ABSTRACT

In recent years, increased complexity and persistent challenges induced governmental organizations to transform their ways of operating. Inherent to such transformations are shifts in approaches to leadership and organizational learning. However, adopting strategies that empower staff to take complex context-appropriate decisions has shown to be difficult. This paper aims to gain insight into empowering and disempowering leadership practices in complex transformation processes. Team leaders of a governmental organization participated in observing videos of weekly team meetings, noting positive and negative interactions between the peer-team leader and team members. Their observations were analyzed using the four dimensions of psychological empowerment. All team leaders showed empowering and disempowering practices within one case discussion. The findings illustrate in which contexts these practices are triggered. Results help to theoretically elucidate academic debates about the relationships between empowerment and control, differences between empowerment and laissez-faire and between empowering and destructive leadership in human service organizations.

摘要

近年来，复杂性的增加和持续的挑战促使政府组织改变其运作方式。这种转变的本质是领导力和组织学习方法的转变。然而，采用策略使员工能够做出复杂的、适合上下文的决策，已被证明是困难的。本文旨在深入了解在复杂转型过程中授权和取消授权的领导实践。政府组织的团队领导参加了每周团队会议的视频观察，注意到同行团队领导和团队成员之间的积极和消极互动。使用心理赋权的四个维度分析了他们的观察结果。在一次案例讨论中，所有团队领导都展示了授权和剥夺权力的做法。调查结果说明了这些做法是在哪些情况下触发的。结果有助于从理论上阐明关于授权与控制之间的关系、授权与控制之间的差异的学术辩论。自由放任以及在人类服务组织中授权和破坏性领导之间。