The Role of Psychological Safety and Engagement as Mediators Between Transformational Leadership and Task Performance of Generation Z Employees in Jabodetabek Startups
Abstract
Generation Z has become an important part of the workforce, including in the rapidly growing startup companies in Indonesia. Although known for being adaptive to technology and creative, Generation Z still faces challenges in task performance due to a lack of technical skills and low work initiative. This study aims to examine the influence of transformational leadership on the task performance of Generation Z employees in startup companies in the Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek) area, through the mediating roles of psychological safety and employee engagement. The study uses a quantitative approach with the CB-SEM method. The respondents consist of 301 Generation Z employees working in startups in the Jabodetabek area. The results show that transformational leadership has a positive effect on task performance, psychological safety, and employee engagement. In addition to its direct effect on task performance, employee engagement also acts as a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and task performance. On the other hand, psychological safety is found to have no significant direct effect on task performance and does not mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and task performance. However, this variable can have a significant impact on task performance when mediated by employee engagement. These findings provide important insights for organizations seeking to improve the performance of Generation Z employees in startups in the Jabodetabek area through strengthening transformational leadership, psychological safety, and employee engagement.
Downloads
References
Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1993). Transformational leadership and organisational culture. Public Administration Quarterly, 17(1), 112-121.
Carless, S. A., Wearing, A. J., & Mann, L. (2000). A short measure of transformational leadership. Journal of Business and Psychology, 14(3), 389–405. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022991115523
Chai, D. S., Hwang, S. J., & Joo, B. K. (2017). Transformational leadership and organizational commitment in teams: The mediating roles of shared vision and team‐goal commitment. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 30(2), 137-158.
Choo, L. S., Mat, N., & Al-omari, M. (2013). Organizational practices and employee engagement : a case of Malaysia electronics manufacturing firms, 14(1), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1108/17515631311295659
Edmondson, A. (1999), “Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 2, pp. 350-383, doi: 10.2307/2666999.
Edmondson, A.C. (2004), “Psychological safety, trust, and learning in organizations: a group-level lens”, in Kramer, R.M. and Cook, K.S. (Eds), Trust and Distrust in Organizations: Dilemmas and Approaches, Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 239-272.
Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons.
Edmondson, A., Lei, Z. (2014), “Psychological safety: the history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct”, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 23-43, doi: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091305.
Frazier, M.L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R.L., Pezeshkan, A. and Vracheva, V. (2017), “Psychological safety: a meta-analytic review and extension”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 70 No. 1, pp. 113-165.
Guadagnoli, E., & Velicer, W. F. (1988). Relation of sample size to the stability of component patterns. Psychological bulletin, 103(2), 265.
Hair Jr, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C., & Sarstedt, M. (2017). A primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). New York : Sage publications.
Hair Jr, J. F., Sarstedt, M., Ringle, C. M., & Gudergan, S. P. (2017). Advanced issues in partial least squares structural equation modeling. New York: SAGE publications.
Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2019). Multivariate data analysis (eighth edition). United Kingdom: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Hoekx, L., Lambrechts, F. and Vandekerkhof, P. (2024), "The influence of family firm CEOs’ transformational leadership on employee engagement: the mediating role of psychological safety", Journal of Family Business Management, Vol. 14 No. 6, pp. 1316-1335. https://remote-lib.ui.ac.id:2075/10.1108/JFBM-12-2023-0298
Hyun,C.C, Wijayanti,L.M., Asbari,M.,Purwanto,A. Santoso,P.B., IGAK Wardani, Bernarto,I., Pramono,R., (2020). Implementation of Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) toImprove the Concept and Practice of Love for Faith-Learning Integration, International Journal of Control and Automation.13(1).365-383. http://sersc.org/journals/index.php/IJCA/article/view/57 37
Kahn, W.A. (1990), “Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 692-724.
