary to support mediation. Results are presented in Table 2.

Thirdly, we hypothesized that the mediation by supervisory social support would beconditional upon professional ambition. Thus, for ambitious employees social support bya transformational leader is hypothesized to impact irritation to a greater degree. To test thishypothesis, a moderated mediation analysis was computed to estimate the conditional indir-ect effect of transformational leadership on irritation (Preacher et al., 2007). The conditionalindirect effect determines whether different levels of professional ambition influence thestrength of the mediation. High and low levels of professional ambition were operationalizedas one standard deviation below and above the mean score as suggested by Preacher et al.(2007). First, we assessed path a of the mediation model (see Figure 1) as being conditional

Table 2. Regression results for mediation model.

Variable

Irritation

B 95% CI [LL; UL]

Transformational leadership on supervisory social support (path a) .57*** [.477; .660]

Supervisory social support on irritation (path b) �.25y [�.473; .020]

Transformational leadership on irritation (path c – total effect) �.12 [�.326; .109]

Transformational leadership on irritation (path c’ – direct effect) .03 [�.211; .279]

R2 .08

Adjusted R2 .05

Bootstrapping results for indirect effect B 95% BC CI [LL; UL]

Transformational leadership – social support - irritation �.145 [�.300; .013]

Note. N¼ 199. BC¼Bias corrected. CI¼Confidence intervals. LL¼ Lower level, UL¼Upper Level.

Control variables in the model: Age, gender, working hours per week, education.yp� .1; ***p� .001 (two-sided).

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, correlations, and internal consistencies for all study variables.

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Transformational leadership 3.64 0.58 (.93)

2 Professional ambition 3.28 0.87 .33 (.87)

3 Supervisor social support 3.24 0.53 .64 .07 (.83)

4 Emotional irritation 2.15 0.87 �.08 �.06 �.15 (.81)

5 Age 35.87 9.96 .09 �.22 .21 �.11

6 Gendera 0.37 0.48 .14 .25 .09 �.05 �.05

7 Working hours per week 38.27 3.30 .23 .27 .17 �.05 �.02 .25

8 Education 3.65 1.38 �.02 .17 �.03 �.19 .00 .20 �.20

Note. N¼ 199. Numbers in parenthesis are reliabilities where appropriate.a0¼ female; 1¼male. For jrj � .15 p< .05, for jrj � .19 p< .01, for jrj � .25 p< .001 (two-sided).

Holstad et al. 279



upon professional ambition to examine if – against our assumption – less ambitiousemployees feel less supported by their leader. We estimated the indirect effect using abootstrap procedure. As expected, the indirect effect did not vary for different levels ofprofessional ambition indicating that path a of the mediation model (see Figure 1) was notmoderated by professional ambition. Thus, the procedure for a moderated mediation ofpath b (effect of supervisory social support on irritation) was applied. Results indicate asignificant conditional indirect effect for high professional ambition (B¼ -0.27, p< 0.05).The bootstrap 95% confidence interval excluded zero when professional ambition was high(þ 1 SD) and when it was medium but not in the case of low ambition (- 1 SD). Thus themediating effect of supervisory social support between transformational leadership andirritation applies only to employees with medium to high professional ambition (seeFigure 2). Consequently, hypothesis 3 is supported. Estimates and significance levels aredisplayed in Table 3.

Table 3. Regression results for conditional indirect model.

Model

Irritation

B

Transformational leadership (TL) .06

Professional ambition �.06

Supervisor social support �.27y

Support x ambition �.21y

Irritation

Bootstrapping results for conditional indirect effect B BC 95% CI [LL; UL]

Professional ambition

�1 SD (2.41) �.038 [�.258; .176]

M (3.28) �.155 [�.318; �.005]

þ1 SD (4.14) �.273 [�.533; �.041]

Note. N¼ 199. BC¼Bias corrected. CI¼Confidence intervals. LL¼ Lower level, UL¼Upper Level.

Control variables in the model: Age, gender, working hours per week, education.yp� .1 (two-sided).

1.00

3.00

5.00

DS1+DS1-

low

high

Social support

Irri

tati

on

Ambition

Figure 2. Interaction between supervisory social support and professional ambition.




