How Transformational Leadership Drives Food Security Performance In The Public Sectors? A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Performance on food security in public sector–dominated food systems is uneven, implying that governance and leadership are key drivers beyond economic and technical aspects. This research provides a systematic review of evidence on the relationship between transformational leadership and performance in public sector wrought food security. Under PRISMA 2020 recommendations, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was performed using 58 peer-reviewed journal articles from 2015 to 2025, and indexed on Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. These results suggest that transformational leadership impacts on food security performance via organisational learning, policy innovation, inter-agency cooperation, public service motivation and accountability. Yet the relationship is heavily conditional upon context, such as institutional capacity, quality of governance and decentralisation or socio-political circumstance. By linking public leadership theory and food system governance literature, we contribute to a fuller understanding of leadership influenced performance in public food systems with important implications for future research and policy.