“Leadership in the digital era: Exploring the nexus between leadership styles and job satisfaction. The mediating role of perceived organizational politics in Jordanian insurance companies”

The study intends to determine how leadership techniques adjusted to the trends impact employee job satisfaction, considering the mediating influence of perceived organizational politics in light of the expanding influence of digital technology and virtual work settings. The study included a solid sample of 300 workers from different parts of Jordan. The employees filled out the questionnaire anonymously. 5-point rating Likert scales were used to capture a range of viewpoints. Using the Partial Least Squares software, this study applies Structural Equation Modelling analysis to examine the relationships between job satisfaction, perceived organizational politics, and leadership styles in Jordanian insurance companies. The study focuses on all employees of insurance companies in Jordan, including people working at various administrative levels. The most common length of job tenure was between one and five years (38.67%). Initial results show a strong beneficial relationship between transformational leadership philosophies and contentment at work (β = 0. 378, t = 6.266, LL = 0.483, UL = 0.718, p < 0.001). Similarly, transformational leadership had the highest standardized effect on perceived organizational politics with a coefficient of 0.443. Furthermore, the complex processes by which leadership philosophies tangentially affect job satisfaction levels are revealed by the role of mediation of perceived organizational politics.


INTRODUCTION
Scholarly research focuses on the impact of leadership styles on employee outcomes in the rapidly evolving modern workplace (Chatterjee et al., 2023).Understanding the subtleties of leadership is more critical than ever in light of the digital age, where technology breakthroughs and remote work practices have become vital aspects of organizational dynamics.Leadership is essential for organizations to succeed and compete in the marketplace.Early research, as well as current work (Rosen et al., 2014), concluded that organizational politics can affect job satisfaction.Perception of organizational politics refers to employees' perceptions of self-serving practices to gain power in an organization (Wijewantha et al., 2020).When perceived politics is high, em-ployees perceive the workplace as unfair and biased.Cho and Yang (2018) demonstrated that this can reduce job satisfaction.By implementing transparency, collaboration, and appropriate processes, effective leadership may be able to reduce radical political ideologies in organizations (Li et al., 2018).
Despite the extensive research on leadership style and institutional politics in Western contexts, little work has examined these relationships in Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries.Therefore, this study investigates the effect of transformational behavioral leadership on the job satisfaction of insurance employees among Jordanian companies.In addition, it studies the mediating effects of perceived organizational politics on the leadership-satisfaction relationship.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Research on this topic received significant attention.Early work proved that leadership can significantly impact organizational outcomes as well as employee behavior.Bass (1985) developed a series of leadership theories that distinguish between transformational and behavioral strategies.Transformational leaders motivate employees to be away from self-interest to achieve exceptional performance.Transactional leaders focus more on transformational relationships and use extrinsic motivators (Bass, 1985).Several studies have shown that transformational leadership is connected to employee job satisfaction across different cultures and settings (Akdere & Egan, 2020; Gyensare et al., 2016;Musinguzi et al., 2018).Transformational leaders increase worker motivation as well as intrinsic satisfaction by communicating an inspiring vision, providing personal support, and linking work to higher purposes (Hoch et al., 2018;Hussein et al., 2023;Mohammad et al., 2023).Conversely, ongoing rewards in the form of transactional leadership fail to provide the motivation and reasons needed for high levels of satisfaction (Abbas, 2017;Mohammad et al., 2023).Previous work (Hoch et al., 2018) indicated that leadership can impact how employees think and behave in their organizations.In recent decades, researchers have studied leadership styles and their impact on employees.They concluded that there are two main types of leadership, which are now known as transformational and transactional (Abbas & Ali, 2023;Harahsheh et al., 2022).Transformational leaders can motivate their employees.With this in mind, transactional leaders focus on transformation and rewards to motivate their employees (Abbas & Ali, 2023).The previous study by Ghasabeh et al. (2015) demonstrated that transformational leadership is associated with worker behavior more than transactional leadership.
Job satisfaction is an employee's positive feelings that come from evaluating their experiences at work (Alhawamdeh et al., 2024).Job satisfaction is a crucial attitude studied in organizational behavior research.Equally important, job satisfaction has strong links to important outcomes like performance, retention, and well-being (Judge et al., 2017).Recent studies (Gyensare et al., 2016;Musinguzi et al., 2018) found a connection between transformational leadership and how satisfied employees feel at work.This seems to be true across different cultures.Transformational leaders lead in ways that inspire and motivate their employees.They encourage creative thinking, pay attention to each employee's needs, and help give work a deeper meaning.Transformational leaders can increase employees' inner drive and satisfaction in a few ways.They can stimulate creative thinking, focus on individuals, and connect work to higher goals (Ghadi et al., 2013).In addition, previous work shows that transformational leadership can predict greater job satisfaction, while transactional leadership has less impact on satisfaction (Gyensare et al., 2016;Musinguzi et al., 2018).Scholars (Akdere & Egan, 2020;Effelsberg et al., 2014) explain this by saying transformational leaders increase satisfaction by linking work to a larger purpose and demonstrating integrity.They are also developmentally concerned and welfareoriented.However, transactional leaders' focus on individual rewards reduces intrinsic motivation and satisfaction.
