MUHAMMAD HAMZA JAVED

BBS-10-38

DIRECTIVE VERSUS EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP: A FIELD EXPERIMENT COMPARING IMPACTS ON TASK PROFICIENCY AND PROACTIVITY The purpose of this article is to provide a comparison of empowering versus directive leadership in impacting core task proficiency (i.e., the degree to which employees meet formal job requirements) and proactive behaviors (i.e., the extent to which employees take self-directed action to anticipate or initiate changes in their environment. HYPOTHESIS: Hypothesis 1. Directive leadership improves work unit core task proficiency. Hypothesis 2. Directive leadership decreases work unit proactive behaviors. Hypothesis 3. Empowering leadership increases work unit proactive behaviors. Hypothesis 4a. Empowering leadership improves work unit core task proficiency. Hypothesis 4b. The positive effect of empowering leadership on work unit core task proficiency is equivalent to that of directive leadership. Hypothesis 5a. Work unit satisfaction with a leader moderates the impact of directive leadership on work unit core task proficiency: Directive leadership has a stronger positive effect on core task proficiency when satisfaction is higher rather than lower. Hypothesis 5b. Work unit satisfaction with a leader moderates the impact of empowering leadership on work unit core task proficiency: Empowering leadership has a stronger positive effect on core task proficiency when satisfaction is higher rather than lower. Hypothesis 5c. Work unit satisfaction with a leader moderates the impact of empowering leadership on work unit proactive behaviors: Empowering leadership has a stronger positive effect on proactive behaviors when satisfaction is higher rather than lower.

Measures: To assess the effectiveness of our interventions, we surveyed all direct reports for each leader and up to six internal or external customers of each leaders unit. Leaders provided employee and customer contact information; however, we surveyed all employees and customers directly, assuring them responses would be kept confidential. We obtained a list of customers who had interacted with the leaders units for a period of at least three months and so had had sufficient opportunity to observe and evaluate the performance of employees in the unit. RESULTS: We checked manipulation by condition using repeated- measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results yielded significant time by condition interactions for directive leadership and empowering leadership. Because empowering and directive leadership shared variance, we tested our manipulation for each leadership style while controlling for the other to isolate the unique effects of each manipulation. Directive behaviors increased significantly for the directive leadership group but did not for the control group or the empowering group. Empowering behaviors increased for the leaders in the empowering condition but not for those in the directive condition and the control condition. We also tested each manipulation without controlling for the other, which yielded a similar pattern of results. Taken together, these results indicate leaders altered their behaviors in accordance with our interventions.