Teachers' Perceptions of School Leader Empowering Behaviors on Psychological Empowerment: A Moderated Path Analysis

IntroductionTeachers in the 21st century play critical roles in school reforms and sustained school effectiveness (Dee, Henkin & Duemer, 2003; Wan 2005). The imperative of empowering teachers in school reform efforts to affect positive change at both the classroom and school levels has received an increased empirical interest in recent years. Particularly, scholars and practitioners have observed that the use of teacher empowerment as a management strategy could increase teacher agency through increasing their level of professional autonomy and authority to better exercise their professional expertise and judgement in their work roles (Short & Rinehart, 1992; Somech, 2005; Sweetland & Hoy, 2000; Vecchio, Justin & Pearce, 2010; Wan, 2005). At the same time, when school leaders empower teachers, it also promotes teachers' psychological empowerment in terms of teachers' sense of meaning, competence, autonomy, and impact, which are elements essential for teachers to feel more engaged and committed to the work they do (Dee et al., 2003; Lee & Nie, 2013, 2014). Therefore, in this study, we define teacher empowerment as a process of school leader(s) demonstrating empowering behaviors to enable teachers to experience psychological empowerment by having a sense of meaning, competence, autonomy, and impact.Past research has found that empowering school leaders are generally more capable in fostering a working condition which facilitates teachers' psychological empowerment (Blase & Blase, 1997; Davis & Wilson, 2000; Sweetland & Hoy, 2000; Vecchio et al., 2010). However, the dynamic interplay between school leaders' empowering behaviors and teachers' psychological empowerment remains largely unclear (Lee & Nie, 2013, 2014). This could possibly be due to the fact that previous research tended to examine school leaders' empowering behaviors and teachers' psychological empowerment in separate studies (Blase & Blase, 1997; Davis & Wilson, 2000; Vecchio et al., 2010). As a result, the empirical link between school leaders' empowering behaviors and teachers' psychological empowerment is underexplored and poorly understood. Furthermore, although both the principal and teachers' immediate supervisor play instrumental roles in the teacher empowerment process, previous research has not given much empirical attention to examine the joint relationship between teachers' perceptions of principal's and immediate supervisor's empowering behaviors to explicate how they might jointly affect teachers' psychological empowerment. As a result, it is unsure whether teachers' perceptions of principal's and immediate supervisor's empowering behaviors might moderate each other's relationship with teachers' psychological empowerment. A more systematic study of their joint relationship could help to clarify the nature of their joint influence (i.e. interactive or additive) on teachers' psychological empowerment to provide more detailed insights on the nuanced mechanisms which may underscore the teacher empowerment process.Therefore, the present study aimed to (1) examine the joint relationship between teachers' perceptions of principal's and immediate supervisor's empowering behaviors to determine whether their joint influence would be interactive or additive on the four dimensions of teachers' psychological empowerment in terms of meaning, competence, autonomy and impact; and (2) in the presence of an interactive relationship between teachers' perceptions of principal's and immediate supervisor's empowering behaviors, clarify the types of moderating mechanisms which might underscore their interactive relationship in predicting the four dimensions of teachers' psychological empowerment.Teachers' Perceptions of School Leaders' Empowering Behaviors as Antecedents of Teachers' Psychological EmpowermentA leader's influence is usually manifested in the leader's v when he or she interacts with the followers (Hollander, 1992; Jantzi & Leithwood, 1996; Yukl, 2002). …