When Is Empowerment Effective? The Role of Leader-Leader Exchange in Empowering Leadership, Cynicism, and Time Theft

Abstract

Applying arguments from social exchange theory, we theoretically derive and empirically test a multilevel model that informs theory on leadership, cynicism, and deviant withdrawal. Namely, we examine the moderating effect of the upward exchange relationship of a leader on empowering leadership behaviors as they affect subordinate psychological empowerment, cynicism, and time theft. In a sample of 161 employees across 37 direct supervisors, empowering leadership was associated with reduced employee cynicism both directly and indirectly through employee psychological empowerment. The positive relationship between empowering leadership and employee psychological empowerment, however, was significant only when the leader enjoyed a high-quality relationship with his or her own boss. In turn, cynicism was associated with increased time theft, suggesting that employees may reciprocate frustrating experiences by withdrawing in minor, yet impactful and deviant, ways in efforts to balance their exchange with the organization.

Linking Tolerance to Workplace Incivility, Service Innovative, Knowledge Hiding, and Job Search Behavior: The Mediating Role of Employee Cynicism

“…Cynics may feel that hiding knowledge can harm the progress of the perpetrators and the organization and that leaving the job can be a way of escaping the ordeals of incivilities in their workplace. In line with our findings, research has shown that cynics reciprocate frustrating experiences by withdrawing in minor, yet impactful and deviant, ways in efforts to balance their exchange with the organization (Abubakar et al., ; Cortina et al., ; Lorinkova & Perry, ).…”

The role of reward omission in empowering leadership and employee outcomes: A moderated mediation model

“…Together, empowering leadership and the increasingly flat structure of organisations allow more autonomy and facilitate the flow of communication. In line with this, various desirable outcomes of empowering leadership, such as job satisfaction, employee performance, creativity, and extra‐role behaviours, have been identified in previous empirical studies (Amundsen & Martinsen, ; Auh, Menguc, & Jung, ; Lorinkova & Perry, ; Srivastava, Bartol, & Locke, ; Zhang & Bartol, ).…”

“…Empowering leadership is a leadership style in which leaders share power by encouraging subordinates to express their ideas. This enhances subordinates' autonomy and investment in their work and also involves subordinates in decision‐making, information sharing, and teamwork (Chen et al, ; Chen et al, ; Lorinkova & Perry, ). Previous work has suggested that empowering leadership increases subordinates' intrinsic motivation (Zhang & Bartol, ).…”

“…For example, Sharma and Kirkman's () literature review noted that studies of empowering leadership have largely emphasised its bright side. However, empowering leadership is not necessarily positive; instead, it depends on a set of boundary conditions (Humborstad, Nerstad, & Dysvik, ; Lorinkova & Perry, ; Martin, Liao, & Campbell, ). Only a few studies have addressed the boundary conditions of empowering leadership, and these studies mainly focused on the contextual variables such as organisational support climate and relationship quality (Li et al, ; Lorinkova & Pery).…”

Actions speak louder than words: Outsiders’ perceptions of diversity mixed messages.

“…tation (MacLean, Litzky, & Holderness, 2015;Palanski & Yammarino, 2011), and that broken promises lead to distrust, anger, and cynicism (Chiaburu, Peng, Oh, Banks, & Lomeli, 2013;Lorinkova & Perry, 2014). Taken together, we expect that a gender diversity mixed message will negatively influence the perceived behavioral integrity of an organization and in turn its attractiveness.…”