Empowering leadership and job performance: mediating role of psychological empowerment

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to check the effects of empowering leadership on job performance of employees through the mediation of psychological empowerment.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data were gathered from 418 Indian banking employees. Statistical techniques like factor analysis, multiple regressions and bootstrapping via PROCESS were used to analyze the data.FindingsInitially, the results of multiple regression analysis revealed that empowering leadership behaviors have positive influence on psychological empowerment and job performance of subordinates. Further, bootstrap analysis revealed that the individual dimensions of psychological empowerment serially mediate the effects of empowering leadership behaviors on subordinates’ job performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study indicates that the empowering leadership style is not applicable to Western culture only, but it is also very effective in high power distance cultures like of India. The major limitation of the study is that the data have been gathered from a single source. This may lead to common method variance.Practical implicationsIn banking context, empowering leadership can improve the performance of employees by means of psychological empowerment. Training should be provided to organizational leaders in banks with special focus on facilitating the empowering behaviors among them.Originality/valueThe research studies on measuring the effects of empowering leadership on job performance through mediation of psychological empowerment are very limited.