Lee, J. Y. (2022). How does psychological safety foster employee performance? A serial multiple mediation of job crafting and thriving. International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, 25(3/4), 98–112. https://doi.org/ 10.1108/IJOTB-12-2021-0239.
Lee, M.C.C. and Ding, A.Y.L. (2023), "Hierarchical culture as a cross-level moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership, performance feedback, and employee job performance Merits, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 504-520, doi: 10.3390/merits3030030.
López-Zapata, E., Torres-Vargas, Y. and Ortiz-Puentes, M.A. (2024), "Transformational leadership and task performance: the mediating role of leader–member exchange, organizational support and work engagement", Academia Revista Latinoamericana de Administración, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 424-443. https://remote-lib.ui.ac.id:2075/10.1108/ARLA-05-2023-0069
Maholtra, N.K. (2009). Review of Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation (5th ed.). Prentice Hall.
Malhotra, N. K., Nunan, D., & Birsk, D. F. (2017). Marketing Research an Applied Approach Fifth Edition. Slovakia: Pearson Education Limited.
Malhotra, N. (2010). Marketing research: An applied orientation. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Newman, A., Donohue, R. and Eva, N. (2017), “Psychological safety: a systematic review of the literature”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 521-535.
Oflazoglu, S. (2017). Qualitative versus quantitative research. BoD–Books on Demand.
Oleinika, A. (2023). Gen-Z Wants To Change Work For The Better—And It Might Have The Grit To Succeed. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2023/11/27/gen-z-wants-to-change-work-for-the-better-and-it-might-have-the-grit-to-succeed/
Othman, R. B., Rapi, R. B. M., Alias, N. E. B., Jahya, A. B., & Loon, K. W. (2019). Factors Affecting Employee Engagement: A Study among Employees in the Malaysian Construction Industry. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(7), 784–797.
Park, J., Han, S. J., Kim, J., & Kim, W. (2022). Structural relationships among transformational leadership, affective organizational commitment, and job performance: the mediating role of employee engagement. European Journal of Training and Development, 46(9), 920–936. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-10-2020-0149
Rafferty, A.E. and Griffin, M.A. (2004), “Dimensions of transformational leadership: conceptual and empirical extensions”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 329-354, doi: 10.1016/j. leaqua.2004.02.009.
Saleem, M.S., Isha, A.S.N. and Awan, M.I. (2024), "Exploring the pathways to enhanced task performance: the roles of supportive leadership, team psychological safety, and mindful organizing", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, Vol. 7 No. 5, pp. 2560-2581. https://remote-lib.ui.ac.id:2075/10.1108/JHTI-01-2023-0031
Schaufeli, W. B., Bakker, A. B., & Salanova, M. (2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire: A cross-national study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66(4), 701–716.
Schaufeli, W., & Salanova, M. (2007). Work engagement: An emerging psychological concept and its implications for organizations. In S. W. Gilliland, D. D. Steiner, & D. P. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social issues in management (Volume 5): Managing social and ethical issues in organizations (pp. 135–177). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishers.
Şehitoğlu, Y. and Zehir, C. (2010), “The analysis of employee performance in the context of employee silence and organizational citizenship behavior in Turkish public institutions”, Today’s Review of Public Administration, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 95-120.
Sekaran, U. (2006). Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Shuck, B., Adelson, J.L. and Reio Jr, T.G. (2017), “The employee engagement scale: initial evidence for construct validity and implications for theory and practice”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 56 No. 6, pp. 953-977.
Stevens, J. P. (1992). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (2nd edition). Hillsdale, NJ:Erlbaum.
Turner, A. (2015), “Generation Z: Technology and social interest”, The Journal of Individual Psychology, Vol. 71 No. 2, pp. 103-113, doi: 10.1353/jip.2015.0021.
Williams, L. J., & Anderson, S. E. (1991). Job satisfaction and organizational commitment as predictors of organizational citizenship and in-role behaviors. Journal of Management, 17(3), 601.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yokhebed Priscilla, Putri Mega Desiana
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
