I. 1 .1 Conceptos, definiciones y categorías
III.3 Método de análisis
Hypothesis 6 explored the relationship between leader sense of power and leader empowering behaviour. It was found that leader sense of power is positively and significantly related to their empowering behaviour (r= .30, p < .01). A great deal of research has debated whether power is a functional force or a corrupting one (e.g. Chen et al., 2001; Gruenfeld et al., 2008; Keltner et al., 2003). The results of the current study revealed that power is not inherently corrupting. Indeed, the more powerful leaders felt, the more likely they were to empower their subordinates. It may be the power processes that take place at the individual self-concept level that have added to power’s bad reputation. But then again, power by itself does not constitute a source of egocentric behaviour.
Perhaps it can be argued that leadership can raise, in addition to entitlement concerns, responsibility concerns on the part of the more powerful (Tjosvold et al., 2009). Such that when leaders are entrusted with a certain level of power, they feel responsible for using that power towards the better good of the organization. Another explanation for the results found may be that with a higher sense of power, leaders feel sufficient power is at their disposition, and are not threatened by the prospect of losing power if they were to share some of it with others. Conversely, when leaders have a restricted sense of power, they may be undisposed to share that power with others by fear of being left with even less of the already scarce resource.
Alternatively, the findings associated with power could be explained by the conservation of resources theory. This theory suggests that individuals seek to acquire and maintain resources to reduce stress (Hobfoll, 1989). According to this theory, threats to resources can present themselves in three distinct ways: a possible loss of resources; the actual loss of resources; and failure to acquire resources. Accordingly, it was found in the current research, that higher sense of power was related to higher likelihood of leaders empowering. Perhaps, leaders with a higher sense of power do not perceive empowering others as a loss or a threat of loss. However, leaders with low levels of power are less likely to empower as a possibility to lose the limited power at their disposition.
Given that the conservation of resources model proposes that people try to prevent resource loss and seek to attain and sustain resources that are important to them, it is assumed that leaders with higher collective self-concept are less likely to perceive empowering from the perspective of losing resources. In fact, they may see power as an aim to acquire other goals important to them, such as the success of the entire group. On the other hand, leaders with mainly an individual self-concept are likely to perceive empowerment as a loss of their privileged resources such as high status or control over resources at their disposition.
Alternatively, since power is associated with a set of resources such as information, development or advancement opportunities, as well as with latitude of decision making, leaders who do not have control over such resources are restricted in their empowering beahviours. It may be assumed that control over such resources increases as leaders climb higher on the managerial level. Interestingly, the relationship between leader empowering behaviour is stronger with leader sense of power (r=.28, p<.01) than with managerial level (r=.15, p<.05). Thus, suggesting that sense of power emerges as an important determinant of leader empowering behavior, above control over organizational resources.
In addition, hypothesis 6 tested the moderating effect of leader sense of power on the relationship between leader self-concept and empowering behaviour. It was predicted that leaders with a predominant individual self-concept and a higher sense of power, are less likely to empower than those leaders with a lower sense of power. Given that at this level of self- concept, leaders’ motivations have a primarily egocentric character (Brewer & Garner, 1996), their focus is mainly one’s own outcomes. When such goals are not consistent with the goals of
others, power provides the means to preserve control over critical decisions to secure benefits to oneself at the expense of the outcomes for others.
On the other hand, when leaders function from a relational or collective self-concept, they are expected to have a more cooperative orientation, which was expected to be associated with more empowering behaviour. It is argued that when their selves are more expanded to include others, they are motivated to strive for the mutual or collective benefit and the enhancement of others (Brewer & Gardner 1996; Lee et al. 2000). Aaron and Aaron (2000) stipulate that at these levels of self-concept, individuals perceive others as self. Therefore, when it comes to sharing power with others, it does not have the same negative connotation experienced by a leader with mainly an individual self-concept.
The relationship between the three levels of self-concept and leader empowering behaviour has already been established in hypothesis 1. Moreover, based on the stream of research demonstrating that power reduces the strength of the situation, the personality and belief systems of individuals in power is expected to have a stronger influence on their behaviour. It was therefore expected that sense of power moderates the relationship between leader self-concept and empowering behaviour. However, contrary to expectation, the results obtained in this study indicate that a higher sense of power does not moderate this relationship.
The lack of interaction effect for sense of power and the collective self-concept may be explained by the relatively low alpha (α=.58) obtained for collective self-concept. However, this cannot be invoked for the non-significant interactions found for the individual and relational self-concepts. Although previous studies have found that sense of power moderates the relationship between internal individual characteristics and behaviour (e.g. Chen et al., 2015), the current data set does not confirm such moderating effect.