Background
The manner of managing employees’ behaviours can substantially affect their performance. People-oriented leadership styles are considered preferable in this regard because such of their qualities as empathy and accountability are believed to result in workers’ trust towards managers, better engagement in work, higher quality of service, and other positive outcomes (Krog & Govender, 2015; Krishnan, 2012; Su, Cheng, & Wen, 2019).
The way through which employee-oriented leadership allows achieving favourable impacts on performance is linked to the establishment of supportive workplace environments and climates that empower subordinates psychologically, personally, and professionally. It means that empowerment plays a crucial role in forming positive relationships between organisations and workers and in motivating them to adopt behaviours that would benefit their companies. Therefore, the investigation of leadership styles’ direct influences on empowerment and the mediating effects of empowerment on different aspects of employee outcomes is of significant importance. Research on this topic may help to improve employees’ well-being and overall organisational productivity.
Question
To comprehend whether people-oriented leadership styles indeed can promote employee empowerment, the review of literature on this subject was conducted by using the Critically Appraised Topic (CAT) framework. The questions that the project aimed to answer were as follows: What does the available research evidence demonstrate about the effects of leadership on employee performance and empowerment? Can empowerment, when promoted through the application of supportive leadership styles, impact employee performance positively? Overall, these questions do not refer to any specific industry or population of workers and can be used to research leadership and employee behaviours across various organisational contexts. General characteristics of the studies that would help to research the identified problem are defined by utilising the PICOC model:
Inclusion Criteria
The inclusion criteria for this CAT project are as follows:
- Date: published between 2000 and 2019,
- Language: studies in English
- Types of research: empirical studies, quantitative studies, peer-reviewed articles published in Q1 and Q2 journals
- Study designs: meta-analyses, systematic reviews, randomised controlled studies (RCTs), cross-sectional studies
- Measurement: studies in which the effects of leadership on employee empowerment and performance are explored
- Outcome: positive impacts on employee empowerment, well-being, and performance or lack of thereof
- Context: organisational environment across different sectors of performance
No exclusion criteria were identified.
Search Strategy
The search of sources was carried out through such databases as ProQuest, Science Direct and Google Scholar. The search filters that were applied include
- Scholarly journals with peer-reviewed articles
- Publication date between 2000 and 2019
- Articles in English
The following key search terms were used to locate the necessary sources: leadership style, management style, and employee empowerment. The combinations of keywords for every search step are described below.
Study Selection
The selection process at each of the used databases was divided into several phases. At ProQuest, abstract in every source identified by using the first pair of keywords was screened to evaluate their relevance to the problem of interest. In this way, only 2 sources were selected as a result of the first search attempt. To find more articles, the set of key terms was modified and, consequently, more sources were located at the same database. In the same way, abstracts of every item in the list were read through, and it was possible to select 5 more papers.
The same more successful pair of keywords was utilised during the search at Science Direct, which allowed detecting 20 sources. After abstracts were reviewed, 3 relevant cross-sectional studies were chosen. Lastly, the search was conducted at Google Scholar, but since the number of identified sources was too large, it was impossible to check all of them. To locate another 5 relevant articles, summaries in only a few dozens of the articles were read through until the necessary size of the sample was reached. Besides cross-sectional studies, the search at Google Scholar allowed finding the only meta-analysis available on the topic.
Data Extraction
Critical Appraisal
The overall quality and internal validity of 13 studies in the sample was rated as high. Among two studies with a limited level of trustworthiness, one was a meta-analysis study. It could be considered a high-quality source but since the researchers included sources that were not peer-reviewed and did not provide information about the degree of their rigorousness, its overall trustworthiness was reduced. Another study with limited quality of evidence was a cross-sectional study that failed to provide empirical evidence on links between leadership styles and empowerment and assessed their impacts on employee commitment separately. Although both of these studies showed had large effects, they are less desirable in terms of making conclusions on the matter of interest.
Only six of the selected studies were characterised by both a high level of trustworthiness and large effects. However, all of them were cross-sectional studies and this research design makes it difficult to see causal links between variables. Even though results published in these articles showed that leadership styles are correlated with employee empowerment and performance outcomes, their quality can be viewed as moderate. Besides, the other six cross-sectional studies had a medium effect and another one had small, which makes their significance in this CAT even lower. However, it is worth noting that no RCTs or systematic reviews were detected at any of the databases because research in these designs on the selected topic is scarce.
