The Relationship between Transformation Leadership, Job Satisfaction and Employee Motivation in the Tourism Industry

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between transformation leadership, job satisfaction, and employee motivation in the Vietnam tourism industry (VTI). In the study, data were collected from 207 respondents from different organizations related to the tourism industry, then partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed for the analysis. The findings indicate that the paths between inspirational communication, personal recognition, supportive leadership, vision, and job satisfaction are highly significant. However, the intellectual stimulation does not positively affect job satisfaction. In addition, the path of job satisfaction and employee motivation is significant. This research also shows that only supportive leadership has a direct positive effect on employee motivation. The findings can be used as reference for tourism company managers to consult and improve their knowledge, skills, and leadership qualities.

1. Introduction

In 2020, Vietnam’s tourism faced many difficulties due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. In addition to solutions to overcome difficulties and prevent the epidemic, there has been an attempt to restructure the tourist market (Chen et al. 2020). In this context, the development of human resources needs to be given more attention to be ready for the recovery and implementation of sustainable tourism development strategies in the future.

Like other industries, human resources are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills that play an important role in the development of tourism products as well as travel services. This is also considered one of the key factors that increase competitiveness and survival in the tourism market for each of the country’s businesses, localities, and tourism industries (Carnevale and Hatak 2020). According to the General Department of Tourism (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism), each year, the whole industry needs approximately 40,000 employees, but the current number of students graduating in the tourism field is approximately 15,000 people; more than 12% of these have college or university degrees or higher. In many localities with thriving tourism industries, human resources are always a difficult issue because of the workforce, especially the serious lack of direct labor. There is a large gap in the number of employees in the hotel industry compared to the number of workers needed in the future. There are increasing requirements for improving the quality of human resources and transparency in the recruitment market. Choosing the right staff is a big challenge. Competition for personnel in the industry will lead to employees’ intending to quit and transfer jobs, affecting business operations, financial costs, human resource management, and employee cohesion in hotel operations (Zavei and Jusan 2012).

In that context, leadership and leadership style are the key factors that help businesses overcome difficulties. Studies show that being a good leader takes a lot of effort, knowledge, skills, and especially leadership style. Leadership does not always mean applying only one leadership style to every employee, but choosing a leadership style that is appropriate for their qualifications (AlShehhi et al. 2020; Asrar-Ul-Haq et al. 2020; Tafvelin 2013). Many people fail to manage the team because they are not aware of this point; they set requirements that are too high for new employees or give good employees too little space to be proactive and creative at work. This causes subordinates to lack confidence in the leader or obey, but not feel comfortable developing their full capacity. Therefore, if the leader wants to exploit the human resources of the team or company (i.e., talent, intelligence, enthusiasm of employees), the leader needs to understand that leadership is different and how to effectively lead an employee or team in practice. Previous studies have demonstrated the success of transformational leadership in delivering employee satisfaction and employee motivation in the tourism industry (see Khan et al. 2020; Li et al. 2020; Mittal and Dhar 2016; Mohamed 2016; Vargas-Sevalle et al. 2020). However, these studies have not yet clarified the specific relationship of these factors. Leadership transforms into employee satisfaction and work motivation. In addition, in Vietnam, studies mainly focus on the factors affecting work motivation (see Bích and Tuẩn 2013) or factors affecting employee satisfaction (Võ 2019). However, few studies have assessed the relationship between the factors of transformation leadership, satisfaction, and employee motivation. In the context of the complicated COVID-19 epidemic, the tourism industry will still face many difficulties. This is the time for leaders of travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, transportation, and entertainment spots to retain employees, encourage employees to work hard and work with the business to overcome challenges and prepare conditions to welcome tourists back after the pandemic. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the influence of transformation leadership factors on employee satisfaction and motivation in the context of the complicated COVID-19 epidemic.

Transformational leadership is the leader’s ability to motivate followers to rise above their own personal goals for the greater good of the organization (Elbaz and Haddoud 2017; Guay 2013). It was theorized that the transformational style of leadership comes from deeply held personal values that cannot be negotiated and appeal to subordinates’ sense of moral obligation and values. Transformational leaders go beyond transactional leadership and are characterized as visionary, articulate, assured, and able to engender confidence in others to motivate them to surpass their usual performance goals. Transformational leaders attempt to stimulate the undeveloped or dormant needs of their subordinates. Intellectual stimulation represents the cognitive development of the follower and occurs when the leader arouses followers to think in new ways and emphasizes problem-solving and the use of reasoning before taking action. The idea is that the transformational leadership style can help tourism organizations overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic by encouraging teamwork, opinion sharing, and effectively tackling crises. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the influence of transformation leadership factors on employee satisfaction and motivation in the context of the complicated COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Literature Review

