http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/21297/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22558/ 2010-09-01T00:00:00Z Leader empowering behaviour is an important criterion for leadership effectiveness. However, virtually no research has studied the antecedents of leader empowering behaviour. Therefore, to further our understanding of leadership effectiveness, we need to understand what motivates leaders to behave in certain ways. In two studies, we show how leaders' trust in follower performance and integrity influences leader empowering behaviour, and how this effect is moderated by leader conscientiousness. Study 1 showed that leader empowering behaviour depends not only on the trust leaders have in follower performance and integrity but also on the conscientiousness level of the leader. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings within a different experimental paradigm. We discuss how these findings set the stage for the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the drivers of this important aspect of leadership. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17701/ 2010-01-08T00:00:00Z The present dissertation tries to shed light on the phenomenon of empowering leadership. We aim to understand the antecedents of leader empowering behaviour. In doing so, we mean to remedy the stated lack of research on empowering leadership and on the effect of follower’s behaviour on leader’s behaviour. In this dissertation we will argue that follower’s behaviour can be expected to play an important role in explaining leader’s empowering behaviour. We report the findings of 4 laboratory studies and two field studies. As a first step in our reasoning we start by establishing trust as an antecedent of leader empowering behaviour and showing that leader’s characteristics moderate the influence of trust in the empowering process. We then investigate the influence of trust and epistemic motivation in the empowering process. We focused on two aspects of epistemic motivation: accountability and workload. We finally investigate the influence of trust and gender in the empowering process, emphasizing the mediating role of trust in the process.