Effects of empowering leadership on followers’ work–family interface

Abstract

Drawing on the work–home resources model, this study examines how and why empowering leadership influences followers’ work–family conflict (WFC) and work–family positive spillover (WFPS). We focus on the mediating roles of leader–member exchange (LMX) and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) and the moderating role of followers’ political skills. The results from a two-wave field survey of 272 employees in a state-owned enterprise in China indicate that LMX mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and WFPS and that OBSE mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and WFC. Moreover, political skills strengthen the main effects of empowering leadership on LMX and OBSE and the mediating effect of LMX on the relationship between empowering leadership and WFPS. Our findings have theoretical and managerial implications and indicate new research directions for leadership and work–family issues.

Keywords:

• Empowering leadership
• leader–member exchange
• organization-based self-esteem
• political skill
• work–family conflict
• work–family positive spillover

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 2018 Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, USA. The authors would like to thank Andrew Timming and three reviewers for their helpful comments on early drafts of this paper and Minmin Wang for data analyses.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, H. K. Kwan, upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant number 71672108; and China Europe International Business School under Grant number 19TEOMA.