The effect of empowering leadership practices on employees performance with the mediating role of work engagement: the case of ethio-telecom

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effect of empowering leadership practices on employee performance, and the mediating role of work engagement, as emphasized at Ethio-Telecom. Drawing on social exchange theory and self-determination theory, this study reports the responses of 214 participants from Ethio-telecom sales representatives operating in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This thesis is structured around a quantitative research approach with a simple probability sampling technique. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with AMOS was used to test the hypothesized relations. The descriptive result showed that there is a lack of empowering leadership practices and that the work engagement level of employees is at its lowest level. Besides, the results of the hypothesized relationships revealed that empowering leadership practices have a significant positive effect on employee performance. It has also been found that empowering leadership has a significant positive effect on work engagement. Moreover, the results of the bias-corrected bootstrapping iteration showed that work engagement partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership practices and employee performance. Finally, the practical and theoretical contributions, limitations, and future studies are discussed.

Nowadays, business leadership is moving from the traditional structure to empowered, self-managing work teams to increase the flexibility and efficiency of their operations. The goal of empowerment leadership is to enable workers to make decisions for themselves through empowerment rather than through micromanaging or direct management. Under this approach, workers and teams have greater autonomy and a stronger sense of togetherness from their leaders, who accept the good and bad implications of their actions. Company leaders need to make work more meaningful by empowering their teams through delegation, efficacy support, inspiration, and coordination, encouraging them to take ownership of their work and make independent decisions, which enables them to boost employee job performance. Moreover, leaders need to consider letting their employees be engaged in their work, which contributes to much better employee job performance, which is a predictor of company performance.