Research pick: Cosmetics industry employees get more than lippy - "Empowering performance through engagement: the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationship between transformational leadership, self-directed learning, and employee performance in the cosmetics industry"

At first blush, Indonesia’s cosmetics sector is growing fast, and local brands must put down foundations to help them face a two-tone challenge: rising consumer demand and increased imports from around the world. Work in the International Journal of Business Innovation and Research does not gloss over the details and suggests that the key to maintaining face lies less in specific product lines but more in the workplace itself. The findings show that leadership style and employee learning practices influence performance through engagement.

The researchers carried out a case study of a leading cosmetics company in Indonesia. They examined how transformational leadership and self-directed learning can shape employee outcomes. Transformational leadership inspires employees to exceed expectations by promoting innovation, articulating ambitious visions, and offering individualized support. The researchers frame idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration in their analysis.

The team found that at this particular company executives foster intellectual stimulation and visionary thinking, encouraging employees to think creatively and embrace ambitious goals, and this works well for this company as it might for others.

The work also shows that by complementing leadership efforts with self-directed learning, employees can take control of their professional development. This company has a “learning wallet” program that provides financial support for courses, certifications, and reading materials that are selected by the employees themselves to support them in their work. This initiative taps into a growing appetite for continued professional development and learning in an industry itself defined by rapid innovation and ever-changing consumer demands.

The bottom line is that cultivating transformational leadership and promoting self-directed learning should be part of an integrated engagement strategy to allow companies to align leadership, learning, and engagement and so motivate their workforce to better fulfil the company’s objectives. The implementation of such efforts are more than cosmetic, as it were.

Suhartini, H. and Sary, F.P. (2025) ‘Empowering performance through engagement: the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationship between transformational leadership, self-directed learning, and employee performance in the cosmetics industry’, Int. J. Business Innovation and Research, Vol. 37, No. 7, pp.1–22.