Introduction In recent years, the concept of leadership focuses more on transformational leadership, which is a contemporary view of leadership (Bass, 1985). Also, Employee empowerment becomes one of the leadership issues in the 21 century. From the previous studies, it is found that transformational leadership is associated with employee empowerment, whereas the association between employee empowerment and customer satisfaction is significant. However, few researches have been done to analyze the relationship between transformational leadership and customer satisfaction. In this paper, a mediation model is used to analyze how transformational leadership influences customer satisfaction conceptually. In the mediation model, employee empowerment mediates the connection of transformational leadership and customer satisfaction. First, the relationship of transformational leadership and employee empowerment; employee empowerment and customer satisfaction are identified and discussed one by one. The association of transformational leadership and customer satisfaction is then examined. A conclusion summarizing the whole paper with implications is also provided at the end.
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Figure 1. The proposed mediation model of relationships between transformational leadership, employee empowerment and customer satisfaction
Discussion
Transformational leadership and employee empowerment
According to Bass (1990), transformational leadership is the ability of leaders to intellectually stimulate and inspire followers to go beyond their own self-interest for the good of the organization to achieve a higher collective purpose and mission.
Transformational leaders achieve their goal through four dimensions, which are charisma, individual consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspiration (Bass, 1995). Referring to the definition of transformational leadership, transformational leaders with
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