Leaders’ competence matters in empowerment: implications on subordinates’ relational energy and task performance

ABSTRACT The effectiveness of empowering leadership has been the subject of contrasting views. Numerous studies have adopted an interactive approach to reconciling these inconsistencies and emphasized the role of subordinates’ competence and capabilities. We join this stream of discussions by pointing out that leader competence also plays a pivotal role in empowering subordinates. We further postulate that subordinates’ relational energy can mediate the interactive effects of empowering leadership and perceived leader competence on task performance. In Study 1, data analyses based on a sample of 397 team members and 112 team leaders reveal that relational energy mediates the interaction effect of empowering leadership and perceived leader competence on subordinates’ task performance. In Study 2, data analyses based on 193 leader – follower dyads reveal that the indirect effect of relational energy is still significant after controlling for several alternative mediators commonly used in empowering leadership research (e.g., LMX, intrinsic motivation, and psychological empowerment).