On the other hand, transactional leaders who focus on external rewards and punishments tend to have a weaker or even negative link to employee satisfaction (Abbas & Ali, 2023).Feelings about organizational politics also impact satisfaction.This is because they shape views on fairness within the company (Rosen et al., 2014) when employees see decision-making as biased or self-serving, they are less satisfied with their jobs, and their work quality may decrease (Wijewantha et al., 2020).
Perceived organizational politics means how much employees think there is self-serving behavior at work, like favoritism, manipulation, and flattering bosses (Bhattarai, 2021).When staff believe decisions are based on personal connections rather than quality, perceptions of politics are high (Kiran et al., 2020).Moreover, studies showed that if employees view their workplace as political, they could have lower job satisfaction, commitment, and well-being (Rosen et al., 2014;Ghadi et al., 2013).
Accordingly, it can be understood that leadership style can influence perceived politics.Transformational leaders who model integrity can lower perceptions of unfair politics (Effelsberg et al., 2014).Transformational leaders who avoid self-interest and focus on group goals can increase transparency and fairness.Cho and Yang (2018) said this helps reduce feelings of damaging office politics.On the other hand, transactional leaders emphasize self-gain and trading favors.This fails to limit perceptions of bias (Abbas & Ali, 2023).Scholars suggested that leadership style indirectly influences behavior by shaping perceptions of organizational politics (Li et al., 2018;Mohammad et al., 2022).These dimensions include self-centered practices such as bias, manipulation, and destruction that violate norms of fairness and justice (Wijewantha et al., 2020).Transformational leaders can reduce perceptions of inappropriate politics in organizations by modeling honesty and transparency (Cho & Yang, 2018).Employees who perceive leaders as ethical and highly committed to the good perceive the workplace as a fair environment (Effelsberg et al., 2014).It is essential to study these relationships in non-Western settings such as the Middle East to formulate generalizations across cultures.Patriarchal leadership with authoritative and benevolent behaviors is common in the Middle Eastern context (Ly, 2020;Mkheimer, 2018).
In addition to direct relationships, leadership styles can indirectly influence employee attitudes and behaviors through perceived organizational politics.
Politics involves partisanship, manipulation, selfpromotion, and other self-centered activities that violate the norms of justice (Abbas & Ali, 2023).By modeling integrity and collective interest, transformational leaders can reduce harmful political perspectives as this increases transparency and equity (Gyensare et al., 2016).In contrast, communication leaders' focus on self-interest fails to control perceptions of inappropriate politics (Hoch et al., 2018).Cho and Yang (2018) stated that perceived politics decreases when employees perceive leaders as ethical and committed to fairness.
However, the lower perceptions of organizational politics relate to improved satisfaction with the job, commitment, performance, and well-being (Ghadi et al., 2013;Rosen et al., 2014).Employees who view workplace processes as fair and merit-based experience greater motivation and positive attitudes.Recent research supports perceptions of politics as a mediator between leadership style and outcomes.For instance, Bhattarai (2021, p. 104) stated, "The impression management buffered the negative relationship between perceived politics and performance."By reducing political perceptions, transformational leaders enabled more effective impression management and indirectly improved employee performance.
Despite growing evidence for mediation effects, additional research on contextual boundary conditions is needed.The strength of relationships may depend on national culture, as expectations for authority and norms for self-serving behaviors differ in different regions (Ly, 2020;Musinguzi et al., 2018).Testing mediation models like perceived politics across cultural settings can refine the understanding of how leadership shapes social contexts to impact employees.
The study aims to determine the relationship between leadership style, politics, and satisfaction for employees at Jordanian insurance companies.
Based on the preceding, the study develops a conceptual model to illustrate the hypothesized relationships among the variables in Jordanian insurance companies (see Figure 1).H1: There is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction.H2: There is a positive relationship between transactional leadership and job satisfaction.
H3: There is a positive relationship between perceived organizational politics and job satisfaction.
H4: There is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and perceived organizational politics.
H5: There is a positive relationship between transactional leadership and perceived organizational politics.
H6: The relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction is mediated by perceived organizational politics.
H7: The relationship between transactional leadership and job satisfaction is mediated by perceived organizational politics.

