Employee Responses to Empowering Leadership: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

A recent and growing number of studies examined how empowering leadership influences employee outcomes. At the individual level, we meta-analyzed 55 independent samples to determine the association between empowering leader behaviors and subordinates' responses. Results confirmed the positive links of empowering leadership with evaluations of the leader as well as with employee motivation and resources, attitudes, and performance; the strongest correlation was between empowering leadership and attitudes towards the leader (ρ = .59), whereas the weakest correlation was for empowering leadership with behavioral and performance outcomes (ρ = .31). However, the relationship of empowering leadership with subordinates' emotions was not significant. Examination of potential moderators, including rating sources, nationality of sample, gender, and industry, did not explain much of the heterogeneity in the results. In sum, findings highlight the potential benefit of empowering leadership for individual and organizational outcomes. Thus, more knowledge about what causes empowering leadership could be useful.

Development and validation of Nurse Managers’ Empowering Behavioral Scale for staff nurses

“…Further, we could test the criterion‐related validity of the relationships between NMEB‐SN and external criteria. The strength of the correlation coefficient between the finalized NMEB‐SN and each external criterion was almost the same as the results based on previous meta‐analysis of EL (Kim et al, ). According to Kim et al (), the 80% credibility interval, a result of meta‐analysing EL and each external criterion, was as follows: 0.39–0.79 for LMX, 0.32–0.60 for psychological empowerment, 0.30–0.51 for commitment (organizational, affective and career), 0.19–0.71 for work engagement, 0.37–0.50 for job satisfaction and 0.25–0.32 for withdrawal (turnover intention, intent to quit, intent to stay and absenteeism).…”

“…EL and LMX are similar as both mention the leader–member relationship. Although LMX does not necessarily imply the sharing of power among leaders and members, EL demonstrates behaviours that share power among them (Kim, Beehr, & Prewett, ; Lee et al, ; Sharma & Kirkman, ).…”

Empowering leadership and meaningful work: the mediating role of learning goal orientation

“…This interpretation corresponds with previous studies that found positive effects of empowering leadership on employees’ autonomous motivation (Hon, ), psychological empowerment (Li et al , ) and proactive behaviors (Martin et al , ). Although Kim et al () have already reported the positive relationship between empowering leadership and learning goal orientation, the present research contributes to the existing literature by revealing a mediating effect of learning goal orientation on the relationship between empowering leadership and meaningful work.…”

“…Such effects may have resulted from the autonomy support of empowering leadership involving the encouragement of initiative and enhancement of efficacy (Amundsen & Martinsen, ), which may contribute to self‐regulation and intrinsic motivation to learn. Using a meta‐analysis, Kim et al () showed that empowering leadership was positively related to goal orientation. Based on these findings, the following hypothesis was proposed.…”

Empowering Leadership, Risk-Taking Behavior, and Employees’ Commitment to Organizational Change: The Mediated Moderating Role of Task Complexity

“…Empowering leadership delegates authority and autonomy to employees, allowing them to work with confidence, value their contributions, and make their work more meaningful [19]. Through participative decision-making of empowering leadership [45], employees gain a sense of control over their performance and feel psychological empowerment [19], which can increase organizational commitment [33,46]. Psychological empowerment is an important factor in organizational change, as it allows employees to have control over their work and influence the process of organizational change [33,47].…”