Do Engagement and Competency Really Matter? Mediating The Effects of Leadership and Culture on Social Facilitators’ Performance In Indonesia

This study investigates how transformational leadership and organizational culture influence employee performance through the mediating roles of employee engagement and competency in the public sector. While leadership and culture are frequently identified as key antecedents of performance, empirical evidence explaining their indirect effects through motivational and capability-based mechanisms remains limited, particularly in developing country contexts. This study employs a quantitative research design using data collected from 314 social facilitators in Indonesia and analyzes the proposed model using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (SEM-PLS). The findings show that both transformational leadership and organizational culture have significant direct effects on employee performance. Furthermore, competency significantly mediates the relationships between leadership, organizational culture, and performance, indicating that performance improvement is primarily driven through capability development. In contrast, employee engagement, although positively influenced by leadership and competency, does not significantly mediate the effects of leadership and culture on performance. The structural model explains 95.5% of the variance in employee performance (R² = 0.955), demonstrating strong explanatory power. Theoretically, this study integrates Social Exchange Theory and the Resource-Based View by highlighting the dominant role of competency as a transmission mechanism. Practically, the results emphasize that public sector organizations should strengthen transformational leadership and organizational culture with a strategic focus on competency development to achieve sustainable performance outcomes.