Today, organizations are facing challenging changes in pursuance of becoming more competitive. The theoretical background reveals that leadership is a necessary variable in the work context, since it motivates and guides followers to share knowledge in order to carry out activities that have a significant impact on organizational performance and success. Therefore, the aim of this work was to analyze the impact of transformational leadership on operational performance by means of the mediation of knowledge transfer. The study used a non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive and causal correlational quantitative design. The sample was non-probabilistic by convenience, considering middle managers working in the automotive industry in the northern border of Mexico as study subjects; a total of 300 participants were surveyed. Descriptive data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical tool, while inferential statistics were analyzed through the structural equation modeling tool, using the estimation of partial least squares (PLS). The results reveal that transformational leadership has a positive and significant effect on knowledge transfer and operational performance, at a 99.9% trust level.