It was reported that over the last few decades, organizations have had relatively significant success with various kinds of transformational leadership models. A leading example is Kouzes and Posner’s (see Kouzes and Posner 2007) model, which offers a leadership model with five distinct practices that outstanding leaders use to influence employees’ performance. This model consists of some of the key elements of transformational leadership styles. The five practices of exemplary leadership are:

(a) challenging the process: searching and seizing challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate, and improve, with the willingness to take risks and learn from mistakes;

(b) inspiring a shared vision: enlisting followers’ support in a shared vision by appealing to the followers’ values, interests, and aspirations;

(c) enabling others to act: achieving common goals by building mutual trust, empowering followers, developing competence, assigning critical tasks, and providing continuous support;

(d) modeling the way: being a role model and being consistent with shared values, and

(e) encouraging the heart: providing recognition for success and celebrating accomplishments.

Relationship theories, also known as transformational theories, focus on the connections formed between leaders and followers (Khan et al. 2020). In these theories, leadership is the process by which a person engages with others and is able to “create a connection” that results in increased motivation and morality in both followers and leaders. Relationship theories are often compared to charismatic leadership theories in which leaders with certain qualities, such as confidence, extroversion, and clearly stated values, are seen as best able to motivate followers (Lamb 2013).

Relationship or transformational leaders motivate and inspire people by helping groups of members understand the importance and higher purpose of the task. These leaders are focused not only on the performance of members but also on the ability of each person to fulfill their potential. Leaders of this style often have high ethical and moral standards (Cherry et al. 2012). Xian et al. (2020) examined the relationship between transformation leadership and removing employees’ work-related uncertainties and ambiguity when facing an uncertain environment; the results showed that there was a strong significant relationship between transformational leadership and uncertainty reduction among employees. Moreover, the results also revealed that supervisor involvement boosted employee morale as a contributing factor to ambiguity and uncertainty reduction. As stated by Andreani and Petrik (2016), if the leader understands the differences in each employee and appropriately recognizes employees’ work, they will feel satisfied because they are valued individually. Kreitner and Kinicki (2007) found that employees love their jobs if they are arranged properly according to their expertise which they devote to the organization. Job satisfaction and dissatisfaction not only delve into the nature of the job, but also depend on the expectations of employees on the job (Mahmoud 2008). Job satisfaction is a complex phenomenon with many aspects that are affected by factors such as salary, working environment, self-control, communications, and organizational commitment. Naeem and Khanzada (2018) explained that leadership style has a strong impact on employee job satisfaction and that different leadership styles also influence job satisfaction and employee motivation. Shafi et al. (2020) show the positive relationship between transformation and employee creativity, while Zareen et al. (2015) concluded that among three types of leadership styles (transactional, transformational, and laissez-faire), the transactional leadership style has the strongest impact on employee motivation.

Related to leadership in the tourism industry, Mao et al. (2020) also discussed leadership style impacts on employee self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism through employee satisfaction with corporate COVID-19 responses. The data collected from 505 travel agents operating in Egypt, Elbaz and Haddoud (2017) show that not all leadership styles have a positive influence on employee satisfaction. Their study also shows that a positive influence takes place through the development of wisdom leadership. Its creators note that the questionnaire represents an effort to collect as much information as possible for leadership behaviors—from avoidance to idealized leadership—while it differentiates effective leaders from ineffective (Puni et al. 2018). It focuses on individual behaviors and leader characteristics, which are evaluated by their colleagues, regardless of their position, and in relation to leader-evaluators (Vasudeva and Nayan 2019). Transformational leadership is based on 4 elements described by Bernard A. Bass (Bass 1985; Bass and Riggio 2006): Idealized Influence, Intellectual Stimulation, Individualized Consideration, and Inspirational Motivation. The brief explanations are as follows:

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Idealized influence describes a leader who appears to be special, acts as a role model for followers and has strong ethical and moral values. Followers aspire to resemble such leaders and want to follow them.

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Inspirational motivation refers to how transformational leaders set high standards and expectations for their followers and demonstrate absolute confidence in the follower’s ability to meet or exceed the targets set.

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Intellectual stimulation describes how transformational leaders encourage their followers to question not only their beliefs and values but also those of the leader. Through this rigorous and open examination Bass believes that opportunities for personal growth, innovation and creativity are discovered.

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Idealized consideration refers to how transformational leaders listen to the needs and problems of their followers and act as guide, mentor and coach with the aim of moving each follower closer to self-actualization.

