Psychological Empowerment as a Mediator Between Teachers’ Perceptions of Authentic Leadership and Their Withdrawal and Citizenship Behaviors

Abstract

Purpose: This study explores the mediating role of psychological empowerment on authentic leadership, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), and a variety of withdrawal behaviors among teachers, using the psychological model of perceptions-attitudes-behaviors. Research Design: A total of 366 teachers from 23 randomly selected Israeli schools participated in the study. The research combined self-reports and school records taken at regular time intervals regarding three withdrawal behaviors: lateness, absenteeism, and intent to leave. The model for the hierarchical data (teachers within schools) that included latent as well as manifest variables was analyzed using the Mplus statistical package applying to multilevel analysis. Findings: “Impact,” a dimension of psychological empowerment, was found to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and OCB, whereas “self-determination, meaning, and competence,” the other dimension of psychological empowerment, was found to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and absence frequency. No mediating relationship was found for psychological empowerment on authentic leadership and the other withdrawal behaviors of lateness and intent to leave. Research Implications: The present study improves the Ajzen and Fishbein model. While most previous withdrawal behavior studies focused on a single dimension of withdrawal behaviors and did not consider OCB, the present study presents an integrative framework, focusing on the mediating role of psychological empowerment as a consistent link between authentic leadership and a spectrum of teachers’ withdrawal behaviors and OCB. Practical Implications: These findings should encourage principals to promote high standards of authentic leadership to empower their teachers, increase OCB, and reduce absenteeism among teachers.

Psychological Empowerment, Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment Among Lecturers in Higher Education: Comparison of Six CEE Countries

“…Empowerment is one of the key factors of organization's success (Jose & Mampilly, 2014). Empowerment can be defined as individual's internal (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014) or external process of feeling empowered (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014;Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). It is also considered as act of empowering others (Menon, 2001).…”

“…Psychological empowerment is a new ap¬proach of motivating and has gained great attention from managers (Edalatian Shahriari, Maleki, Koolivand & Meyvand, 2013); for this reasons, there are numerous definitions of this construct (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014). Conger, Kanungo and Menon (2000) defined psychological empowerment as a motivation and as a process of individuals' perception of their own effectiveness in comparison to the other members in organization, together with a help of formal and informal procedures and techniques for encouraging effectiveness.…”

“…Employees perceive meaning of work as intrinsic concern for specific job (Amenumey & Lockwood, 2008) and they believe that is one of three critical psychological states of intrinsic motivation (Hackman & Oldham, 1975). In teaching, meaning refers to professional relations, respect and comprehension from other lecturers, which are given based on their knowledge and capabilities (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014). Three main assignments of lecturers are teaching, researching and helping students (Lawrence, Ott & Bell, 2012;Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2013;Kelli, Adamsoo, Mets, Jonsson & Pisuke, 2013), but every lecturer develops their unique style of doing them (Hirsto, Lampinen & Syrjäkari, 2013).…”

“…Those individuals would be more initiative, persistence, and would show greater effort to deal with difficult situations (Bandura, 1977). In teaching, competence refers to ability of lecturers of their own capabilities to develop adequate teaching plan in to help students (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014). Their perception of self-efficacy is a key factor for reaching academic goals (El-Sayed, El-Zeiny & Adeyemo, 2014).…”

Psikolojik Güçlendirme, Liderlik Uyumu ve Öğretmen Performansı İlişkisinde Örgütsel Bağlılığın Aracı Rolü

“…Okullarda liderlik süreçleri ile psikolojik güçlendirme arasındaki ilişki ise önceki çalışmalarda belirlenmiştir (Ali ve Yangaiya, 2015;Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014). Ayrıca psikolojik güçlendirmenin performans üzerinde etkiye sahip olduğu da bazı araştırmalarda gözlenmiştir (Chiang ve Hsieh, 2012;Takdaz, Shaabani, Kheyri ve Rahemipoor, 2012).…”