Impact of Transformational Leadership on Follower’s Self-efficacy

Enhancing the belief in the abilities of employees to perform a particular task is the critical role played by a transformational leader subject to impression management strategies used by the employees. The purpose of this article is to report a study on how self-efficacy of the subordinates is enhanced by their use of impression management strategies on supervisors and the impact of transformational leadership in enhancing subordinate’s self-efficacy. Data were collected from 112 respondents (40 females and 72 males) working in the information technology industry in India. They responded to questions about their supervisor’s transformational leadership, the impression management strategies they used on their supervisors and their self-efficacy. The results show positive relationship between transformational leadership and the self-efficacy of the subordinates. Self-focused impression management strategies are positively related to the self-efficacy. Other-focused strategies have positive relationship with transformational leadership. Other-focused and job-focused strategies moderate the relation between transformational leadership and self-efficacy, such that there is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and follower self-efficacy only when followers’ use of other-focused and job-focused impression management strategies is high.