Discussion

The JD-R model suggests that leaders can impact their subordinates’ emotional strain byimposing job demands and providing job resources (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004; Schaufeliet al., 2009; Ten Brummelhuis et al., 2011). Though both negative (Tepper, 2000; Pelletier,2011) and positive effects (Nielsen et al., 2008) of a leader’s behaviour have been reported inthe literature, transformational leadership has so far mainly been linked to positive effects onfollowers’ well-being (Skakon et al., 2010). Results from this study demonstrate a moredetailed picture and indicate that transformational leadership is not necessarily positivelyrelated to follower well-being for all followers.

In line with previous research (Skakon et al., 2010), it was hypothesized that transform-ational leadership would be positively linked to follower well-being and thus negatively relatedto irritation, a work-related indicator of emotional strain (Mohr et al., 2006). After controllingfor age, gender, education, and weekly working hours, transformational leadership and irri-tation were practically unrelated. Consequently, the first hypothesis was rejected. This resultdiffers from findings of previous studies on the relationship between transformational leader-ship and follower well-being as reviewed by Skakon et al. (2010). It may be due to theoperationalization of irritation as a negative indicator of follower well-being as opposed tothe positive operationalizations in other studies (e.g. Arnold et al., 2007; Nielsen et al., 2008).Stordeur and colleagues (2001) also found, when they utilised a negative indicator of well-being, that transformational leadership was unrelated to organizational stress. Moreover, thisresult is not at odds with the implications of the JD-R model. It may depend on subjectiveevaluation as to whether subordinates mainly focus on the demands or the resources providedby a transformational leader. Thus, some variability in relationships can be expected.

Second, the present study examined supervisory social support as a mediator betweentransformational leadership and follower irritation. Transformational leadership explicitlyinvolves the provision of social support (Bass and Riggio, 2006). In line with the JD-R model(Demerouti et al., 2001; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004) and previous research (Nielsen andDaniels, 2012; Sosik and Godshalk, 2000), the present study hypothesized that transform-ational leaders may influence their followers’ emotional strain by providing social support.Results reveal that although transformational leadership was significantly related to super-visory social support, supervisory social support was unrelated to followers’ irritation. Thus,the hypothesized mediation of supervisory social support was not confirmed. Previousresearch on the relation between social support and follower well-being has revealedmixed results. A meta-analysis by Viswesvaran et al. (1999) only demonstrated a weakrelation. Moreover, although a number of studies have found support for a main effect ofsocial support on follower well-being, this effect has not been found in other studies (Van derDoef and Maes, 1999; Hausser et al., 2010). The ambiguity of empirical findings regardingthe relationship between transformational leadership and follower well-being, as well as thehypothesized mediation by supervisory social support, call for research on moderators. Dvirand Shamir (2003) have suggested followers’ different receptiveness to transformationalleaders may depend on motivational processes. Consequently, the present study investigateda moderator with a strong motivational component, professional ambition.

The third hypothesis proposed that the mediation by supervisory social support maydepend on the extent of professional ambition. Two different processes may account forthis moderated mediation: First, highly ambitious followers might perceive transformationalleadership to be more supportive than less ambitious followers (path a in Figure 1). Second,

Holstad et al. 281



the leader’s support may be differently evaluated by the followers, which means that indi-vidual appraisal processes may account for this outcome (path b in Figure 1).

We hypothesized that the latter process would be relevant in the context of professionalambition as transformational leaders are defined as supporting all followers (Bass andRiggio, 2006). Path a of the mediation model (Figure 1) was not found to be conditionalupon professional ambition. Thus evidence of the first process was not found. However, amoderated mediation analysis of path b (Preacher et al., 2007) found support for the secondprocess. The relation between transformational leadership and follower irritation wasmediated by supervisory social support for medium and highly ambitious employees.However, this was not true for followers with low professional ambition (see Figure 2),thereby confirming hypothesis 3. The same pattern of results was revealed for all fourfacets of transformational leadership.

