Empowering leadership and job performance: mediating role of psychological empowerment

Abstract

Purpose

The 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/approach

Primary 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.

Findings

Initially, 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/implications

The 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 implications

In 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/value

The research studies on measuring the effects of empowering leadership on job performance through mediation of psychological empowerment are very limited.

Citation

Kundu, S.C., Kumar, S. and Gahlawat, N. (2019), "Empowering leadership and job performance: mediating role of psychological empowerment", Management Research Review, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 605-624. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-04-2018-0183