Transformational Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and Lecturers’ Self-Efficacy in Vocational Colleges: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Leadership plays a critical role in shaping educators’ professional experiences, particularly within complex and emotionally demanding educational environments. Among various leadership approaches, transformational leadership has been consistently associated with positive educator outcomes, while emotional intelligence has gained recognition as an essential leadership capability that supports effective interpersonal interactions and organisational functioning. Educators’ self-efficacy is a key psychological construct influencing motivation, engagement, and professional performance. Despite increasing empirical attention to these constructs, prior studies have frequently examined transformational leadership, emotional intelligence, and self-efficacy in isolation, with limited systematic integration, especially within vocational education contexts. This study aims to systematically review empirical research examining the relationships between transformational leadership, emotional intelligence, and educators’ self-efficacy, with particular relevance to vocational and technical education settings. Guided by the PRISMA 2020 framework, a systematic search was conducted using the Scopus database. Predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, resulting in the selection of 23 peer-reviewed, open-access empirical studies published between 2014 and 2025. The included studies were analysed thematically to identify key patterns, methodological characteristics, and research gaps across diverse educational contexts. The findings indicate a consistent positive relationship between transformational leadership and educators’ self-efficacy, as well as related outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation, work engagement, and organisational commitment. Emotional intelligence emerged as a significant complementary factor that enhances transformational leadership behaviours and indirectly supports educators’ self-efficacy. However, the review also reveals methodological limitations, including a predominance of cross-sectional quantitative designs and a limited focus on vocational education settings. Overall, this systematic literature review consolidates empirical evidence on the interconnected roles of transformational leadership and emotional intelligence in shaping educators’ self-efficacy. The findings highlight the need for more context-sensitive and longitudinal research, particularly within vocational education, to inform leadership development practices and educational policy initiatives.