Results
Definitions
This CAT project did not focus on the investigation of only one leadership style but aimed to evaluate potential favourable impacts of various approaches to management characterised by high degrees of employee support and consideration. Among the most important leadership styles identified in the studies was transformational leadership that comprises such elements as inspirational motivation, idealised influence, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation (Quintana, Park, & Cabrera, 2014).
The first component refers to leaders’ abilities to convey their visions to employees and inspire them to act, the second implies that leaders behave in an exemplary way, and the third – that they understand workers’ individual needs and strive to satisfy them (Quintana, Park, & Cabrera, 2014). Lastly, intellectual stimulation means that leaders challenge their subordinates and provide them with opportunities to think up solutions to different work-related tasks independently (Quintana, Park, & Cabrera, 2014).
Similarly, ethical and servant leadership styles share some of the features of the transformational approach because they involve managers’ behaviours aimed to provide employees with support, positive workplace climate, autonomy, and necessary resources to perform their work well.
In contrast, transactional leadership is associated with a greater degree of control over employees and focus on the accomplishment of tasks more than on people employed in an organisation. Therefore, it was argued at the beginning of the project that this and other less people-oriented management approaches do not promote employee empowerment. This concept means that every worker in an organisation is given power in terms of task completion and decision making (Men & Stacks, 2012).
The review of the literature identified two core components of empowerment: the structural and the psychological. The first one implies that internal workplace structure allows employees to behave independently and all the necessary resources are provided to support them in this. As for psychological empowerment, it refers to positive perceptions of own competence and abilities and the motivation to perform tasks.
Causal Mechanism
Considering the identified features of supportive leadership styles, they are considered to impact employee empowerment directly. For instance, in a causal mechanism identified by Murari and Gupta (2012), such leadership activities as empathy, people development, and community-building result in greater opportunities for self-development, open communication, and autonomy, which can be viewed as key aspects of empowerment.
By providing more power to workers, leaders increase their self-efficacy, job involvement, commitment, and productivity (Murari & Gupta, 2012). However, Amor, Vázquez, and FaĂña (2019) note that leadership may affect employee outcomes not only through empowerment but directly as well. Thus, leadership styles may have a double effect on workers.
Main Findings
Leadership styles characterised by a high degree of accountability and care for workers result in greater employee empowerment (D)
The majority of appraised studies with large effect revealed that the elements of leadership behaviour that target employees’ interests, needs, and preferences and attempt to provide them with supportive workplace environments directly result in higher empowerment (Su, Cheng, & Wen, 2019; Krishnan, 2012; Amor, Vázquez, & FaĂña, 2019; Choi et al., 2016). Many studies with medium and small effects (Nauman, Khan, & Ehsan, 2010; Joo, Lim, & Kim, 2016; Krog & Govender, 2015; Azbari, Akbari, & Chaijani, 2015; Murari & Gupta, 2012; Men & Stacks, 2013; Dust et al., 2018) came to the same results as well. However, the fact that the number of medium-effect studies exceeds the number of those with large effects makes the link between supportive leadership and empowerment probable but uncertain.
Supportive leadership styles result in improved employee outcomes (D)
The majority of studies with large effects found that people-oriented leadership styles indeed result in such favourable employee outcomes as job commitment, greater engagement, higher service quality, innovation, and so forth (Su, Cheng, & Wen, 2019; Krishnan, 2012; Amor, Vázquez, & FaĂña, 2019; Choi et al., 2016; Quintana, Park, & Cabrera, 2014). Similar findings were obtained in medium-effect research by Murari and Gupta (2012) who indicated that servant leadership is associated with greater organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and work engagement. Besides the meta-analysis by Kim, Beehr and Prewett (2018) revealed that empowering leadership is correlated with employees’ greater trust, perceived self-efficacy, and organisational commitment. The prevalence of the higher-quality evidence on this matter means that these findings are trustworthy.
High level of empowerment leads to improved employee outcomes (D)
Empowerment is found to result in such positive employee outcomes as improved self-efficacy, job satisfaction, work commitment and others in large-effect studies by Su, Cheng, and Wen (2019), Pentareddy and Suganthi (2015), Amor, Vázquez, and FaĂña (2019), and Choi et al. (2016) and in medium-effect studies by Nauman, Khan, and Ehsan (2010), Krog and Govender (2015), Dust et al. (2018), and Azbari, Akbari, and Chaijani (2015).
A less trustworthy study by Asiri et al. (2016) also revealed that empowerment-associated autonomy is a significant contributing factor to job commitment. Besides, by investigating the concept of empowering leadership, Kim, Beehr, and Prewett (2018) identified that empowerment (as a core component of leadership) affects employee behaviours and attitudes favourably. Considering the quality of all the studies, these findings may be viewed as moderately credible.
