Exploring the role of Trust in the relationship between Empowering Leadership and Employee Job Satisfaction

Abstract: Exploring the role of trust in the relationship between empowering leadership and employee job satisfaction. The current study intends to investigate how trust functions as a mediator in the relationship between employees' job satisfaction and empowering leadership. It is argued that positive attitudes towards working are promoted through empowering practices of leadership, including delegation, autonomy, and participation in decision making. Nevertheless, there is a lack of empirical studies that investigate the psychology behind how the behaviours of such leaders can contribute to job satisfaction. This paper focuses on the aspect of trust as one of the key elements that describe why and how empowering leadership will result in increased levels of employee satisfaction. The quantitative research method was applied based on a structured questionnaire surveyed on employees in different organizations. The empowerment of leadership, trust and job satisfaction was empowered using standardized measurement scales. The analysis of data was conducted through statistical techniques, such as correlation analysis, regression, and mediation tests, to test the mediating effect of trust. Findings have shown that empowerment of leadership has a important role in employee job satisfaction of workers. Moreover, trust was revealed to be a mediating variable, demonstrates that workers who have faith in their leaders are more likely to respond favourably to empowerment initiatives and show greater employee job satisfaction. Research concludes that empowerment of leadership has a constructive impact on job satisfaction which mainly comes as a result of creation of trust. Leadership behaviour that develops trust, autonomy and a conducive work environment should be developed by organizations seeking to improve the level of employee job satisfaction. The study is new in terms of offering the mediating result of trust on the empowering leadership job satisfaction relationship. It builds on the literature in the field of leaders' organizational behaviour by noting that the concept of trust is a critical psychological process that connects leadership style and attitudes of employees. Further studies are advised to investigate other psychological factors, psychological safety and perceived organizational support to better understand the processes that determine the relationship between empowering leadership and employee job satisfaction.