Self-Efficacy and Psychological Ownership Mediate the Effects of Empowering Leadership on Both Good and Bad Employee Behaviors

This study examined the potential effects of empowering leadership on followers' in-role performance and deviant behaviors via self-efficacy and psychological ownership over a 3-week period in a sample of 299 full-time employees working in the United States. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that empowering leadership was positively related to both self-efficacy and psychological ownership, which in turn were both negatively related to deviant behaviors. Alternative model comparisons and bootstrapping both confirmed the mediation effects of self-efficacy and psychological ownership. However, only one of the two mediators, self-efficacy, was positively related to followers' in-role performance. Together, these findings highlighted the important roles of self-efficacy and psychological ownership explaining why empowering leadership may result in followers' behaviors.