The Power of Empowerment: Predictors and Benefits of Shared Leadership in Organizations

The Power of Peer Leaders: Exploring the Link between Peer Leadership Behaviors and Sustainable Work Outcomes

Most leadership studies primarily focus on formal leaders, often overlooking the influence of leaders within the team. While prior research has shown that peer leaders can have a beneficial impact on various team outcomes, it is yet unclear which peer leadership behaviors precisely foster a supportive and sustainable work environment. Building upon the recent identification of 10 peer leadership roles and 37 underlying functions, the current study aims to investigate the relationships between these peer leadership roles and functions and key outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, team cohesion, team effectiveness, and OCB). A total of 31 organizational teams, comprising 182 employees from diverse sectors, participated in a quantitative survey. Employing multilevel modeling analysis, the findings demonstrated that each leadership role and nearly every function predicted at least one outcome, highlighting their significance within organizational teams. Additionally, Necessary Condition Analysis revealed that specific roles and functions were necessary for generating one or more outcomes. Finally, we found that most of the significant relationships remained consistent across teams, regardless of their size, tenure, or level of team identification. These findings refine our understanding of shared leadership and how peer leaders can create a sustainable workplace by fostering employee well-being and productivity in organizational teams.

Empowering leadership during the COVID-19 outbreak: Implications for work satisfaction and effectiveness in organizational teams

The COVID-19 pandemic generated unprecedented challenges for social and organizational life. We set out to explore how empowering leadership and leadership support were affected as a result of the team-based organization starting to implement flexible and remote work practices after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected data in a cross-lagged design and used the two-condition MEMORE mediation procedure to analyze data on work satisfaction and team effectiveness obtained just before and immediately after the COVID-19 outbreak in 34 organizational teams. Our results show that the COVID-19 outbreak did not significantly impact perceptions of empowering leadership or perceived leadership support. However, teams that experienced changes in empowering leadership also reported proportional changes in work satisfaction and effectiveness. Finally, we show that the association between empowering leadership and leadership support, on the one hand, and work satisfaction in teams, on the other hand, is moderated by team size, such that the strength of the association is higher in small rather than large organizational teams. We conclude by arguing that the team-based organization absorbed well the impact and disruptions associated with the COVID-19 outbreak. We also stress the role of empowering leadership as a driver of work satisfaction and the effectiveness of organizational teams.

Epistemological Allyship

Discussions about decolonising psychology now abound. A key perspective from which these commentaries have been written relates to a confrontation of the gatekeepers in global psychology. While this approach is valuable to end epistemological violence and other forms of injustice, it also ends up alienating influential scholars in hegemonic psychology who can magnify the impact of the decolonisation effort. In this article, I borrow from the anti-racism literature the concept of allyship to put forward a new concept of epistemological allyship (EA). I position EA to invite, but not to demand, support from and to provide guidance to gatekeepers who truly wish to support the decolonisation efforts. However, unlike the past experiences with ending slavery in which Black people were portrayed to or required to beg for freedom, this concept of EA is not to be understood in this light. Rather it should be understood to imply that while academics from the majority of the world (AMWs) are fighting their own epistemological battles, any helpful support is and should be welcome.

Leading the way together: a cluster randomised controlled trial of the 5R Shared Leadership Program in older adult walking groups

BACKGROUND

With a rapidly ageing society, healthy ageing has become a key challenge. Engagement in physical activity, and particularly walking, is a key strategy that contributes to healthy ageing amongst older adults. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of a group walking program for older adults that incorporates the 5R Shared Leadership Program (5R^S). By implementing a structure of shared leadership and strengthening peer leaders' identity leadership, 5R^S aims to cultivate a shared social identity amongst participants, which has in other contexts been associated with greater performance and well-being.

METHODS

A cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted to test the efficacy of the 5R^S group walking program on group identification, group cohesion, walking activity, and well-being, compared to a regular group walking program for older adults. Nineteen older adult walking groups (i.e., the clusters; N = 503; M_age = 69.23 years, SD = 6.68) all participated in a 12-week structured group walking program. Nine walking groups (n = 304) were randomly assigned to the intervention in which participants received the 5R^S program in addition to regular group walking.

RESULTS

5R^S was successful in strengthening the identity leadership qualities of the appointed peer leaders. Multilevel regressions showed that 5R^S succeeded in increasing group cohesion and walking activity to a greater extent than a regular group walking program, while participants' group identification and well-being increased to a similar extent in both conditions. Furthermore, structural equation modelling revealed that group identification mediated the impact of peer leaders' identity leadership on group cohesion and well-being (but not walking activity).

