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Empowering leadership and occupational burnout: the moderated mediation model
BMC Psychology volume 13, Article number: 378 (2025)
Abstract
Background
This study examines the impact of empowering leadership on occupational burnout through the mediating role of workaholism and the moderating effect of psychological hardiness in the relationship between empowering leadership and occupational burnout. The present study employs empowerment and hardiness theory. Further, the moderated mediation hypothesis was also investigated.
Methods
Survey responses from 212 permanent employees (nurses) in the healthcare industry were gathered using the temporal separation (two time-lags with one month between the first and second lags) to test the proposed hypotheses. Different statistical analysis techniques, confirmatory factor analysis, discriminant and convergent validity and PROCES-macro were used.
Results
The current study findings shows that empowering leadership significantly reduces occupational burnout. Furthermore, the results of the study confirm that workaholism plays a crucial role as a mediator between empowering leadership and occupational burnout in the workplace. Additionally, the findings shows that empowering leadership burdens nurses by making them work excessively, which causes occupational burnout in the workplace. Furthermore, psychological hardiness is a significant moderator in the relationship between workaholism and occupational burnout. Finally, the moderated mediation model results showed that nurses with high psychological hardiness adjust and manage well with intense workloads, i.e., workaholism, when emboldened through their leaders which leads to reduction in occupational burnout.
Conclusion/Implications
The findings emphasize the potential advantages and hazards of empowering leadership in the nursing profession and the management of healthcare. This study builds on earlier research by empirically investigating how workaholism and psychological hardiness influence the relationship between empowering leadership and occupational burnout in the nursing profession of Pakistan.
Introduction
In the current era, organizations are suffering from different challenges, i.e., globalization, technological advancement, environmental changes, and governance changes [1]. These circumstances enforce organizations to give more empowerment to the workforce so that they can meet the challenging tasks [2]. Humans are the main resources for every organization for attainment of organizational goals and objectives and for the improvement and determination of quality of products and services [3]. Nursing professional is working as backbone for healthy society of every nation either developed or developing. Nurses are the ones who provide special attention and care to the patients in toxic conditions and circumstances and their positive dealing and behaviors leads to early and healthy recovery of patients from illness. Inappropriate planning and management in workplace and professional circumstances can have detrimental effects on employees, depleting their psychological energies and leaving them feeling exhausted rather than satisfied [4]. Researchers have acknowledged that nursing is a challenging profession [5]. It is noted that nurses who work in long-term care facilities have a higher turnover rate due to high job stress, work demand and over-commitment [6, 7].
The major stress factor and challenging circumstances of healthcare sector affecting the nurse’s health is related to bad working conditions, psychosocial stressor and conflicts, higher sense of responsibility and fear of personal protection have been identified as the leading cause of nurses’ burnout [8, 9]. Rumschlag [10] stated that occupational burnout is a phenomenon marked by emotional depletion, depersonalization, and a decrease in individual and career successes as a result of work stress. Exhaustion, cynicism, and a lack of professional efficacy are all characteristics of burnout [11]. Moreover, it has also been observed that higher demanding working environment also leads to occupational burnout [12]. Studies shows that working environment of different professions, i.e., teaching, public service, physicians, social workers, and nursing easy generate burnout in individuals [13, 14]. In these circumstances, it is crucial to find out the solution that how to minimize the occupational burnout of the employees working in healthcare sector (i.e., nurses).
The literature on nursing management and leadership has recognized the role of the leader in creating positive empowerment [15, 16]. Nurses whom their leaders empower are more likely to come out of their unproductive mindsets, keep struggling, and develop their self-responsibilities to be more liable for their achievements [17]. While prior research on this topic has commended subordinates heightened internal drive to work and positive impacts of empowering leadership [18]. However, it is uncertain whether empowered leadership is primarily beneficial to its targets and linked with intended results. Echoing this notion, numerous researchers have expressed concern about the potentially detrimental consequences of leader empowerment [17].