Conclusion
Overall, the results of the critical appraisal of literature support the initial assumption regarding the positive effects of people-oriented and supportive leadership styles on employee performance and attitudes, including work commitment and job satisfaction. The findings also make it clear that these approaches to leadership may indeed result in greater empowerment, which can directly impact positive employee outcomes as well. It means that empowerment may play a mediating role between leadership styles and workers’ performance.
Limitations
Firstly, the prevalence of cross-sectional studies in the sample is the primary limitation of this CAP. As such, this study design is merely descriptive and it does not allow establishing causal relationships between variables. In other words, although links between leadership and empowerment were observed, the reasons why certain leadership styles can promote empowerment were not verified empirically. Secondly, most of the studies utilised self-reports as main data collection instruments and, therefore, there was a significant risk of data bias because respondents’ answers were highly subjective. Thirdly, samples in the selected research projects mostly had very specific demographic, cultural, and professional characteristics, which could affect their generalisability. However, the fact that many of these studies attained similar results indicates that leadership behaviours tend to lead to similar employee outcomes across various populations and settings.
Implications and Recommendations
It is valid to conclude that employees’ good perceptions of their workplace, their sense of belonging to the organisation, and the overall approving attitudes to the work they do and to companies where they are employed are beneficial for the latter since positive and productive organisational behaviours help to reduce costs and maximise financial benefits. Thus, since people-oriented leadership styles can positively affect employee behaviours and attitudes, managers need to be more considerate of their subordinates’ interests and provide them with support in all possible regards.
More specifically, it can be recommended for leaders to focus on the promotion of employee empowerment because this concept itself has been associated with workers’ better outcomes. Such a focus may allow managers to address both structural and psychological domains of individual and organisational performance and modify the workplace environment in a way that provides subordinates with more power to act independently and improve their well-being.
References
Amor, A. M., Vázquez, J. P. A., & FaĂña, J. A. (2019). Transformational leadership and work engagement: Exploring the mediating role of structural empowerment. European Management Journal, 1-10.
Asiri, S. A., Rohrer, W. W., Al-Surimi, K., Da’ar, O. O., & Ahmed, A. (2016). The association of leadership styles and empowerment with nurses’ organizational commitment in an acute health care setting: A cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing, 15(38), 1-10.
Azbari, M. E., Akbari, M., & Chaijani, M. H. (2015). The effect of strategic leadership and empowerment on job satisfaction of the employees of Guilan University. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 4(4), 453-464.
Choi, S. L., Goh, C. F., Adam, M. B., & Tan, O. K. (2016). Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment. Human Resources for Health, 14(73), 1-14.
Dust, S. B., Resick, C. J., Margolis, J. A., Mawritz, M. B., & Greenbaum, R. L. (2018). Ethical leadership and employee success: Examining the roles of psychological empowerment and emotional exhaustion. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(5), 570-583.
Joo, B.-K., Lim, D. H., & Kim, S. (2016). Enhancing work engagement: The roles of psychological capital, authentic leadership, and work empowerment. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(8), 1117-1134.
Kim, M., Beehr, T. A., & Prewett, M. S. (2018). Employee responses to empowering leadership: A meta-analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 25(3), 257-276.
Krishnan, V. R. (2012). Transformational leadership and personal outcomes: Empowerment as mediator. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 33(6), 550-563.
Krog, C. L., & Govender, K. (2015). The relationship between servant leadership and employee empowerment, commitment, trust and innovative behaviour: A project management perspective. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 13(1), 1-12.
Men, L. R., & Stacks, D. W. (2013). The impact of leadership style and employee empowerment on perceived organizational reputation. Journal of Communication Management, 17(2), 171-192.
Murari, K., & Gupta, K. S. (2012). Impact of servant leadership on employee empowerment. Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management, 1(1), 28-37.
Nauman, S., Khan, A. M., & Ehsan, N. (2010). Patterns of empowerment and leadership style in project environment. International Journal of Project Management, 28(7), 638-649.
Pentareddy, S., & Suganthi, L. (2015). Building affective commitment through job characteristics, leadership and empowerment. Journal of Management & Organization, 21(3), 307-320.
Quintana, T. A., Park, S., & Cabrera, Y. A. (2014). Assessing the effects of leadership styles on employees’ outcomes in international luxury hotels. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(2), 469-489.
Su, F., Cheng, D., & Wen, S. (2019). Multilevel impacts of transformational leadership on service quality: Evidence from China. Frontiers in Psychology. Web.