Integrating conservation of resources and social identity theory, this study examines how leader and follower team identification jointly moderate the relationship between transformational leadership behavior and leaders’ own well-being. Analyzing multilevel and multisource data from 43 leaders and their 212 followers collected in a daily diary study, we found that transformational leadership was positively related to leader work engagement and negatively related to leader emotional irritation. High follower team identification strengthened the negative relationship between transformational leadership and leader emotional irritation. The cross-level interaction of leader team identification was not supported. These findings provide a deeper understanding of transformational leadership behavior as a leader’s resource investment. The role of team identification in terms of leader–follower reciprocity expectations and its implications for leadership development are discussed.

This article is published in the Journal "Psychology of Leaders and Leadership" (2025).