Confidently Facing Conflict: The Importance of Empowering Leadership for Employees' Conflict Management Efficacy

Keywords: conflict management efficacy, empowering leadership, performance

Abstract: We examined whether having an empowering leader positively affects employees’ conflict management efficacy (CME). CME is a personal resource that reflects employees’ confidence in their ability to handle conflict. In a study of working employees, we found evidence that an empowering leader indeed contributes to CME. Furthermore, we found that this relationship is stronger when there is a higher level of task conflict in the direct work environment. Finally, we tested and found that CME buffered the negative consequences of task conflict on employee performance and promotive voice behavior.