Bass’s model of transformational leadership has been embraced by scholars and practitioners alike as a measure in which organizations can encourage employees to perform beyond expectations. Despite the degree of interest in transformational leadership, a number of theoretical issues have been identified with this model. Moreover, there is ambiguity concerning the differentiation of the sub-dimensions of transformational leadership. Empirically, this issue has been reflected in a lack of support for the hypothesized factor structure of the transformational model and for the discriminant validity of the components of the model with each other. As a result, various studies re-examine the Bass model to identify five sub-dimensions of transformational leadership that will demonstrate discriminant validity with each other and with outcomes. A lot of studies (AlShehhi et al. 2020; Andreani and Petrik 2016; Braun et al. 2013) suggest that it is appropriate to examine the individual leadership sub-dimensions as opposed to a higher-order transformational leadership factor. The five-factor leadership model is as follows:

(1) Vision: Vision is identified as an important leadership dimension encompassed by the more general construct of charisma. Bass’s model argued that the most general and important component of transformational leadership is charisma. Empirical findings support this statement, with meta-analytic results indicating that charisma is most strongly associated with measures of effectiveness such as satisfaction with the leader.

Vision is the expression of a desired picture of the future based around organizational values and should answer this basic question: What do we want to become? In addition to knowing and understanding direction, transformational leaders must be able to clearly communicate the vision and validate that it was understood as intended.

(2) Inspirational communication: Inspirational communication is the expression of positive and encouraging messages about the organization, and statements that build motivation and confidence. Transformational leaders continually seek to understand changing factors that motivate people to do their best work.

Inspirational communication seems to be particularly important when expressing a vision for the future. In the absence of encouragement and confidence building efforts, articulating a vision may have a neutral or even negative influence on employees.

(3) Supportive leadership: Prior discussions of individualized consideration have focused on one component of this construct, supportive leadership. Supportive leader expresses concern for their followers and takes into account their individual needs.

Supportive leader behavior is described as ‘‘behavior directed toward the satisfaction of subordinates’ needs and preferences, such as displaying concern for subordinates’ welfare and creating a friendly and psychologically supportive work environment.

(4) Intellectual stimulation: A leader with intellectual stimulation always encourages innovation and creativity, as well as critical thinking and problem-solving. Intellectual stimulation is related to arousing employees’ thoughts and imagination, as well as stimulating their ability to identify and solve problems creatively. Intellectual stimulation enhances employees’ interest in and awareness of problems, and it helps to increase creative problem-solving skills, encouraging them to think about problems in new ways.

(5) Personal recognition: Personal recognition can be defined as the provision of rewards such as praise and acknowledgement of effort for achievement of specified goals. When an employee receives recognition for their work, they feel an increased sense of investment in an organization.

Since its introduction, the five-factor leadership model has been the focal point of numerous studies. However, there are limited studies on the relationship between transformation leadership, job satisfaction, and employee motivation in the tourism industry, and the transformational leadership factor should be revised. As a result, this study attempts to develop the theory for tourism leadership style to identify five sub-dimensions of transformational leadership that will demonstrate discriminant validity with each other and with outcomes. Tourism staff is said to have low motivation, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (Sobaih et al. 2020). Based on the above discussions, the following hypotheses are proposed (see Figure 1):

H1a. 

There is a relationship between inspirational communication as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI.

H1b. 

There is a relationship between intellectual stimulation as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI.

H1c. 

There is a relationship between the personal recognition as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI.

H1d. 

There is a relationship between supportive leadership as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI.

H1e. 

There is a relationship between vision as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI.

H2a. 

There is a relationship between inspirational communication as a dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI.

H2b. 

There is a relationship between intellectual stimulation as a dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI.

H2c. 

There is a relationship between the personal recognition as a dimension of a transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI.

H2d. 

There is a relationship between the supportive leadership as a dimension of the transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI.

H2e. 

There is a relationship between vision as a dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI.

H3. 

There is a relationship between job satisfaction and employee motivation in VTI.

3. Research Method

The quantitative method is used to validate the relationship among factors of transformation leadership, job satisfaction, and employee motivation.

3.1. Questionnaire Design

This research applies Bass’s (1985) transformational leadership theory, which includes five factors: articulating a vision, intellectual stimulation, inspirational communication, and personal recognition. Supportive leadership and transformation leadership style items were developed from measures produced by House (1998) and Podsakoff et al. (1990), and new items related to the COVID-19 pandemic were added to each dimension (

Table 1. Item selection.

