Exploring the Nexus between Empowering Leadership and Work Engagement through Employee Resilience during Times of Covid 19

Abstract

Purpose: Online learning system was adopted by private schools across Pakistan to lessen students’ learning losses during the pandemic. It entailed the reliance on work from home model for their   teaching staff. The success of these institutions must have been driven by a leadership style espoused by them which helped to keep their employees engaged. Thus, drawing on the job demand resource principle, conservation of resource principle, and broaden and build theory, this could be argued that empowering leadership may have engendered employee resilience which ultimately kept intact the work engagement of employees. Moreover, moderating impact of psychological empowerment has been studied to determine extent to which it might influence the employee resilience nurtured by empowering leadership.  Design/Methodology/Approach: Respondents for this study were faculty members of the private schools affiliated with the Multan board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Pakistan. Probability sampling was employed to select the schools and the faculty members of those schools were given questionnaires. The total responses obtained were 210. Structural equation modeling involving moderated mediation techniques was utilized to conduct analyses. Findings: The study concluded that employee resilience mediated the association among empowering leadership and work engagement. However, the moderating effect was not proved. Implications/Originality/Value: The study pays an original contribution to research by linking empowering leadership with employee resilience and work engagement for the faculty members during the time of Covid-19 Pandemic. It suggests schools’ management to focus upon and reinforce empowering leadership for better work engagement of teachers. This would probably help them to retain students and sustain their performance.