Strategic Conditions and Transformational Leadership: The Mediating Role of Strategic Management in a UAE Public-Sector Organisation

Abstract

Public sector organisations increasingly face demands for digital transformation, institutional excellence, service improvement, and adaptive capability. Although strategic management and transformational leadership have been widely studied, limited research has examined how strategic conditions are translated into transformational leadership outcomes through organisational processes. This study addresses this gap by investigating the mediating role of strategic management in the relationship between strategic conditions and transformational leadership style in a United Arab Emirates (UAE) public sector organisation. Drawing on contingency theory, the resource-based view, and transformational leadership theory, this study develops and tests a mediation model in which strategic conditions represent the organisational and environmental foundation, strategic management represents the enabling process, and transformational leadership represents the leadership outcome. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 357 employees from the Sharjah Real Estate Registration Department and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings demonstrate that strategic conditions significantly enhance strategic management capability. Strategic management, in turn, has a significant positive effect on transformational leadership style. Although strategic conditions also have a direct effect on transformational leadership, the relationship is substantially strengthened through strategic management, which partially mediates the relationship between the two constructs. These findings indicate that transformational leadership in public organisations is not solely dependent on individual leader characteristics but is also enabled by strategic processes that provide direction, coordination, performance information, and organisational learning. This study contributes to public sector management literature by integrating strategic management and transformational leadership perspectives and identifying strategic management as the mechanism through which organisational conditions are converted into leadership capability. The findings highlight that public organisations seeking transformational leadership outcomes should not focus only on leadership development but should also strengthen the strategic conditions and management processes that enable leaders to mobilise employees and implement organisational change.