School leadership, teacher’s psychological empowerment and work-related outcomes

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of teacher’s psychological empowerment between school leadership style and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Design/methodology/approach A total of 711 teachers from 31 Estonian schools were surveyed with a questionnaire measuring four dimensions of psychological empowerment (competence, meaning, self-determination and impact), school leadership characteristics (leadership style, leader’s empowering behavior and trust in leader) and teacher’s work-related outcomes (job satisfaction and workplace attachment). AMOS path analysis was used to investigate the direct and indirect relations between the teachers’ perceptions of school leadership, their psychological empowerment and their workplace attachment and job satisfaction. Findings This study found that psychological empowerment (subscales meaning and impact) mediates the relationship between perceived leadership empowerment behavior and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Also, the psychological empowerment (meaning and impact) mediates the relationship between perceived leadership style and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Trust in the principal has direct and indirect effect (through psychological empowerment) on job satisfaction, whereas there only seems to be indirect effect on workplace attachment through two components of psychological empowerment. Practical implications The mediating role of psychological empowerment includes an important message for school principals – in order to empower employees it is not sufficient to merely delegate formal power and decision-making rights. To facilitate the development of psychological empowerment, it is important to provide employees with an opportunity to experience agency, to experience that their voice and opinions are taken into account (perceived impact) and the purpose and targets of the whole organization are discussed with the employees and formulated in collaboration with them (perceived meaning). Originality/value Psychological empowerment as a mediating variable has not been widely researched, especially in school environment. The results will provide important signals for school principals, where and how to find leverage to improve teachers’ job satisfaction and workplace attachment.

Relationship between Empowering Leadership and Teachers’ Job Performance: Organizational Commitment as Mediator

“…A school environment in which the principal delegates authority and responsibility, enables teachers to participate in decisions, effectively shares information with the teacher, enables them to develop their professional skills, and coaches for innovative performance, can contribute to the teachers' adoption of the values and goals of the school and continue her/his career in school. Teacher empowerment will increase the school's effectiveness and the attractiveness of the school as an organization to work for (Kõiv et al, 2019). Additionally, it is stated that teachers who are empowered to take the initiative and responsibility related to their duties by school principals will have higher professional satisfaction through self-realization (Boonyarit et al, 2010), which can contribute to the commitment to the school as an organization.…”

The Role of EFL/ESL Teachers’ Psychological Empowerment and Optimism on Their Job Commitment

“…It is both a process and an outcome that can occur at individual, organizational, and community levels (Li, 2016). PE is an essential factor in determining many work-related outcomes that increases the level of motivation, agency, and self-determination in doing tasks and duties at work (Chan et al, 2015;Kõiv et al, 2019). PE is related to the motivational aspects of work or employee's intrinsic motivation to work or behave with agency, confidence, and authority (Singh and Kaur, 2019).…”

“…To compensate for the inadequacies in supporting teachers and their services, in the past decades effective attempts have been made to understand and consider EFL/ESL teachers' psychological and emotional health (Khany and Tazik, 2015). An insightful way is psychologically empowering the teachers by giving them an opportunity to autonomously make decisions, practice, behave, and fulfill duties in the classroom (Ford and Fottler, 1995;Kõiv et al, 2019). The concept of psychological empowerment (PE) is rooted in business, yet explained and used in education with the seminal work of Bandura (1997) on self-efficacy theory.…”

Linking structural empowerment and distributive justice to employee's behavioral and attitudinal consequences: Testing the mediating role of psychological empowerment

“…Kanter's (1977) original six dimensions of structural empowerment has been studied extensively as distinctive and distinguishes the source of organizational power which leads to empowerment of employees (Laschinger, Almost, & Tuer, 2003; Laschinger & Finegan, 2005b; Laschinger, Finegan, & Shamian, 2001b; Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, & Almost, 2001; Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, & Wilk, 2003, 2001; Miller, Goddard, & Laschinger, 2000). Different studies have also associated structural empowerment and psychological empowerment with various behavioral and attitudinal consequences, such as job satisfaction (Casey, Saunders, & O'hara, 2010; Kõiv, Liik, & Heidmets, 2019; Schermuly, Schermuly, & Meyer, 2011), career satisfaction (Kong, Sun, & Yan, 2016), organizational commitment (Jha, 2011; Limpanitgul, Boonchoo, Kulviseachana, & Photiyarach, 2017; Raub & Robert, 2013), employee turnover intensions (Albrecht & Andreetta, 2011; Shah, Khattak, Zolin, & Shah, 2019), organizational citizenship behavior (Singh, Chand, Mittal, & Aggarwal, 2020; Singh and Singh 2019; Joo & Jo, 2017), lower levels of job strain, emotional exhaustion and job burnout (Ayala Calvo & García, 2018; Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, & Wilk, 2001; Zhang, Ye, & Li, 2018). Empirical findings of the prior research depicted that employee's feel more empowered when employees participated in the decision‐making process (Kutzscher, 1994; Laschinger, Wong, McMahon, & Kaufmann, 1999), perceived control over nursing practice (Huffman, 1995; Laschinger et al, 1999; Laschinger & Havens, 1996) and job autonomy (Laschinger et al, 1999; Sabiston & Laschinger, 1995) which ultimately leads to innovative behavior at work (Helmy, Adawiyah, & Banani, 2019; Knol & Van Linge, 2009; Singh & Sarkar, 2019).…”