METHOD
This study used a quantitative approach to collect the required data to obtain the goals ( First, the heads of the participating insurance companies gave permission to contact their employees.Second, the employees filled out the questionnaire anonymously.Previous work stated that taking these ethical steps is important to protect the participant's privacy (Archer, 2023).

Data analysis
As earlier studies suggested, this study's analytical method employed a technical analysis using the Partial Least Square (PLS) software program and the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis tools (Chin, 2010).The data sets were initially evaluated for multivariate assumptions to determine their conformance before undergoing the structural equation modeling methods.This was done in order to validate the structural model and carry out the model quality evaluation.Considering the suggestions given by (Hair et al., 2014), The loads, weights, and path coefficients were assessed for significance levels using the bootstrapping technique (5,000 resamples).As a result, before assessing the structural model underneath, the measurement models were put to the test.To test for common method bias, Harman's single-factor test was employed (Podsakoff et al., 2012).In the exploratory factor analysis, all variables were loaded and the common method variance was not a significant issue in the sample because the first component accounts for less than 32% of all variables.
Table 1 shows the demographic profile based on the descriptive statistics from the sample, including gender, age, education level, and job tenure.The table shows that most of the participants were male (47.67%), and the remaining 52.33% were female.Regarding the age bracket of the respondents, most participants were between 25 and 34 years of age (42.33%).In terms of educational level, the majority held a Bachelor's degree (53%).The most common length of job tenure was between one and five years (38.67%).Note: n = 300.

Measurement model evaluation
The validity and reliability of the conceptions were assessed by evaluating their convergent and discriminant validities as well as their internal consistency.The following methods were used to evaluate the constructs' validity and reliability.Reliability tests were used in this study to look at the constructs' internal consistency.This study assessed the loadings and internal consistency of the indicators in order to guarantee the validity of the constructs.As demonstrated in  2, where the coefficients vary between 0.517 and 0.571.This proves that each and every construct has convergence validity.Therefore, it may be said that the items have proven their convergence validity and reflect their respective constructions.These results corroborate the claim that the measurement model has reached the necessary degree of construct reliability.
The alternative procedure to perform a discriminant validity test is the heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT).If the HTMT value is greater than 0.85, a serious discriminant validity issue exists (Henseler et al., 2015).Nevertheless, other researchers have opined that the HTMT value should be 0.90 or less to meet the discriminant validity criteria.Table 3 shows the HTMT criterion is equal to or below the 0.90 threshold, signifying that the discriminant validity was proven.

Structural model assessment
The R 2 value indicates how well the independent variables may explain different dependent variables.As a result, a higher R 2 value indicates that the structural model is more predictive.The R 2 values in this investigation were obtained using the SmartPLS algorithm function.On the other hand, the upper limit (UL) and lower limit (LL) values, P-value, and t-statistics were produced for the model analysis using the SmartPLS bootstrapping algorithm.300 instances were bootstrapped to produce 5,000 samples for this investigation.
Referring to Figure 2 (Henseler et al., 2009).Based on this, the R 2 of both endogenous constructs could be deemed sufficiently substantial.

