Vadovo įgalinančio elgesio ir struktūrinio įgalinimo reikšmė darbuotojų psichologiniam įgalinimui
The impact of empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment on employee psychological empowerment

Summary/Abstract: Background. Employees will be highly motivated to fulfill new responsibilities, when they actually feel psychologically empowered, i.e. would positively evaluate their own professional competence, wish to solve job related problems independently and show initiative at work. In Lithuania, the phenomenon of psychological empowerment was virtually not examined yet; therefore it is highly relevant to analyze its expression, diversity of contributing factors and their characteristics in managers and specialists. The aim of the study was to examine the expression of psychological empowerment and its relation with empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment. Method. Three methodologies were used in this study: the questionnaire of psychological empowerment (Tvarijonavičius ir Bagdžiūnienė, 2013), the questionnaire of empowering leader behavior (Ahearne et al., 2005), and the questionnaire of structural empowerment (Laschinger et al., 2001). There were 280 participants in this study: specialists (N=205) and middle managers (N=75), working in 14 organizations in Lithuania. Results. The results of the study revealed that empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment predicted employee psychological empowerment; empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment predicted employee psychological empowerment directly; also there was an interaction between empowering leader behavior and structural empowerment and its’ dimensions when predicting psychological empowerment; the empowerment predictors for specialists and managers differed. Conclusions. The psychological empowerment of middle managers was higher than of the specialists. The role of empowering leader behavior on psychological empowerment was higher in the conditions of low structural empowerment; the psychological empowerment predictors for specialists were: opportunity to use current and acquire new skills, information about the status of the organization, trust demonstrated be a direct manager, and autonomy for the work provided; while the psychological empowerment of middle managers was only predicted by the opportunity to use current and acquire new skills.

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