The role of empowering leadership, safety culture and safety climate in the prediction of mindful organizing in an air traffic management company

Abstract

Mindful organizing is the collective capability of teams to anticipate, detect, and contain early signs of emerging problems, act proactively, and recover quickly if unexpected events and errors occur. The present study aimed to add to our currently limited understanding of antecedents of mindful organizing: empowering leadership, safety culture, and team safety climate. To do so, we tested a moderated mediation model using a sample of 73 Air Traffic Management company employees. The model evaluated whether safety climate mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and mindful organizing, and whether safety culture understanding as enacted value of safety moderates the effect of empowering leadership on team safety climate. The results showed that a strong safety climate was a significant predictor of mindful organizing. Moreover, empowering leadership influenced mindful organizing indirectly through its positive effect on the safety climate in a work unit. However, the moderating role of safety culture was not confirmed.