Leader Empowering Behaviour: The Leader's Perspective

Leader empowering behaviour is an important criterion for leadership effectiveness. However, virtually no research has studied the antecedents of leader empowering behaviour. Therefore, to further our understanding of leadership effectiveness, we need to understand what motivates leaders to behave in certain ways. In two studies, we show how leaders' trust in follower performance and integrity influences leader empowering behaviour, and how this effect is moderated by leader conscientiousness. Study 1 showed that leader empowering behaviour depends not only on the trust leaders have in follower performance and integrity but also on the conscientiousness level of the leader. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings within a different experimental paradigm. We discuss how these findings set the stage for the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the drivers of this important aspect of leadership.