Based on this, drawing from the empowerment theory suggested by Conger and Kanungo [19], some aspects of empowering leadership may have a favorable effect on subordinate’s self-efficacy, leading to improved subordinate’s work behaviors, i.e., an enabling mechanism [20, 21]. On the other hand, specific qualities of empowering leadership may substantially influence job-induced tension, which in turn may reduce subordinate’s work behaviors, i.e., a burdening procedure [17]. Contrarily, individuals’ strain linked with the task, i.e., job-induced stress, would increase the psychological disturbance due to high autonomy [22]. Hence, empowering leadership that increases followers’ autonomy may simultaneously increase subordinates’ strain, reducing the positive outcomes of empowering leadership on job-related outcomes [17]. Thus, followers’ workaholism could be developed by empowering leadership which leads to job-induced tension, obstructing the ability to effectively harness the positive effects of empowering leadership on work-related results [23].
Given this, workaholism is likely served as a mechanism when empowering leadership prevails in the healthcare sector, as the nursing profession is identified to be preoccupied with an extreme working environment [24, 25]. Moreover, Oates [26] characterized workaholism as “the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly” (p. 11). Empowering leadership in the nursing profession generated a desire to work excessively when left unmonitored [21, 27]. Workaholic employees usually work very hard because of an internal compulsion, want, or drive rather than external aspects of economic rewards, career aspirations, corporate culture, or failed relationships [28, 29]. Moreover, a highly competitive workplace environment may also force the individuals to become workaholic [30]. Thus, workaholism has been proposed as the underlying cause of burnout because employees who work excessively and desperately deplete their cognitive capacity, choosing to leave them drained and “burned out” [31].
In addition, this study aimed to investigate the role of hardiness that encompasses (challenge, commitment, and control) concerning empowering leadership, perceived stress such as workaholism, and occupational burnout. Hardiness is a personality characteristic that can help humans with encouragement when facing challenging circumstances [32]. A significant literature on nursing has evidenced that hardiness has an influential moderating role in reducing stress and creating a positive environment [33,34,35]. According to hardiness theory [36, 37], hardiness enables people to cope with challenging life circumstances and recognize them as opportunities for progress (coping tool). Hardiness has been found to aid an individual’s belief that they can deal with stressful situations, as compared to trying to engage in abandonment and avoidance [37, 38]. People with a high level of hardiness are much more likely to recognize stressors as a catalyst for growth, opportunity for growth, or controllable event, that has been shown to have a positive impact on an individual’s reported sense of hope as well as their perceived stress [3, 34, 38]. Numerous studies evidenced that psychological hardiness work as a mechanism to minimize the stress in different professions where the individuals face hard working requirements, i.e., military personals, nurses, police, bus drivers and military cadets [34, 39,40,41]. Thus, this study further examines the moderating impact of psychological hardiness in the model.
The present study contributes to empowerment and hardiness theory by explaining the impact of empowering leadership on occupational burnout, as empowerment provides sources to the individuals to deal with uncertainty and complex circumstances which enhance the meaning of work which leads to achievement of personal goals. Further this study, explains the mediating mechanism of workaholism, as and when employees got empowerment from their leaders, they work hard with long hours other than the job requirements which also cause of occupational burnout due to excessive use of physical and psychological resources. Additionally, this study extends knowledge to hardiness theory by explaining the moderating role of psychological hardiness as a coping mechanism to overcome the level of occupational burnout, as hardy people hold the ability of control and dedication which enables them to deal with stress in undue circumstances.
By following the theoretical lens of empowerment and hardiness theory, this study investigates the impact of empowering leadership on occupational burnout by following the future research suggestions of Ed ú-Valsania et al. [4], where they highlighted the need for research by following the factors (personal or organizational) which trigger the occupational burnout. Further, we use workaholism as mediator between empowering leadership and occupational burnout by following the future research directions of Tehari et al. [42]. Additionally, psychological hardiness is used in this study as moderating coping mechanism by following the research suggestion of Altınsoy and Aypay [43] to minimize the occupational burnout level which may occur due to workaholism (See Figure 1).