CONCLUSION

By harnessing the capacity of the group and its peer leaders, the 5R^S program offers a promising intervention to engage older adults in physical activity.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

The study was retrospectively registered as clinical trial on 9 September 2021 ( NCT05038423 ).

Impact of leadership behaviour on physician well-being, burnout, professional fulfilment and intent to leave: a multicentre cross-sectional survey study

OBJECTIVE

To examine how perceived leadership behaviours affect burnout, professional fulfilment and intent to leave the organisation among physicians.

DESIGN

Anonymous cross-sectional survey study from November 2016 to October 2018.

SETTING

12 036 attending and resident physicians at 11 healthcare organisations participating in the Physician Wellness Academic Consortium (PWAC) were surveyed to assess burnout and professional fulfilment and their drivers.

PARTICIPANTS

A sample of 5416 attending physicians with complete data on gender, specialty, leadership, burnout and professional fulfilment.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

The leadership behaviour of each physician's supervisor was assessed using the Mayo Clinic Participatory Management Leadership Index and categorised in tertiles. Multivariable logistic regression analyses examined the effect of leadership behaviour rating of each physician's supervisor on burnout, professional fulfilment and intent to leave controlling for gender and specialty.

RESULTS

The response rate was 45% across 11 institutions. Half of the respondents were female. Professional fulfilment increased with increasing tertiles of leadership behaviour rating (19%, 34%, 47%, p<0.001). The odds of professional fulfilment were 5.8 times higher (OR=5.8, 95% CI: 5.1 to 6.59) for physicians in the top tertile compared with those in the lowest tertile. Physicians in the top tertile were also 48% less likely to be burned out (OR=0.52, 95% CI: 0.45 to 0.61) and reported 66% lower intent to leave (OR=0.34, 95% CI: 0.26 to 0.44). Individuals who rated their supervisor's leadership in upper tertiles relative to lower tertiles exhibited lower levels of burnout (18% vs 35% vs 47%, p<0.001), and intent to leave (16% vs 24% vs 50% p<0.001).

CONCLUSION

Perceived leadership behaviours have a strong relationship with burnout, professional fulfilment and intent to leave among physicians. Organisations should consider leadership development as a potential vehicle to improve physician wellness and prevent costly physician departures.

Digital Leadership and Employee Creativity: The Role of Employee Job Crafting and Person-Organization Fit

Industry 4.0 has changed the paradigm in the business practice and business model, and digital technology has brought radical transformations to enterprises. To support this transformation, digital leaders are required to help enterprises transform and lead them to a more promising future. Based on job demands-resources model and person-organization fit theory, this study examines the relationship between digital leadership and employee creativity. Based on a sample of 357 employees from various Chinese companies, this study used SPSS 22.0 and MPLUS 7.0 to examine the hypotheses. The findings indicate the following (a) digital leadership has a positive effect on employee creativity. (b) employee job crafting mediate the relationship between digital leadership and employee creativity. (c) person-organization fit positively moderates the relationship between digital leadership and employee job crafting. (d) person-organization fit positively moderates the indirect effect of digital leadership on employee creativity via employee job crafting. The findings reveal the effect mechanism of digital leaders on employee creativity and enrich the literature on antecedents of employee creativity. Practical implications and future research are also discussed.

How social context impacts the emergence of leadership structures

In leadership research, it has proven useful to understand leadership as a relational phenomenon and to conceptualize leadership structures as networks of leader-member ties. Currently, research further highlights the dynamic nature of these structures and examines their emergence in more detail to uncover the underlying mechanisms. In this literature, emergence is conceptualized as social exchange in teams and investigated experimentally. This paper argues that by doing so, the influence of social context has been neglected. I draw on findings from broader tie-formation research to substantiate the influence of social context and to tackle the conceptual shortcoming. Drawing on this rich literature, I identify eight mechanisms that explain in detail how four dimensions of social context ( Culture, Social Networks, Population Characteristics, and Opportunity Patterns) shape the formation of leader-member ties. Finally, I derive 13 propositions based on these mechanisms. These propositions, on the one hand, provide solid starting points for further empirical research. On the other hand, they indicate that the underexposure of social context has led to an overly positive picture of emergent leadership in the current literature. They suggest that much more often than assumed so far, the wrong people become and remain leaders.