The Power of Empowering Leadership: Trust and Psychological Capital Resulting in Job Crafting

Based on resources theories, the present study examines a serial mediation model, in which empowering leadership predicts employee job crafting through psychological capital (PsyCap) and trust in leader, and job crafting subsequently predicts three different work behaviors: psychological withdrawal, physical withdrawal, and positive work behavior. Data were collected from US employees at four separate points with one-month intervals. Structural equation modeling, including testing alternative models, was utilized to assess the mediation model. The results generally supported the hypothesized model, suggesting that empowering leadership elicited higher levels of positive psychological resources in the form of PsyCap and leader trust, which in turn, led to proactive job crafting behaviors. Subsequently, job crafting made employees engage in more positive work behaviors, as well as fewer psychological and physical withdrawal behaviors. Significant direct effects of empowering leadership and PsyCap on psychological withdrawal behaviors were also found, however. Overall, the findings of the present study underline the importance of personal and job resources for favorable work behaviors by testing the mediating processes.