Theoretical foundation and hypotheses development
The theoretical support for this study is based on empowerment theory and hardiness theory. Empowerment theory [19, 44] discusses that empowerment provides resources to individuals for the achievement of organizational and individuals goals. According to empowerment theory [19, 44], empowering enables individuals to adapt to change policies and cope with the stress at the workplace through the advancement of abilities and skills. Further, scholars found that empowerment from the leaders to the subordinates increases the meaning of work, actively engage them in decision-making and enables them for the goal achievement [45, 46]. Moreover, leaders’ empowerment to subordinates articulate confidence for high performance, and delegation of authority from bureaucratic restrictions linked to the positive role of empowerment in acute care settings [45, 46]. It has been observed that empowering leadership produce positive outcomes, i.e., thriving at work, higher performance and innovative work behaviors and decrease the negative consequences, i.e., boredom and workplace bullying [47, 48]. It is logical to assume that when leaders empower nurses to do meaningful work, nurses are more likely to have an empowering work setting that fosters a match between their anticipations and their workplace conditions [21, 49]. As a result, individuals are less prone to burnout and are more likely to engage in their jobs [21]. Contrarily, empowerment theory [19, 44] also elaborates that empowering leadership has detrimental effects by focusing on high autonomy in task delegation might increase task uncertainty, thereby resulting in increased adverse outcomes [50]. Thus, we propose that empowering leadership will increase workaholism in employees as they have high autonomy to perform the task, so they work for long hours and do extra work than the job description, leading to occupational burnout. Therefore, empowering leadership acts as a double edge sword in a way that it reduces stress, burnout, and exhaustion; on the other side, it compels individuals to work extra, which leads to workaholism which eventually increases occupational burnout.
As noted earlier, hardy people (those who live in high-stress environments but do not report physical ailment) demonstrate three cognitive appraisal techniques: a faith that one’s life actions are valuable and important (dedication), an confidence that one can vigorously impact life circumstances (control), and a belief that change, instead of stability, is anticipated in life and can be advantageous to one’s personal growth [36, 37]. Researchers indicated that hardiness buffers individuals against the adverse impact of life stress [34, 51]. Scholars explicated that empowering leadership has a negative association with employee work performance through an obsessive passion for work and high enthusiasm to work excessively [52, 53]. Furthermore, getting extra duties and obligations from a higher rank person (e.g., a leader) builds conflicts with one’s role beliefs that increase role stress [54]. As a result, subordinates’ role stress, which is developed through empowering leadership, may lead to job-induced tension, obstructing the ability to effectively harness the positive impact of empowering leadership on job-related outcomes [52] could lead to burnout. Researchers have determined that nursing is a challenging profession; when nurses are empowered and provided with autonomy, they devote a lot of physical and intellectual energy and time, which leads to burnout [55, 56]. Previous studies have revealed the moderating role of impact of hardiness on nurses in reducing burnout [34, 51]. Thus, based on hardiness theory [36, 37], it is speculated that psychological hardiness mitigates the negative impact of workaholism and indirect adverse impact of empowering leadership on engendering occupational burnout.