The moderation of path b of the mediation model indicates that individual evaluation orappraisal processes seemingly account for the effect leading to less irritation among highlyambitious employees. Professional ambition may determine the degree to which the super-visor’s supporting behaviour is perceived as a resource by the follower. Ambitious followersmight perceive supervisory support as a helpful acknowledgement which emphasizes that theleader appreciates the follower. This positive effect may again result in lower levels of strain.Though the supervisor’s support was confirmed as a mediator for ambitious followers, it wasnot a full mediation indicating that other mediating variables may be existent.

Conversely, less ambitious subordinates may experience the supervisor’s support as lesshelpful, so that the leader’s behaviour may not be an equally important resource for them.Followers with low professional ambition may even feel pressured by their supervisor toproduce superior performance. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that social support mayhave adverse effects, for example when help represents demanding working conditions (Beehret al., 2010). Although no negative effects of supervisory social support were found in thisstudy, the results indicate that social support is not always connected to increased well-being.

When comparing our results to the study by Franke and Felfe (2011), the results referringto the moderator apparently differ. While the present study found high professional ambi-tion to amplify the mediation effect, Franke and Felfe (2011) found the opposite patternwhen analyzing organizational commitment as a moderator between transformational lead-ership and strain. We argue that the different focus of the moderators (ambition focuses oncareer goals while organizational commitment focuses on the current employer) can accountfor this divergent finding: Highly ambitious employees can of course be almost uncommittedto their organization if they, for instance, perceive that their current employer does not offeropportunities to fulfil their professional goals. Differently, employees with low ambition candisplay strong organizational commitment when their career goals are fulfilled by theiremployer. Taken together, both constructs denote different work-related aspects and theireffect in empirical studies can thoroughly differ.

Dvir and Shamir (2003) proposed that employees may be differentially receptive to trans-formational leadership. Zhu et al. (2009) found that innovative followers who were willing totake risks profited more from transformational leadership than other followers. The presentstudy suggests that highly ambitious followers may also be especially well suited to transform-ational leadership, as they seem to appreciate leader’s social support more than less ambitiousfollowers. It has previously been demonstrated that followers with high levels of extraversion,an internal locus of control, and low neuroticism report higher levels of social support (Chay,1993; Swickert et al., 2010). Nevertheless, the present study did not reveal any differences with




respect to the perceived level of supervisory social support for followers with high and lowprofessional ambition. This is in line with theory suggesting that transformational leaders willvalue and support each of their followers (Bass and Riggio, 2006). Consequently, a differenttendency to get support from the supervisor does not account for our results.

Moreover, the support for the moderation by professional ambition may partly explainthe rejection of hypothesis 1 and 2, as a positive relation between transformational leader-ship and emotional strain as well as the proposed mediation by supervisory social supportonly holds true for a subsample but is different for other employees. It can be concluded thatindividual differences between subordinates, such as for example different levels of ambition,should be considered when applying the JD-R model in a leadership context.

Limitations and strengths. A number of limitations have to be taken into consideration wheninterpreting the results of this study. First, due to the cross-sectional design, causal inferencescannot be made from the present study. However, well-founded longitudinal research assessingrelationships between job characteristics and well-being (De Jonge et al., 2001; Ter Doest andDe Jonge, 2006) as well as between leadership variables and well-being (Nielsen et al., 2008)suggest that models of regular causation (i.e. leadership/job characteristics impact well-being)achieve a better fit than models of reverse or reciprocal causation. These studies support ourinterpretation. Likewise, causal interpretation of the mediation by supervisory social supportbased on cross-sectional data is not appropriate. Nevertheless, previous longitudinal researchhas found that follower stress can be reduced by the leader’s social support (Moyle, 1998).

Common method bias may also have affected the results of this study as only one methodand one data source were employed. However, according to Chan (2009) self-reports may bethe best way to assess private events. Likewise, the individual employees should be best suitedto judge their own professional ambition because they know best about their future plans andgoals. The same applies to emotional strain. Nevertheless, other measures of strain includingphysiological indicators could be considered an alternative measure, in future replications ofthese results. Transformational leadership and social support by the supervisor can be assessedby both leader and subordinate though typically judged by the subordinate. We chose to relyon the subordinates’ perspective of their leaders’ behaviour and social support because thesubordinates’ individual perception is important for their emotional strain. Moreover, evalua-tion by the leader may be subject to demand characteristics which again may bias the study’sresults. As recommended by Conway and Lance (2010) we used established scales with accep-table internal consistency for which construct validity has been demonstrated. Furthermore,confirmatory factor analysis indicated that transformational leadership and supervisory socialsupport can be regarded as two distinct factors (see above).