Dimension/Factor	Items	Source
Vision	There is a clear orientation towards where we are going	House (1998)
	The organization’s goals over the next five years are clearly defined/defined by the leadership
	Have a clear idea of what is going on in the tourism industry after the COVID-19 pandemic	Authors
Inspirational communication	Always say things that make employees feel proud and part of the organization	Podsakoff et al. (1990)
	Say positive things about my organization
	Encourage people to see the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for the tourism industry	Authors
Personal recognition	Praise me when I do a better job than average	Podsakoff et al. (1990)
	Recognizing the improvement in quality in my work
	Praise me personally when I do excellent work
Intellectual stimulation	Challenge me to think about old issues in a new way	House (1998)
	Some comments forced me to rethink something that I had never asked before
	Have challenged me to rethink some of my negative assumptions about my job in COVID–19	Authors
Supportive leadership	Considers my personal feelings before acting	House (1998)
	My leaders always mobilize collective consciousness to fulfill the mission
	I am completely confident in my leadership under the impact of COVID-19	Authors
	In my mind, leadership is now a symbol of safety and prosperity
Job satisfaction	I am satisfied with my job	Braun et al. (2013)
	I am happy with the way my colleagues and superiors treat me
	I am satisfied with what I achieve at work
	I feel satisfied because of the comfort I am provided at work
	I am satisfied with my pay
Work motivation	I enjoy working every day and performing at my best	Gagné et al. (2015)
	I am proud to work in this company because it recognizes my achievements
	I feel optimistic about my future success with the company
	I have a strong belief in my company after COVID-19	Authors

). Items were chosen based on how well they assessed the theoretical construct under study. From the scale of Braun et al. (2013), this study selects five items of job satisfaction. Motivation levels (three items) were developed by the authors and selected from the study of Gagné et al. (2015).

3.2. Sampling Design

The target population is employees who are currently working in the tourism industry, including travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment spots. The most important reasons that researchers use methods of nonprobability sampling are the savings in cost and time. In addition, the authors also remind us that probability sampling does not always ensure accuracy, and in some cases, probability sampling is not possible. However, the authors also state that the biggest weakness of the nonprobability sampling method is that a subjective idea in the sampling process could lead to distorted research findings.

Samples were collected randomly from the list of tourism employees in Hanoi in the last three years. The sample size is, at a minimum, the number of variables multiplied by five. Therefore, the sample size here is 326 respondents. To avoid invalid responses, the respondents were chosen from 10 companies (travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, transportation, and entertainment spots). Questionnaires were sent to each employee as registered on the list; before that, the researcher made phone calls to confirm the interview and questionnaires. The survey was conducted in 2020, and the delivery and collection of the questionnaires was conducted from July to September 2020. Invalid responses were removed.

3.3. Pilot Test

The pilot test was conducted in May 2020 for the first version of the questionnaire. Questions were sent to 30 tourism employees who were attending an MBA class of the University of Labor and Social Affairs, 10 economic professors in universities, and 10 tourism managers in Hanoi to check their understanding of the question items. Then, the question was finalized and considered ready for data collection.

To test this model, a structural equation modeling (SEM) model was applied. There are two analytical techniques applied in the SEM model, covariance-based (CB-SEM) and partial least squares (PLS-SEM). According to Hair et al. (2019), the number of published PLS-SEM studies has increased exponentially since 2000, as PLS-SEM has advantages over CB-SEM in the following scenarios: small sample size, nonnormal data set, complex models with many indicators, and constituent models. Overall, the mix of advantages and disadvantages means PLS is favored as a predictive technique and not as an interpretive technique, except for exploratory analysis as a prelude to an interpretive technique such as multiple linear regression or covariance-based structural equation modeling. Henseler et al. (2009) thus state that “PLS path modeling is recommended in an early stage of theoretical development in order to test and validate exploratory models”.

4. Data Analysis

4.1. Descriptive Statistic

4.1.1. Respondent Information

A total of 400 questionnaires were sent to employees and leaders working in tourism in Northern Vietnam. A total of 326 respondents completed the survey, with a response rate of 81.5%. There were 207 respondents with usable questionnaires in this study, accounting for the 63.5% (207/326) usable rate. Regarding the gender of the respondents, the results show that 49.3 percent of respondents were male employees and 50.7 percent were females working in commercial banks. Of the 207 employees surveyed, 15 percent were under 25 years old, 45.9 percent were 26–45 years old, 29 percent were 36–45 years old, and only 10.1 percent of the 207 respondents were over 45 years old.

The respondent employer type was also surveyed in this study. Of those surveyed, 14% work in the travel industry, 55.1% work in hotels, 18.4% work in restaurants, and 12.6% work in entertainment. Related to the position of the respondent, management accounted for 16.9% of respondents, and staff accounted for 83.1%.

