The Human Factor in Green Transformation: The Impact of Empowering Leadership, Green Passion and Customer Pressure

Sustainability, which has gained importance in modern businesses, is crucial for enhancing employees’ environmental awareness and creativity. The banking sector, a branch of the finance sector, also pays attention to raising its personnel’s ecological awareness and innovative skills to promote the sector’s sustainability. This study examines the mediating roles of empowering leadership, green passion and customer pressure in influencing the green creative behavior of bank personnel. Within the scope of the study, an online survey was administered to 403 bank personnel working in Balıkesir Province and Bandırma District, using the convenience sampling method. Partial Least Squares (PLS) based Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the study’s data. In the study, it was found that empowering leadership has a significant impact on the green creative behavior of bank personnel and this effect is partially mediated by green passion and customer pressure. This situation reveals that environmental creativity is a phenomenon that is sensitive to both leadership approaches and individual motivation elements, as well as external environmental dynamics, in the organizational context.