Empowering Leadership’s Effect to Employee Task Performance: A Mediating Role of Work Engagement

Abstract

In Indonesian telecommunication sector, a convergence services for voice, data, and video in one single network product is on high demand.  An Indonesian state-owned telecom company, become one of telecom industries that provides its customers this kind of service consisting of internet, fixed-telephone and IPTV.  In order to gain more customers for the service, the company need to support its technicians to complete their tasks related to working with technical devices of telecommunication. There are two form of  tasks that the technicians should be well performed namely installing and maintaining the telecommunication networks. To fulfil the tasks related to their performance, the employees need leaders to empower them. A new style of empowering leadership becomes an important style of leadership to activate employee task performance. Further, empowering leadership can translate the employee motivation engaging in their work into required task performance. This study is aimed at checking the role of work engagement as mediator in the relationship of empowering leadership and employee task performance. A total of 132 technicians from the Indonesian state-owned telecom company were used to be analysed by using structural equation model (SEM). It was indicated that empowering leadership behaviours became important drivers to enhance employee task performance. Further, it study found that work engagement could only partly mediate the relationship of empowering leadership and employee task performance.