Development and Validation of the School Leader Empowering Behaviours (SLEB) Scale

Teachers’ perceptions of school leaders’ empowering behaviours and psychological empowerment

“…On the other hand, from a review of empowerment research in educational organisations, it is found that empowering school leaders are generally more capable of fostering work conditions which could enhance teachers’ psychological empowerment and their subsequent work outcomes (Blase and Blase, 1997; Davis and Wilson, 2000; Lee and Nie, 2013; Rinehart et al, 1998). However, given that most of the existing empirical studies have often used a composite scale of empowering leadership (Davis and Wilson, 2000; Vecchio et al, 2010), our understanding of the relationships between specific dimensions of school leaders’ empowering behaviours and teachers’ psychological empowerment tends to be limited.…”

“…More recently, Lee and Nie (2013) identified seven dimensions of school leaders’ empowering behaviours in their development and validation of the ‘School Leader Empowering Behaviours’ (SLEB) scale based on an extensive review of empirical studies across diverse work settings. The seven dimensions of the SLEB scale include: (1) delegation of authority; (2) providing intellectual stimulation; (3) giving acknowledgement and recognition; (4) articulating a vision; (5) fostering collaborative relationships; (6) providing individualised concern and support; and (7) providing role-modelling.…”

“…Appendix 1 presents the definitions of the seven dimensions of the SLEB scale. In their validation of the predictive power of the SLEB dimensions in relation to Spreitzer’s (1995) four-factor psychological empowerment scale using a sample of Singapore teachers, Lee and Nie (2013) demonstrated that teachers’ perceptions of principal’s and immediate supervisor’s empowering behaviours in terms of these seven dimensions were positively correlated with each of the four dimensions of teachers’ psychological empowerment (i.e. meaning, competence, autonomy, impact).…”

“…The growing interest in adopting teacher empowerment as a school management strategy has prompted scholars and practitioners to look more closely into how school leaders may empower teachers more effectively (e.g. Blase and Blase, 1996, 1997; Giba, 1998; Lee and Nie, 2013; Muijs and Harris, 2003; Short, 1994; Short and Greer, 1997; Vecchio et al, 2010; Wan, 2005; Yu et al, 2002). Generally, empowering school leaders are observed to be more capable in creating work conditions which could enhance teachers’ psychological empowerment, which in turn could result in teachers being more intrinsically motivated and professionally committed to their work roles (Bogler and Somech, 2004; Davis and Wilson, 2000; Marks and Louis, 1997; Sagnak, 2012; Simkins, 2005; Sweetland and Hoy, 2000; Vecchio et al, 2010; Wohlstetter, 1995).…”

“…Despite the call for developing school leaders’ capacity in exercising empowering leadership practices to facilitate teacher empowerment, it is, however, observed that previous research has tended to focus predominantly on the empowering behaviours of the principal at the top level of management to the extent that the empowering behaviours of teachers’ immediate supervisor (i.e. head of department) at the middle-management level have often been neglected (Blase and Blase, 1997; Davis and Wilson, 2000; Lee and Nie, 2013; Short and Rinehart, 1992). As a result, it is uncertain whether there would exist differences in teachers’ perceptions towards their principal’s and immediate supervisor’s empowering behaviours and how they may in turn affect teachers’ psychological empowerment at work.…”