DISCUSSION
The results revealed that transformational leadership had the highest standardized effect on job satisfaction with a coefficient of 0.378, which indicated that transformational leadership is the most common leadership style used by the leaders in Jordanian insurance companies.Similarly, transformational leadership had the highest standardized effect on perceived organizational politics with a coefficient of 0.443.
According to the relevant literature and previous studies, there are substantial factors that have been confirmed as influencing predictors of the employee's job satisfaction.Thus, some scholarly works advocated some factors, although intricate, employees' job satisfaction in the organization is potentially most meaningful of how they feel about leaders' practices and the behavioral outcomes they have, which stands in line with Yohannes and Wasonga (2023) who confirmed the relationship between leadership styles and job satisfaction.
The analysis in this field has involved leadership styles.Hence, this study provides some valuable additional insights into the effect of both transformational and transactional leadership styles correlated with the employee's job satisfaction in Jordanian insurance companies.From the results of reliability given in Table 2 all study constructs were statistically valid with the minimum cut-off.The findings indicated that transformational and transactional leadership styles were outstanding predictors of and contributed to the employees' job satisfaction due to the positive effect of these constructs within the proposed framework.On the contrary, the study results contradict some literature findings (e.g.Sriadmitum et al., 2023) that found no significant effect on job satisfaction.
Furthermore, the study results supported the arguments and findings that reported the leaders who show different leadership styles and consider their followers to encourage them into coaching the ways of developing appropriate work-positive behaviors (Saputra & Desmiwerita, 2023).Moreover, as the leaders' behaviors in the workplace are critical to achieving a great level of employee job satisfaction, they expect to create trust and show faith in their decisions and practices.For top management and leaders in Jordanian insurance companies to be aware they should work to further encouragement of their employees for positive organizational outcomes like perceived politics.
The positive relationship between perceived organizational politics and job happiness suggests that when workers or organizations witness more selfserving actions from others, there may be a lack of justice on the part of the leaders who are less satisfied with their jobs.The impact of perceived organizational politics on employees' job satisfaction as a mediator between transformational and transactional leadership styles is, therefore, of more significance.The results demonstrated that the perceived organizational politics supported a partial mediation between leadership styles and job satisfaction and that all research assumptions on the mediation of predicting job satisfaction were met.
Overall, the results are consistent with similar studies that have been conducted to show that the relationship between job satisfaction and leadership styles is indirect rather than direct.According to the suggested framework, perceived organizational politics have a minor role and are found to mediate the relationship between workers' job satisfaction and leadership philosophies.Therefore, the findings of transformational leadership, which can organize less political work settings, finally supported the idea that job happiness among employees in Jordanian insurance businesses is positively impacted.
It is worth indicating the studies about relationships between leadership styles and job satisfaction, especially in developing contexts, are limited and mostly scarce in private business organizations.The present study reflects the findings of the previous studies, which also found that leadership The current study made some research contributions, and some limitations to generalizing the findings should be considered.For example, the study was conducted only in the Jordanian insurance sector, so the scope of the study was limited, and the generalizability of the results may be limited.For future suggestions, the researchers should target different contexts and sectors to generalize the findings into the entire Jordan.Additionally, the study participants at this time only included employees of Jordanian insurance companies, so the results will ultimately vary for employees in different industries, such as universities.The researchers are also recommended to use different methodological research studies, for example, a comparative study between different managerial levels.Also, this study only focused on the services sector; future studies are expected to dig up and explore the relations between these variables in different samples and sectors like healthcare, banking, etc.This study used a cross-sectional research approach to examine the constructs under study, and this consequently influenced the research conclusions, which may have differed in a longitudinal research design.

CONCLUSION
The purpose of this research was to examine the effect of leadership styles on the job satisfaction of insurance employees in Jordanian companies.The findings approved a positive relationship between the transactional and transformational leadership styles on employees' job satisfaction in Jordanian insurance companies.Therefore according to the obtained results, the leadership style commonly practiced by the leaders in these companies was the transformational style (β = 0. 378).The study results also buttressed the earlier investigations conducted on this topic that found the employee's job satisfaction positively correlated with the leader's styles.
However, the transformational leadership style, which is related to the motivation factor, had a greater effect and predication than the transactional style.However, this does not mean that transactional leadership cannot contribute to job satisfaction for the employees, the combinations of these two styles of leadership are important to give the situations leaders work.Although the results are consistent with research on leadership styles and job satisfaction, it is necessary to reemphasize transformational leadership, particularly in Jordanian insurance companies.Further, companies that have leadership capabilities to change the management approach use different leadership skills to improve their employees' job satisfaction.
It is suggested to adopt both transformational and transactional leadership styles that could contribute to and increase the levels of employees' job satisfaction in Jordanian insurance companies.The majority of the leaders in these companies are also the owners.They deal directly with the employees and support them to create a better reinforcement environment to motivate them in various situations.The results showed that the transactional leader is more concerned with achieving the organizational goals by providing management styles, including rewards or punishments to the motivation of the organiza-tion's individuals.Based on this result, it is highly suggested and recommended that the management of Jordanian insurance companies should consider the crucial benefits of involving in different leadership styles, as they may influence the perceived organizational politics, which in turn influences employee job satisfaction.Leaders also need to put a close eye on their employees' capabilities to unravel their followers by practicing transformational leadership behaviors to create a motivating working environment that leads to job satisfaction.

Table 1 .
Demographic profile of respondents

Table 3 .
Discriminant validity (HTMT) ance in JS, which is regarded as moderate based on the rule of thumb.The rule of thumb concerning a suitable R 2 varies across different disciplines; producing values of 0.75, 0.5, 0.25, respectively, which refer to substantial, moderate, or weak levels of predictive accuracy

Table 5 .
Mediation hypothesis testing