Empowering leadership and occupational burnout
Empowering leadership is concerned with delegating power by the supervisor/manager to their subordinates [57, 58]. Empowering leadership is considered a driving force that increases autonomy, self-efficacy, productivity, teamwork, and collaborative decision-making [18, 59]. Moreover, empowerment, especially in the health care sector, reduces adverse job outcomes such as stress, anxiety, and burnout [55, 59, 60]. It has been observed that individuals who feel empowered at the workplace reflect high satisfaction in terms of performance and career [21, 61]. Researchers expressed that high autonomy by leaders lowers the level of nurse burnout [59]. The leader’s role has new dynamics in present times that determine organizational success in the healthcare sector [62]. Leadership in the nursing profession is regarded as an essential element to ensure a safe culture and mutual support [63,64,65]. Nurses are more likely to experience an empowering environment that develops a fit between their expectations and their working conditions when leaders empower them to do their tasks in meaningful ways [21]. That is, they believe that they have appropriate workloads, control over their work, and solid personal connections; that they are treated fairly and compensated for their efforts; and that their values align with those of the corporation [21, 58, 62]. As a result, nurses are less prone to burnout and are more likely to engage in their jobs. Empowering leadership has been linked to nurses’ assessments of workplace empowerment in two studies [66, 67]. Scholars showed that the combination of leader empowering actions and workplace empowerment decreased job tension and increased work effectiveness [66, 68]. Moreover, empowering theory [19, 44] also states that empowerment is related to reduced levels of job tension and leads to positive outcomes. High levels of empowerment increase the self-efficacy of employees to work diligently and can participate in organizational activities [69]. As empowering leadership work as to lower down the negative attitudes and behaviors, on the other side, it leads to several positive outcomes, i.e., creativity and innovation [68, 70], higher work engagement [71], innovative work behaviors [72], stay in the current organization [61] and higher job satisfaction [73]. According to the empowering theory [19, 44] and statements given above, empowering leadership could be beneficial for nurses to reduce workplace stress such as burnout. Thus, we hypothesize that;
H1Empowering Leadership is negatively associated with Occupational Burnout.
Mediating role of workaholism
Workaholism is concerned with the excess of work other than the job requirement for the sake of inner satisfaction [29]. Moreover, scholars defined workaholism as “the tendency to work excessively in a compulsive way” [74]. Scholars elaborated that workaholics have an obsession with their work and find it hard to detach from their responsibilities [26, 75]. Addiction to excessive work (workaholism) has dual aspects; it provides inner satisfaction to individuals but negatively affects the social and interpersonal relations, level of happiness, and health [26]. Some scholars argue that workaholism leads to addiction of excessive work so it produce positive outcomes, such as psychological satisfaction, but others says that it leads to negative effects on physical, psychological and social life of the individuals [76]. From physical and psychological health perspective, workaholic individuals face different issues, such as anxiety, depression and burnout [77,78,79]. Likewise, workaholism also promote the negative outcomes, i.e., work-family conflicts, exhaustion, sleeping issues, low life satisfaction and sickness absence [80,81,82,83,84]. Moreover, leadership style also plays a dominant role to become a workaholic; as empowering leadership enforces and inspires subordinates to work excessively than the requirement ultimately results in burnout [17, 23, 85]. It is noted that empowering leadership is based on high autonomy to followers/subordinates to work, but this leads to a lack of direction and identification of tasks assigned, which sometimes aggravates excessive work (workaholism) and results in adverse outcomes [17], such as job burnout. Further, numerous studies discussed that individuals working in the nursing sector are challenged with excessive workload and restlessness, which ultimately becomes the cause of burnout and sleep quality problems [85, 86] because they invest more time and energy at the workplace to accomplish their responsibilities than the requirement [23]. Moreover, empowerment theory [19, 44] explains that empowerment has dual aspects; if it is not based on proper task assignment, it causes high work pressure and vague situation that leads to job stress and other negative work-related factors that hinder organizational productivity [17]. Burgoening literature has shown that nurses workload and low self-esteem results in occupational burnout [87]. Moreover, workaholic individuals suffer from damaging of their health, social realtionship, quality of persoanl, family and social life [88]. Given this, some scholars also argued that empowering leadership sometimes causes burnout [49]. Based on this notion, we argue that when individuals feel more empowerment from their leaders, they like to work more than the task requirement due to which they suffer from workaholism and feel psychologically exhausted. Earlier studies have also indicated that workaholism as one of the critical factor leading to adverse outcomes in a different organizational context [82]. Moreover, numerous studies show the positive link between workaholism and negative outcomes, i.e., emotional exhaustion, and workplace incivility [42, 89]. Based on the arguments above, it is hypothesized that;
H2Workaholism mediates the relationship between Empowering Leadership and Occupational Burnout.
