Psychology Research and Behavior Management (Jan 2022)
Negative Influences of Differentiated Empowering Leadership on Team Members’ Helping Behaviors: The Mediating Effects of Envy and Contempt
Abstract
Fang Sun,1 Xiyuan Li,1 Muhammad Naseer Akhtar2 1Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China; 2Royal Docks School of Business and Law, The University of East London, London, UKCorrespondence: Xiyuan LiEconomics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-27-68752551Email [email protected]: Given the popularity of empowerment practices among scholars and practitioners, this research examines whether a manager’s differentiated empowering leadership negatively affects team members’ helping behaviors and, if so, how.Methods: The authors conducted one multi-source and time-lagged survey (with 44 managers and 212 team members) and two scenario-based experiments (with 120 participants in Study 2 and 121 participants in Study 3) to test the research model.Results: Team managers’ differentiated empowering leadership decreases team members’ helping behaviors. In particular, for team members who receive less empowerment, differentiated empowering leadership may decrease their helping behaviors by eliciting their envy. For team members who receive more empowerment, differentiated empowering leadership may decrease their helping behaviors by inducing their contempt.Conclusion: This research introduces the concept of differentiated empowering leadership in response to calls to investigate the dark side of empowering leadership. It reveals that unequal distribution of authority among team members by managers can undermine employee relations and elicit negative emotions of envy and contempt, thereby decreasing employees’ helping behaviors.Keywords: differentiated empowering leadership, envy, contempt, helping behavior
