BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1571572
Social impact of happiness on transformational leadership in students from Colombian universities
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Higher Administration Studies (CESA), Bogotá, Colombia
- 2Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru
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Abdullah et al. (2017) found that affective commitment and transformational leadership are directly related to occupational happiness. In this sense, this study begins with the premise that subjective happiness can enhance the effectiveness of transformational leadership. For this purpose, the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) and the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) were applied to a non-probabilistic sample of 215 business administration students in Colombian universities. Bivariate correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling were used to examine the relationship between the dimensions of happiness and the five leadership practices. The findings indicate that three happiness items correlate positively with transformational leadership practices, suggesting that happier individuals exhibit more effective leadership behaviors. The proposed theoretical model showed a good fit with the empirical data. In conclusion, promoting happiness in leaders not only improves their performance but also positively impacts organizational productivity
Keywords: happiness, Subjective Happiness Scale, LPI, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation model, SEM
Received: 06 Feb 2025; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zarate-Torres, Rey-Sarmiento and Acosta-Prado. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: C. Fabiola Rey-Sarmiento, College of Higher Administration Studies (CESA), Bogotá, Colombia
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