For respondent experience, this study shows that almost all employees have more than 5 years of experience in commercial banks; for example, 30% of respondents have less than 5 years of experience, 51.7% have 5–10 years of experience, and 18.4% have more than 10 years of experience. Regarding the education of the respondents who are trained in tourism, this study shows that 68.6% of respondents are trained in vocational school, and 31.4% are educated in university.

Table 2. Respondent background.

Characteristic	Number	Percentages
Gender
Male	102	49.3
Female	105	50.7
Age
<25-year-old	31	15.0
26–35-year-old	95	45.9
36–45-year-old	60	29.0
>45-year-old	21	10.1
Type of company
Travel companies	29	14.0
Hotels	114	55.1
Restaurants	38	18.4
Entertainment spots	26	12.6
Working position
Manager	35	16.9
Staff	172	83.1
Year of experience
<5 year	62	30.0
5–10 year	107	51.7
>10 year	38	18.4
Education
Vocational	142	68.6
University	65	31.4
Total	207	100.0

shows the respondents’ information.

4.1.2. Reliability of the Data Collected

Cronbach’s alpha was used to test the reliability of the data. It is used to assert rigor and the correlation between the observed variables. Accordingly, when corrected item—total correlation is greater than 0.3 and the coefficient is greater than 0.7, the alpha value is acceptable, and appropriate analysis is included in the next step. The results are displayed in

Table 3. Cronbach alpha result.

Variable	Number Items	Cronbach Alpha
Vision	3	0.810
Inspirational communication	3	0.797
Personal recognition	3	0.789
Intellectual stimulation	3	0.766
Supportive leadership	4	0.791
Job satisfaction	5	0.877
Employee motivation	5	0.838

.

Cronbach’s alpha was adapted to test the reliability of the scale of each factor. The results show that all factors have high Cronbach’s alpha values (ranging from 0.766 to 0.877 > 0.7), indicating reliability, as suggested by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994).

4.1.3. Factor Analysis for Transformation Leadership

Factor analysis was performed with the extraction method of principal axis factoring and the rotation method of Promax with Kaiser normalization. A total of 16 observations of transformation leadership were put in the system, and the obtained results are as follows: KMO coefficient = 0.803 (between 0.5 and 1) should assert that factor analysis in this study is consistent. The level of significance of Bartlett’s test is given at Sig. = 0.000 < 0.005, the variables are correlated in general. The results (see

Table 4. Transformation leadership factor analysis.

	Factor
	Vision	Supportive Leadership	Inspirational Communication	Personal Recognition	Intellectual Stimulation
VISI1	0.812
VISI2	0.780
VISI3	0.722
SULE1		0.674
SULE2		0.708
SULE3		0.657
SULE4		0.768
INCOM1			0.768
INCOM2			0.741
INCOM3			0.765
PERE1				0.728
PERE2				0.846
PERE3				0.678
INST1					0.612
INST2					0.869
INST3					0.713
Eigenvalue	4.899	1.957	1.768	1.311	1.224
Variance explained (%)	30.619	12.230	11.051	8.191	7.647

Total variance explained (TVE) = 69.783, KMO = 0.803, p = 0.000.

) showed that the total variance explained (TVE) = 69.783 > 50%, which means that five extracted factors explain 69.783% of the variation in the data set. The remaining 31.3% of the variable data set is due to factors not included in the model. The rotated component matrix removes transformer load factor coefficients smaller than 0.5. The remaining factors are coefficients load factor (factor loadings) > 0.5, ensure the implications of EFA. It is found that five factors influencing variables extracted from the observation of the scale components.

4.2. PLS—SEM Data Analysis

4.2.1. Measurement Model Results

Cronbach’s alphas also provide evidence of composite reliability, and values above 0.6 demonstrate that it is adequate. All the composite reliabilities for our constructs were above 0.7, and all the Cronbach’s alphas were above 0.6 (see

Table 5. Convergent validity analysis.

	Cronbach’s Alphas	Composite Reliabilities	AVE	p Values
Inspirational communication	0.799	0.882	0.882	0.000
Intellectual stimulation	0.766	0.864	0.864	0.000
Job satisfaction	0.878	0.910	0.910	0.000
Personal recognition	0.791	0.869	0.869	0.000
Supportive leadership	0.791	0.864	0.864	0.000
Vision	0.812	0.888	0.888	0.000
Employee motivation	0.837	0.890	0.890	0.000

). Finally, the average variance extracted (AVE) represents the amount of variance a construct captures via its items relative to the amount of variation due to measurement error. It was found that each construct’s variance extracted was above the recommended value of 0.5.

Thus, it is concluded that all our constructs had satisfactory convergent validity. The authors used two tests for discriminant validity: comparison of item loadings with item cross-loadings and comparison of the variance extracted from the construct with shared variance. Each item should load more highly on its intended construct than on other constructs. It can be concluded that all our items satisfied this condition (see

Table 6. Discriminant validity.

