Never Too Much? The Curvilinear Relationship Between Empowering Leadership and Task Performance

Although empowering leadership is generally considered to be a desirable leadership approach, its effectiveness has been questioned and the response is mixed. Integrating the “Too-Much-of-a-Good-Thing” effect and dual task processing, this study examines the relationship between empowering leadershi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Group & organization management 2017-02, Vol.42 (1), p.11-38
Main Authors: Lee, Soojin, Cheong, Minyoung, Kim, Myungsun, Yun, Seokhwa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Employee management relations
Empowerment
Leadership
Learning
Task analysis
Task performance
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Although empowering leadership is generally considered to be a desirable leadership approach, its effectiveness has been questioned and the response is mixed. Integrating the “Too-Much-of-a-Good-Thing” effect and dual task processing, this study examines the relationship between empowering leadership and task performance. Specifically, we suggest a curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and employee task performance. Further, applying a leadership contingency perspective, we propose that the curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and employee task performance is moderated by employee learning orientation. Using survey data from 137 supervisor–subordinate dyads, our results show that the inverted U-shaped relationship between empowering leadership and employee task performance is moderated by employee learning orientation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
ISSN:1059-6011
1552-3993
DOI:10.1177/1059601116646474