Moderating role of employees’ psychological hardiness
Psychological hardiness has been characterized as the strong sense of commitment, control, and challenge [90]. It is concerned with a psychological state of individuals associated with good health, resilience, and higher performance, especially in stressful circumstances [91, 92]. Individuals high in psychological hardiness participate in productive activities, their self-assurance leads to alter adverse into favorable outcomes [93, 94]. Following Maddi and Kobasa [38], a hardy person perceives possibly tricky situations as opportunities and engaging (commitment), stressors as adjustable (control), and change as a natural part of life rather than a threat (challenge). In line with this, workaholism is one of the job stressors that ultimately drains energy [95] and leads to burnout [96]. Corroborating this, workaholism becomes the cause of burnout, especially in health care individuals (because they pay extra time and energy for the care of patients). Moreover, highly devoted individuals especially of healthcare sectors believe in their worth, significance, and value which they have and what they do in their profession, this allows them to discover purpose and pique their interest in whatever they want to do [97]. Scholars demonstrated that psychological hardiness is a robust trait in individuals that help them to overcome the adverse outcome (which occur due to excessive work), i.e., happiness, burnout, mental stress, bullying behaviors and poor health [53, 92, 98, 99] and enhances positive outcomes [33]. Likewise, psychological hardiness promotes dedication and vigor of individuals and enables them to reduce cynicism and emotional exhaustion [100]. Psychological hardiness enables the individuals to be active and deals with stressful and uncertain circumstances [33, 99]. Likewise, studies have revealed the moderating role of psychological hardiness on the relationship among different variables; for instance, a higher level of psychological hardiness reduces the intensity of negative factors on the relationship between, i.e., bullying and anxiety [99], academic stress and health issues [101], emotional demands and emotional exhaustion [98], psychological well-being and career decision-making process [102], sleep quality and job performance [103]. Moreover, a higher level of psychological hardiness enables the individuals to perceive stressors in a positive way, i.e., the challenge for opportunity, growth, and control over the circumstances; which ultimately reduces the level of perceived stress and burnout [34, 104]. Given this, workaholism is recognized as a stressor and obsessive state of mind that compels the individual to overwork, leading to occupational burnout [24, 25, 86]. Moreover, individuals belongs to hardy personalities believe that they have the ability to control the unpredictable and uncontrollable circumstances which this believe that they can face the challenging situations as occurred in healthcare sector [97]. These hardy personalities are more willing to grow and learn from these circumstances which enables them to minimize the occupational burnout as they can’t feel threat from these type of situations [90, 97]. According to hardiness theory, a hardy person manages stress by reassessing the stressors experienced [36]. Considering the significance of psychological hardiness, it is proffered that psychological hardiness mitigates the detrimental impact of workaholism on occupational burnout. Thus, we hypothesize that;
H3Psychological Hardiness moderates the relationship between Workaholism and Occupational Burnout in such a way that a positive relationship becomes weaker when the level of Psychological Hardiness will be high.
Moderated mediation model
According to hypotheses 2 and 3 of the model in which workaholism is postulated to mediate the link between empowering leadership and occupational burnout, and psychological hardiness moderates the workaholism—occupational burnout link. Conferring to this, we proposed the moderated mediation model, by explaining the moderating impact of psychological hardiness between the indirect effect of empowering leadership on occupational burnout through workaholism. Based on this, it is proposed that;
H4Psychological Hardiness moderates the indirect effect of Empowering Leadership on Occupational Burnout via Workaholism in such a way that the positive mediating effect of Workaholism will be weaker at a higher level of Psychological Hardiness.
Research methodology
The target population for this study was permanent healthcare professionals (female and male nurses) working in different hospitals in major cities of Punjab, Pakistan. The reason for conducting this study with healthcare professionals is to identify the factors causing hyper stress-burnout since universal literature has acknowledged nursing as the most challenging profession as it is too demanding and exerts a lot of pressure [87, 105]. Their job requires long working hours due to undue, complex and uncertain circumstances, which affects their psychological and physical health that ultimately causes burnout. The questionnaire was in the English language as English is the official language in Pakistan’s public, private, and academic institutions [106, 107].
