Human-Centric Leadership and Organizational Resilience in Malaysia’s Insurance Sector - Post-Pandemic Insights

HRMARS - Purpose: This study examines how transformational leadership fostered organizational resilience in the Malaysian insurance industry during the post-pandemic period, with a specific focus on solidarity and caring as central organizational discourses shaping employees lived experiences of uncertainty. Methodology: A qualitative research design was adopted using deductive thematic analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six middle- to senior-level insurance professionals across life, general, and takaful segments. Data were analysed through the theoretical lenses of transformational leadership, organizational resilience, and discourse theory to capture meaning-making processes and affective organizational practices. Findings: The findings reveal three dominant themes: adaptive transformational leadership in crisis, solidarity as a collective resilience mechanism, and caring as an embedded organizational value. Transformational leadership fostered resilience indirectly by activating solidarity and caring, which translated leadership behaviours into shared meanings, trust, psychological safety, and coordinated action during prolonged disruption. Implications: The study highlights the importance of embedding solidarity and caring into leadership practice and organizational routines to sustain resilience beyond crisis response. For practitioners, the findings underscore the strategic value of human-centric leadership in high-trust service industries such as insurance. Originality: This study advances resilience and leadership literature by theorizing solidarity and caring as mediating, discursively constructed mechanisms linking transformational leadership to organizational resilience within a Malaysian, collectivist context.