Team psychological capital as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership, authentic leadership and team empowerment

پژوهش نامه مدیریت تحول

Article 3, Volume 8, Autumn & Winter 2017 - Serial Number 16, February 2017, Pages 40-65   

Document Type: Articles

DOI: 10.22067/pmt.v8i16.57586

Authors

Noori Kaabomeir^* ; Abdulzahra Naami; Esmaeil Hashemi Sheikh Shabani

Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz

Abstract

1- INTRODUCTION
Today, human resources, as one of the most valuable organizational assets, are considered the most important competitive advantage and the rarest resource in knowledge-based economy. To create innovative and novel ideas and to respond effectively to changes that occur in the workplace, human resource may be the most important intangible asset that is used to empower employees. In the present era, empowerment is known as an instrument by which managers will be able to fully manage today's organizations.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Transformational Leadership
Transformational Leadership changes thoughts and attitudes of followers and motivates them to higher levels of effort and performance. These leaders are directed toward a shared vision and encourage their followers to have further efforts to implement it.
Authentic Leadership
Authentic leadership is a behavioral pattern of leadership and the result of good personality traits. It develops good business relationships and transactions with employees, positive psychological potency, and ethical climate in the organization which leads to the development of self-awareness, internalized moral views, balanced processing of information, and transparency in relations with the employees. It also entails improving the process of self-actualization in employees.
Team Psychological Capital
Collective psychological capital has been defined as the team’s shared positive appraisal of their circumstances and probability for success under those circumstances based on their combined motivated effort and perseverance. It contains four components of team efficacy, team optimism, team hope, and team resilience.
Team Empowerment
Team empowerment is defined as increased task motivation that is due to team members’ collective, positive assessments of their organizational tasks. Teams experience empowerment contains four components of competence, meaning, autonomy, and influence.
3- METHODOLOGY
The study population included all employees of power distribution companies of Ahvaz in 2016. 226 individuals were selected to form the sample of the study. To colect data, Transformational Leadership, Authentic Leadership, Team Psychological Capital, and Team Empowerment questionnaires were used.
4- RESULTS and DISCUSSION
Based on the findings of fit indices, the final model has a good fitness. The results of the test of direct assumptions showed that transformational leadership and authentic leadership had direct positive effect on team empowerment and team-based psychological capital. In addition, the mediating role of team-based psychological capital in the relationship between transformational leadership and authentic leadership, and team empowerment was confirmed.
5- CONCLUSIONS and SUGGESTIONS
Based on the results of this research, one practical and important suggestion for managers and organizations is that for empowering individuals and having empowered teamworks, organizations can consider two things; having programs to provide leaders with features and capabilities of transformational and authentic leadership, using psychological capital, and developing interventions in the team level.

Keywords

Transformational leadership; Authentic leadership; Team psychological capital; Team empowerment

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