To lessen the chances of common method bias during the process of data collection, we collected data in two different time lags with one month space; the time-lag approach helps researchers to minimize the concern of biasness at the data collection stage [108, 109]. Researchers explained that temporal delay for collecting responses from the same respondent reduces the chances of biasness and the respondents’ answers to questions genuinely [108]. Additionally, the data was collected only from subordinates; especially for the predictor variable (empowering leadership); reason behind the selection of this method is that the concept of empowering leadership is based on the perception of subordinates about the empowerment delegated to them by their leaders/supervisors, followed by earlier studies [21, 27, 46]. The two time lag data collection approach was adopted as it is helpful to get original and less biased responses from the respondents [108]. So, in the first time-lag, the data was collected for predictor (empowering leadership) and mediating (workaholism) variable; after one-month separation, we collect data for moderating (psychological hardiness) and criterion (occupational burnout) variable.
The healthcare professionals (nurses) who participate in the present study were from different hospitals and worked in different units of their hospitals, so they were contacted through the human resource and administrative departments of each hospital during working hours. All the questionnaires were printed, and five nurses working in diverse workgroups were selected randomly from different hospitals personally by the researchers. Before starting the survey, researchers personally visited each hospital and gave a briefing about the objective of the current research to the higher management of the hospitals and received their permission to collect data from their employees (nurses). The nurses were also assured that their responses would be used for academic purposes only and would remain confidential.
The data for the present study was collected from the healthcare professionals in first lag and after a month data for second lag was collected. In the first lag, 350 questionnaires were distributed among the nurses through their administrative and human resource departments to get their opinion; out of 350 surveys, 255 questionnaires were filled correctly; in the second lag, which was administered after one month of the first lag, the questionnaires distributed to the same respondents (nurses) who participated in the first lag. To maintain the confidentiality of the responses, it was requested to participants that they directly return their questionnaires to the researchers. Specific codes were marked on the questionnaires so that at the end of the survey, the first and second lag questionnaires easily match each other for further analysis, and respondents were briefed about the study’s objective. At the end of the second lag, 212 questionnaires correctly filled in were received back, which constituted the response rate of 60.57%. As we use time-lag approach to minimize the common method bias (CMB) and use one month interval by following the suggestions of Podsakoff et al. [108], where they suggests that use of one month interval between each lag enables the researchers to collect maximum true opinion of the respondents about the phenomenon of the study. Moreover, we perform Harman’s [110] single factor analysis, where cumulative percentage was 26.98% which is less than the 50% which shows that there is no issue of CMB in the data.
Measurement scales of the study
All the measurement scales of this study were adopted from previously published studies in their original form as the scale items can be used for any sector. The study variables (empowering leadership, workaholism, and psychological hardiness) were measured on a scale ranging from “strongly disagree-1” to “strongly agree-5”. The range for occupational burnout was assessed on a scale ranging from “never-1” to “everyday-5”.
Empowering leadership
Was measured through 10-item of Ahearne et al. [111], along four subscale dimensions; (i) three items of enhancing meaningfulness of work, (ii) three items of fostering participation in decision making, (iii) three items of expressing confidence in high performance, (iv) three items of providing autonomy from bureaucratic constraints, α = 0.91. This study used this scale because it focuses on the empowerment behavior of leaders, so that is why subordinates were asked to rate the level of perception of empowerment of their supervisors. The sample item of each dimension is, (i) “My manager helps me understand how my objectives and goals relate to that of the organization” (ii) “My manager makes many decisions together with me”, (iii) “My manager believes that I can handle demanding tasks”, (iv) “My manager allows me to do my job my way”.
Workaholism
Was assessed by adopting a 25-item scale of Spence and Robbins [112], along three subscale dimensions; (i) seven items of work involvement, (ii) seven items of drive, (iii) eleven items of enjoyment of work. α =.92. Employees were asked to rate the statement which they asked, keeping in mind the last six months working. The sample item of each dimension is, (i) “I like to use my time on and off the job”, (ii) I often feel there’s something inside me that drives me to work hard”, (iii) “Most of the time my work is enjoyable”.
