Transformational versus transactional leadership styles in ensuring wellbeing of STEM workers

Work environment is characterized as unstable and unpredictable. Accordingly, employees need to adapt to and cope with radical changes occurring in the work and social environment. Based on previous literature, leaders may play a central role in helping employees to deal with complexity and to respond to various pressures. Although the previous studies have broadly discussed the appropriateness of using different leadership styles for organizational and employee effectiveness, nonetheless the domain of employee well-being tackling it from the SCARF model perspective remains somewhat neglected. Moreover, although the number of employees working in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) jobs is growing, there is still a gap in analyzing STEM workers’ well-being and the factors influencing it. The aim of the paper is to reveal the impact of the transactional and transformational leadership styles on employee well-being in terms of the way the status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness perceived by STEM workers could be enhanced or reduced by leaders. With this in mind, interviews were conducted with STEM workers. The core findings revealed the duality of both leadership styles, where both styles served as antecedents for enhancing or reducing employee well-being. The paper calls for rethinking the leadership style while striving for STEM workers’ and organizational sustainability.