Empowering leadership in crisis: a natural experiment

Henrico van Roekel; Jost Sieweke; Carina Schott; Arnold  Bakker; Lars Tummers

doi:10.1080/14719037.2025.2459162

Empowering leadership in crisis: a natural experiment

Henrico van Roekel^*
, Jost Sieweke
, Carina Schott
, Arnold Bakker
, Lars Tummers

^*Corresponding author for this work

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Existing research suggests that empowering leadership enhances employee well-being, but context-specific empirical studies in the public sector remain scarce. We investigated whether this positive impact persists during a public health crisis. To test this, we conducted a natural experiment, utilizing a longitudinal survey of healthcare employees and administrative data on geographical variance in hospitalization rates during a public health crisis. Our findings show that empowering leadership is less effective during a crisis and can even result in adverse effects. The results challenge the notion that empowering leadership universally benefits employee well-being and highlight its potential dark side.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3177-3207
Number of pages	31
Journal	Public Management Review
Volume	27
Issue number	12
Early online date	4 Feb 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2025.2459162
Publication status	Published - 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

This research was funded by IZZ, a healthcare employee collective in the Netherlands. Except for the cooperation with IZZ on collecting the data, the funders had no role in the research.

Funders
IZZ

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

COVID-19
crisis
employee well-being
empowering leadership
natural experiment

Access to Document

10.1080/14719037.2025.2459162Licence: CC BY

Empowering leadership in crisis a natural experimentFinal published version, 1.98 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Empowering leadership in crisis: a natural experiment",

abstract = "Existing research suggests that empowering leadership enhances employee well-being, but context-specific empirical studies in the public sector remain scarce. We investigated whether this positive impact persists during a public health crisis. To test this, we conducted a natural experiment, utilizing a longitudinal survey of healthcare employees and administrative data on geographical variance in hospitalization rates during a public health crisis. Our findings show that empowering leadership is less effective during a crisis and can even result in adverse effects. The results challenge the notion that empowering leadership universally benefits employee well-being and highlight its potential dark side.",

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AU - Bakker, Arnold

AU - Tummers, Lars

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AB - Existing research suggests that empowering leadership enhances employee well-being, but context-specific empirical studies in the public sector remain scarce. We investigated whether this positive impact persists during a public health crisis. To test this, we conducted a natural experiment, utilizing a longitudinal survey of healthcare employees and administrative data on geographical variance in hospitalization rates during a public health crisis. Our findings show that empowering leadership is less effective during a crisis and can even result in adverse effects. The results challenge the notion that empowering leadership universally benefits employee well-being and highlight its potential dark side.

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ER -

Empowering leadership in crisis: a natural experiment

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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Cite this