Psychological hardiness
Was evaluated by a 15-item scale from Moreno-Jiménez et al. [113], along three subscale dimensions; (i) five items of challenge, (ii) five items of control, (iii) five items of commitment. α = 0.91. Employees were asked to rate the statement which asked them to keep in mind the last six months working. The sample item of each dimension is, (i) “When possible, I look for new and different situations in my work environment”, (ii) “I do everything I can to make sure I control the results of my work”, (iii) “I worry, and I identify myself with my work”.
Occupational burnout
Was measured by using a 12-item scale adapted from Schaufeli et al. [11], along four subscale dimensions; (i) three items of exhaustion, (ii) three items of cynicism, (iii) three items of efficacy, (iv) three items of inefficacy. α =.94. Employees were asked to rate the statement which asked them to keep in mind the last six months working. The sample item of each dimension is, (i) I feel drained when I finish work”, (ii) “I can’t really see the value and importance of my work”, (iii) “I am competent in my job”, (iv) “Other people say I’m inefficient in my work”.
Control variables
During the statistical analysis process, the gender, age, education, and service were controlled as these variables affect the influence of empowering leadership and workaholism on occupational burnout as suggested in earlier studies [114,115,116].
Results
Demographics
Table 1 demonstrates the demographic details (gender, age, education, service, and designation) of this study.
Model measurement
To test the good fitness of the model, a series of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) run, four factor analysis found to be significant as shown in the Table 2, meet the minimum threshold as suggested by Hu and Bentler [117].
Descriptive statistics, correlations, reliability and validity
Table 3 shows the values of convergent validity representing by heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) and Fornell and Larker values. The HTMT values of all variables are less than 0.80 which meets the acceptable threshold limit as suggested by Hair et al. [118], contrary to this the values of Fornell and Larker also meet the threshold limit as suggested by Fornell and Larker [119] where they suggested that if the diagonal values of each variable are higher than the values shown in columns and rows then there is no issue of validity, these results shows that there is no issue of convergent validity issue in the data.
Table 4 illustrates the values of CR (composite reliability) and AVE (average variance extracted) of all variables which meet the minimum threshold of 0.500 and 0.700, respectively, as recommended by [118]. Additionally, Cronbach’s alpha values are also above 0.700, which is the minimum acceptable level, as suggested by [120]. Table 4 illustrates descriptive statistics and correlational values. Where, all variables’ correlational values are significant as p < 0.01 and correlate positively; however, empowering leadership and psychological hardiness negatively correlated with occupational burnout.
Direct effects
Table 5 shows the values of the direct effect of the predictor variable (empowering leadership) on criterion variable (occupational burnout), through PROCESS-macro [121], where empowering leadership negatively and significantly influencing occupational burnout as the confidence intervals excluded zero (b = − 0.15, SE = 0.10, LL/UL = − 0.28/-0.06, p < 0.001), thus, these results supported H1. For further authentication of the mediation results, PROCESS-macro [121] was used with a bootstrap sample of 5000. Table 5 demonstrates the values of the indirect effect of workaholism between the relations of empowering leadership and occupational burnout, and results found a significant mediation as the confidence interval excluded zero (b = 0.26, SE = 0.04, LL/UL = 0.08/0.43); thus, these results supported H2. The moderating role of psychological hardiness was tested by using PROCESS-macro [121] through 5000 bootstrap samples. Interaction results as shown in Table 5 shows that the confidence interval excluded zero (b = − 0.08, t = -2.10, p < 0.01, LL/UL = − 0.21/-0.06), which shows the moderation effect of psychological hardiness between the relationship of workaholism and occupational burnout; thus, this attests H3. Further, we plotted an interactive slope for the explanation of moderating effects. Figure 2 explains that when healthcare professionals (nurses) where at a higher level of workaholism and same time they were at the higher level of psychological hardiness they feel lower level of occupational burnout. In contrast, individuals with higher workaholism level with lower level of psychological hardiness feel higher level of occupational burnout.