Despite of these limitations, the present study lends initial support to professional ambitionas a moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership and follower emo-tional strain. With respect to the sampling strategy, we focused on employees in banks,insurance, service and real estate firms because followers are likely to interact on an almostdaily basis with their leaders in these occupational fields and frequent interaction makes theeffects of leadership characteristics on follower emotional strain more likely. Second, we aimedto include organizations which are attractive for both ambitious and less ambitious employeesto ensure sufficient variance in professional ambition. We therefore excluded organizationspracticing an up-or-out strategy. As can be seen from Table 1, the variance of professionalambition was comparable to other scales not indicating restricted variance.

Holstad et al. 283



Implications

Over recent years, research has concentrated on global, positive effects of transformationalleadership and on general mediating variables. The results of the present study suggest thatthere is need for a more individualistic view of the effects of transformational leadership.Characteristics of dyads of leaders and subordinates (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) should betaken into account in considering effects of transformational leadership. Furthermore, as notall employees are equally affected by a transformational leader (Dvir and Shamir, 2003), itmay also be worthwhile taking into account the individual characteristics of the subordinate,such as professional ambition. These individual characteristics may determine whether thetransformational leader’s behaviour is perceived as a resource by the followers which in turnmay account for different reactions to a transformational leader. The present study high-lights that transformational leadership may not have positive effects on the emotional strainof all followers. Consequently, it seems important for leaders to consider carefully whichleadership behaviour may be appropriate for which of their subordinates. For example,supervisory social support appears not to be an effective way to promote follower well-being for followers with low professional ambition.

In the present study transformational leadership and follower professional ambition weresignificantly correlated (r¼ .33, p< 0.01, see Table 1). This may reflect the tendency ofambitious employees to evaluate their leader as more transformational, or the tendency ofleaders’ to put more effort into ambitious team members.

On the other hand, transformational leaders may also promote professional ambition.Shamir et al. (1993) have argued that transformational leaders stimulate their followers’motivation. But while transformational leaders emphasize high moral standards, collecti-vism and a common purpose, high professional ambition includes a strong focus on indivi-dual professional advancement. Nevertheless, future research should try to disentangle therelationship between transformational leadership and professional ambition to find out ifthese constructs are causally related. Moreover, the stability of professional ambitiondeserves some attention (Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012). Both these issues call forlongitudinal research. Future research may also focus on goal congruence between leaderand subordinate and investigate the fit between follower and leader. The results of this studyalso indicate that there may be no general health-promoting mode of leadership. Rather,interventions for teaching health-promoting leadership should consider the individualmotives of employees. As a consequence, training programs of health-promoting leadershipshould be tailored to each team and team member.

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), grant

number: Mo 440/4-1 (2).

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Author biographies

Torsten J Holstad is a research associate at the University of Leipzig, Germany. He earnedhis PhD in the field of work and organizational psychology at the University of Leipzig in2014. His research focus is on leadership, psychological wellbeing, organizational justice,and occupational health interventions. He also works as a coach, trainer, and consultant.

Sabine Korek is a research associate at the University of Leipzig. She did her PhD in workand organizational psychology at the University of Leipzig in 2013. Her research focus is onleadership, occupational health, and gender.

Thomas Rigotti is a professor of Work, Organizational and Business Psychology at theJohannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany. He received his PhD in 2008 from theUniversity of Leipzig, and became full professor from 2013. His research interests includeconsequences of atypical employment, health-promoting leadership, organizational justice,work interruptions, as well as stress, and health at work.

Gisela Mohr is a professor of work and organizational psychology at the University ofLeipzig. She did her PhD at the University of Osnabruck, Germany, in 1985. Her mainresearch focus is on stress, work and health, leadership, unemployment, job insecurity andgender.




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