	Inspirational Communication	Intellectual Stimulation	Job Satisfaction	Personal Recognition	Supportive Leadership	Vision	Employee Motivation
Inspirational communication	0.845
Intellectual stimulation	0.299	0.825
Job satisfaction	0.505	0.317	0.818
Personal recognition	0.196	0.184	0.389	0.832
Supportive leadership	0.456	0.384	0.612	0.218	0.783
Vision	0.385	0.186	0.587	0.208	0.438	0.852
Employee motivation	0.340	0.278	0.399	0.057	0.442	0.260	0.819

).

4.2.2. PLS Structural Model Results

The authors then examined the overall explanatory power of the structural model, the amount of variance explained by the independent variables, and the magnitude and strength of its paths, where each of our hypotheses corresponds to a specific structural model path.

Adjusted $R^2$ was used to measure the model’s explanatory power, interpreted in the same way as for regression analysis. The explained variation should exceed 10% to qualify for suitable explanatory power. The analysis revealed that the structural model explained approximately 56.4% of the variation in job satisfaction and 23% of the variation in employee motivation, suggesting that the structural model provided adequate explanatory power (

Table 7. R Square adjusted.

	R2 Adjusted	Sample Mean	Standard Deviation	T Statistics	p Values
Job satisfaction	0.564	0.579	0.039	14.431	0.000
Employee motivation	0.230	0.265	0.069	3.323	0.001

).

Bootstrapping with 500 re-samples was applied to obtain the t-statistics for testing the statistical significance of the model’s paths/relationships. (Ideally, the paths should have significant t-statistics at 1.96 and be directionally consistent with expectations.)

Table 8. The model paths/relationships.

	Original Sample	Sample Mean	Standard Deviation	T-Statistics	p-Values
Inspirational communication ⟶ Job satisfaction	0.178	0.175	0.052	3.417	0.001
Inspirational communication ⟶ Employee motivation	0.118	0.117	0.090	1.315	0.189
Intellectual stimulation ⟶ Job satisfaction	0.040	0.040	0.051	0.770	0.442
Intellectual stimulation ⟶ Employee motivation	0.104	0.113	0.084	1.243	0.215
Personal recognition ⟶ Job satisfaction	0.208	0.211	0.051	4.059	0.000
Personal recognition ⟶ Employee motivation	−0.117	−0.116	0.094	1.249	0.212
Supportive leadership ⟶ Job satisfaction	0.328	0.332	0.058	5.709	0.000
Supportive leadership ⟶ Employee motivation	0.255	0.249	0.089	2.860	0.004
Vision ⟶ Job satisfaction	0.324	0.321	0.056	5.814	0.000
Vision ⟶ Employee motivation	−0.011	−0.009	0.070	0.157	0.875
Job satisfaction ⟶ Employee motivation	0.202	0.203	0.084	2.397	0.017

shows the model paths/relationships among variables.

From the path analysis, the result indicates that the path between inspirational communication and job satisfaction is highly significant (t = 3.417, p < 0.05), fully supporting Hypothesis H1a: “There is a relationship between inspirational communication as a transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI”. The path between intellectual stimulation and job satisfaction was not significant (t = 0.770, p > 0.05). Hypothesis H1b is not supported: “There is a relationship between intellectual stimulation as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI” (see Figure 2). The path between personal recognition and job satisfaction was also highly significant (t = 4.059, p < 0.05), confirming Hypothesis H1c: “There is a relationship between the personal recognition dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI”. The path between supportive leadership and job satisfaction was also highly significant (t = 5.709, p < 0.05), confirming Hypothesis H1d: “There is a relationship between supportive leadership as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI”. The last path of the transformation leadership dimension of vision and job satisfaction was also highly significant (t = 5.814, p < 0.05), confirming Hypothesis H1e: “There is a relationship between vision as a dimension of transformation leadership style and job satisfaction in VTI”. Thus, only one dimension of the transformation leadership style does not positively affect job satisfaction: intellectual stimulation.

