Empowering Leadership: Psychological Empowerment Dimensions Role in Openness Towards Change

Abstract

In this master thesis we researched the relationship between the four dimensions of psychological empowerment and followers' openness towards change during the COVID-19 pandemic. By collecting data from a municipality in Norway we received responses from individuals without personnel responsibilities, hence the followers. As well as individuals with personnel responsibilities, hence the leaders, that have been in a situation with radical change and uncertainty. Thus, responses that reflected the reality of everyday work life in an organization that was a key player in dealing with the pandemic in several different sectors (e.g., schools and kindergartens, health- and social services in the municipality). To understand the relationship between the four dimensions of psychological empowerment and openness toward change, we applied a regression analysis to look at each variable. Our findings indicate that self-determination and meaningfulness both have a positive relation with openness toward change. In addition, did the results indicate that the followers reported the most with openness towards change. However, as our measures for this study were not created with enough precision and only have similarities to the scales created by Spreitzer (1995), there are several limitations and a significant reduction in the reliability related to the results. Keywords: empowering leadership, the dimensions of psychological empowerment, organizational change management, openness towards change.