Abstract
There are conflicting views about the consequence of empowering leadership. To further explain the inconsistencies in existing studies, our study bases on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress and the transactional model of stress, discussing the indirect effect of employee’s stressor appraisal to empowering leadership (as challenge stressors or hindrance stressors) between empowering leadership and employee’s behaviors (citizenship and incivility), and the regulatory effect of employee’s proactive personality. It reveals the double-edged sword effect of empowering leadership. In our study, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 234 employees as samples and the collected data were statistically analyzed. The results show that empowering leadership positively affects employees’ citizenship through the challenge stressors, and positively affects employees’ incivility through the hindrance stressors. Moreover, the relationship between empowering leadership and challenge stressors will be stronger when employees’ proactive personality was high. And the relationship between empowering leadership and hindrance stressors will be stronger when employees’ proactive personality was low. Finally, implications for theory and research are provided.
Highlights
The results show that empowering leadership positively affects employees’ citizenship through the challenge stressors, and positively affects employees’ incivility through the hindrance stressors
Many studies have supported the positive effects of empowering leadership, recent studies have found that empowering leadership may lead to potential negative effects, with adverse effects on employees and organizations (Humborstad & Kuvaas, 2013; Li, Chiaburu, & Kirkman, 2017)
Analyzing the influence boundary of empowering leaders from the perspective of proactive personality may be an important breach to further clarify the relationship between empowering leaders and citizenship and incivility, which is one of the focuses of this paper. Drawing from these all, we propose that empowering leadership represents a unique and dynamic stressor
Summary
Leaders expect to improve employees’ self-management and self-leadership abilities through authorization. A large number of studies have shown that by giving employees the power and opportunity to participate in decision-making, empowered leaders can stimulate the intrinsic motivation of employees and improve their positive work attitudes and behaviors. According to Martin, Liao, and Campbell (2013), the self-leadership and self-management advocated by the empowering leaders have virtually increased the environmental uncertainty and role ambiguity of employees, which will lead to the reduction of individual work efficiency. Hao et al (2018) found that since empowering leaders reinforce employees’ perceived leadership expectations, employees need to work hard to prove their value, which leads to controlled work emotions and further reduces employee performance The research of Cheong, Spain, Yammarino, and Yun (2016) proves that the authorization of leaders objectively increases the workload of subordinates, which causes the work stress of subordinates and leads to the decline of their work performance. Hao et al (2018) found that since empowering leaders reinforce employees’ perceived leadership expectations, employees need to work hard to prove their value, which leads to controlled work emotions and further reduces employee performance
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