The path between inspirational communication and employee motivation is not significant (t = 1.315, p > 0.05), meaning that Hypothesis H2a is unsupported: “There is a relationship between inspirational communication as a dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI”. Additionally, the path between intellectual stimulation and employee motivation was insignificant (t = 1.243, p > 0.05), rejecting Hypothesis H2b: “There is a relationship between intellectual stimulation as a dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI”. The result shows that the path of personal recognition and employee motivation was insignificant (t = 1.249, p > 0.05), rejecting Hypothesis H2c: “There is a relationship between the personal recognition dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI”. However, the path of supportive leadership and employee motivation is significant (t = 2.860, p < 0.05), confirming Hypothesis H2d: “There is a relationship between the supportive leadership as a dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI”. However, the path of vision and employee motivation (t = 0.157, p > 0.05) is insignificant; thus, Hypothesis H2e is unsupported: “There is a relationship between vision as a dimension of transformation leadership style and employee motivation in VTI”. Therefore, this research concludes that only supportive leadership as the dimension of transformation leadership has a direct positive effect on employee motivation. Otherwise, there was no evidence of a direct path from other dimensions of transformation leadership to employee motivation, as the literature and our model suggested.

Additionally, the path of job satisfaction and employee motivation is significant (t = 2.397, p < 0.05), confirming Hypothesis H3: “There is a relationship between job satisfaction and employee motivation in VTI”.

To further test the indirect effect between the dimensions of transformation leadership and employee motivation (see

Table 9. The indirect effect among the dimensions of transformation leadership and employee motivation.

	Original Sample	Sample Mean	Standard Deviation	T Statistics	p Values
Inspirational communication ⟶ Employee motivation	0.036	0.036	0.020	1.817	0.070
Intellectual stimulation ⟶ Employee motivation	0.008	0.009	0.012	0.663	0.508
Personal recognition ⟶ Employee motivation	0.042	0.042	0.019	2.201	0.028
Supportive leadership ⟶ Employee motivation	0.066	0.068	0.031	2.120	0.035
Vision ⟶ Employee motivation	0.065	0.066	0.030	2.175	0.030

), this study shows that there is no indirect path between inspirational communication and employee motivation (t = 1.817, p > 0.05) or between intellectual stimulation and employee motivation (t = 0.663, p > 0.05). However, this study shows that there is an indirect path between personal recognition and employee motivation (t = 2.201, p < 0.05), supportive leadership and employee motivation (t = 2.120, p < 0.05), and vision and employee motivation (t = 2.175, p < 0.05).

Based on the analysis, this study finds that among the five dimensions of transformation leadership that were developed from the literature review, four dimensions have a positive direct effect on job satisfaction: inspirational communication, personal recognition, supportive leadership, and vision. This research result is consistent with the research by House (1998), who identifies the charismatic characteristics of a leader. Ames and Flynn (2007) examined MBA student groups to test how many people loved their leader and how much the leaders accomplished. Additionally, some authors discuss the relationship between transformation leadership and job satisfaction and obtain the same result as in the study of Naeem and Khanzada (2018) when considering the influence of attractive leadership on the organizational cohesion and job satisfaction of followers (Bass and Riggio 2006). Successful banks and organizations are good at managing their human capital (Braun et al. 2013; Shafi et al. 2020). “Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust” in (Braun et al. 2013) shows that companies have eliminated human resources challenges, ensured management, and planned to train good employees to meet personnel needs for each stage of their development. One of these challenges is related to employee satisfaction with their work. However, this study cannot find a direct relationship between intellectual stimulation and job satisfaction. As mentioned in studies by Ogbonnaya and Nielsen (2016) and Mao et al. (2020), it is important to create a favorable environment in which people are encouraged to develop abilities. Superiors should create an environment where employees can communicate in two dimensions; they will know how to find their own answers or provide solutions themselves. Therefore, employees will have the opportunity to express their knowledge and develop themselves (Puni et al. 2018). Superiors regularly provide feedback on the performance of employees. Positive feedback helps employees develop the skills and knowledge they need.

In addition, from the model of this study, the PLS-SEM results show that inspirational communication, intellectual stimulation, personal recognition, and vision do not directly affect employee motivation; however, supportive leadership has a direct relationship with employee motivation. To further test the indirect effect of the transformation leadership dimension on employee motivation, this study finds that there is no indirect path between inspirational communication and employee motivation, and intellectual stimulation and employee motivation. However, this study shows that there is an indirect path between personal recognition and employee motivation, supportive leadership and employee motivation, and vision and employee motivation. From the results, it can be concluded that through job satisfaction, transformative leadership has an indirect effect on employee motivation, so job satisfaction should be achieved first and then lead to employee motivation. It was noted that creating work enrichment is a fundamental part of engaging, motivating, and retaining talent, especially in repetitive or boring workplaces. It is widely known that leaders need to know how to work and allow employees to increase the skills and interests of workers when they work. When work reflects a high level of skill requirements, mission-critical level obligations, autonomy, and a certain level of feedback, team members are more likely to enjoy and not eliminate stress. It is important to provide continuous support so that the employee is satisfied with their job. Employees should feel interested and satisfied, engrossed in the work, and happy and motivated to shine. It is the leader’s responsibility to find a combination of options to increase the productivity of individuals and teams. To overcome the COVID-19 crisis, it is time for tourism organization leaders to show their capability to boot their employees and encourage them to be optimistic in the future. It was also shown that leadership styles impact employee self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism through employee satisfaction with corporate COVID-19 responses.

5. Conclusions

The objective of this study primarily to investigate the relationship between transformation leadership, job satisfaction, and employee motivation in the Vietnam tourism industry (VTI) has been fulfilled. The study has boldly put forward an opinion on the leadership capacity of tourism industry managers as a basis for fully defining the components of transformation leadership in relation to job satisfaction and employee motivation in the Vietnam tourism industry. The study applied and developed partial least squares (PLS-SEM) to assess the leadership capacity of the tourism industry in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We successfully applied and transformed the scale of leadership that has been used in Vietnam and in the world for research in Northern Vietnam. The study proposes and develops a model for measuring the influence of factor groups on the transformation leadership of tourism managers, while in Vietnam, there are very few studies that deal with this topic. Existing documents on organizational prestige (Shafi et al. 2020; Vasudeva and Nayan 2019) have identified management capacity and leadership quality as the key drivers of the prestige of organizations, especially in crisis situations. The findings of this study provide new evidence from the perspective of employees that there are effective leadership styles such as leadership change (in terms of strategy, charisma, inspiration). It also contributes to the positive perception of employees about the reputation of the organization, while the leader of total authority does not make this positive. According to Sobaih et al. (2020), leadership style plays an important role in creating the organization’s working environment as well as the internal environment that influences the attitude and motivation of employees that help organizations overcome difficult situations. Therefore, to enhance positive internal credibility through word of mouth and supportive behaviors, transformational leadership styles should be strengthened and developed rather than full-fledged leadership styles, as evidenced by the present study.

Research results show that the transformation leadership style has a positive effect on employee perceptions of organizational prestige, which is not only direct but also indirect through enhancement. The status of employee leadership, which includes a common vision and high-performance expectations, contributes to the role model and enhances collaboration among employees to achieve entry. At the same time, we emphasize the quality of the relationship among employees and show interest in individual feelings as well as direct benefits to foster positive perceptions of organizations and beliefs in the future after the pandemic. These findings are consistent with previous research on the positive correlation between a change leadership style and employee attitudes (Al-Rafee and Cronan 2006; Sobaih et al. 2020) as well as satisfaction (Freeborough and Patterson 2016; Long et al. 2014), and positive emotions such as joy, pride, admiration, and love (Andreani and Petrik 2016). By sharing benefits with employees and allowing employees to participate in decision-making, leadership transfer not only makes employees feel more confident, more accepting, trustworthy, and valuable, but also forms a positive view of employees in the organization (Shafi et al. 2020). The results of this research will be the basis for tourism company managers to consult and improve their knowledge, skills, and leadership qualities to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, it is the basis for the relevant departments of the region to develop policies to support the leadership capacity of tourism industry managers in the future.

The outcomes of this study suggested recommendations that have to be directed to top managerial level in the tourism industry. The managers within this industry should be trained to use a transformational leadership style to motivate their employees and release their maximum potential to progress beyond their capacity in performing at workplace. Managers should create a realistic and achievable vision for the organization, and communicate such vision effectively to their followers. They should provide constant conviction that such vision is attainable, and inspire multiple sense of purpose and commitment that will enhance the followers’ satisfaction. In a developing economy such as Vietnam, leadership in the workplace, especially in tourism industry, is encouraged to embrace a leadership style that will improve the working conditions of employees, giving recognition to individuals. Managers should also meet the follower needs, including recognition, fulfillment, and meaningfulness, thereby increasing their satisfaction.

Despite these pioneering initiatives, research still faces some shortcomings that need to be addressed in future research, such as the limited use of samples only in Northern Vietnam. However, the value of research is in theoretical testing rather than its generalized meaning. A second limitation is due to the prevalence of certain collection sources. The data are collected primarily from the perspective of the employee. For a more comprehensive understanding of how an organization’s leadership style affects employee satisfaction and motivation, professionals should work with organizational leaders and combine research cooperation initiatives. In future studies, samples from a wide variety of organizations across different sectors need to be used to test the proposed model and to synthesize the research results. Qualitative research methods such as in-depth interviews with corporate leaders should also be used to concurrently explain the different perspectives on research issues. As the transformational leadership style has not been fully researched, future research will focus on how the leader interacts with other factors; for example, how managers interact with different leadership styles and different dependent variables, such as commitment, engagement, and loyalty, and how effective leadership styles interact with the organization.