To test the moderated mediation model of this study, PROCESS-macro [121] was used through the 5000 bootstrap sample. Table 5 demonstrates the conditional indirect effects and index of moderated mediation results with CIs of 95%. Zero was found between the values of LL/UL CIs at mean and below than, but no zero included in CIs values above than mean where (effect = -13, SE = 0.04, LL/UL = − 0.23/-0.05). Moreover, CIs excluded zero from the values of moderated mediation index (index = − 0.10, SE = 0.03, LL/UL = − 0.16/-0.04), which shows that higher level of psychological hardiness moderates the indirect effect of empowering leadership on occupational burnout through workaholism, thus it proves H4 of this study.
Discussion
The extant research on the relationship between empowering leadership and employee burnout has produced mixed results, prompting leadership academics to seek more research into why and when empowering leadership has varying effects on occupational burnout [17]. In response to this call, the present study investigated the dualistic model of empowering leadership and theorized different mechanisms that account for the different effects of empowering leadership on occupational burnout in the healthcare field. Further, this study elaborates that how empowering leadership leads to workaholism especially in healthcare environments where care of patients from all perspectives enforces the individuals internally to work hard and with late hours. Additionally, this study examines the moderating mechanism of psychological hardiness which may help the individuals working in healthcare settings that how to overcome the workaholic pressure and manage their psychological resources by becoming a hardy personality.
The hypothesis of the present study demonstrated that empowering leadership may leads to reduction in occupational burnout especially in healthcare sector, and according to the findings, when leaders of the healthcare sector set organizational structures that empower healthcare employees (nurses) to provide optimal care to patients in undue circumstances which they face differently, and they foster a stronger sense of fit between employees’ expectations of well-being and team objectives and activities, resulting in positive job outcomes i-e., lower burnout. These results are also in line with the findings of earlier studies which indicates that empowerment given by the leaders to subordinates reduces negative attitudes and behaviors, i.e., knowledge hiding [122], burnout [55, 59], and perceived stress [123]. Scholars also supported that the impact of empowering leadership in especially hospitals acts as “magnets” on healthcare staff (nurses) that brings positivity [66]. The results indicated that higher levels of autonomy, supervision, and cooperation were linked to greater trust in healthcare management, leading to increased job satisfaction. Further, based on empowerment theory [19, 44], the positive workplace environment attributes are connected to decreased emotional exhaustion, greater job satisfaction, and positive employee assessment of the quality of the care provided. Thus, empowered healthcare professionals (nurses) work efficiently and have low levels of burnout.
The second hypothesis of this study offered that empowering leadership leaders to workaholism also engenders occupational burnout in healthcare professionals (nurses). The results are inconsistent with [124, 125] and the empowerment theory [19, 44] that is empowering leadership contributes to developing an atmosphere for healthcare professionals (nurses) to have a greater sense of responsibility by the healthcare organizations by allowing them to have high autonomy in decision making. Subsequently, healthcare professionals develop obsessive tendencies to work excessively i-e., workaholism, which reduces their positive behavior towards work and increase burnout [126]. Empowering leadership augments the emotional commitment that creates the psychological pressure on healthcare professionals (nurses) to work excessively and put extra effort to meet the challenging work demands, i.e., work in emergency, and extra-care of special patients. Therefore, healthcare professionals (nurses) are likely to work excessively if empowering leadership lacks direction and task identity weakens their emotional bond towards the organization by reflecting adverse outcomes and poor health, leading to occupational burnout.
The third hypothesis of this study showed that psychological hardiness by providing the psychological resources moderates the relationship between workaholism and occupational burnout. Our results indicated that under settings of higher psychological demands such as workaholism, nurses who have a low degree of psychological hardiness in the workplace had a more detrimental influence. Consequently, our findings supported the previous studies indicating the significance of individual attributes such as psychological hardiness helps to mitigate occupational burnout [35, 51, 127]. Consistent with hardiness theory [36, 37], nurses having higher level of hardiness can secure enough personal resources and choose suitable coping strategies in a particular situation to achieve the organizational goal [90]. On the other hand, nurses with low hardiness lack positive resources and find it hard to handle the undue circumstances actively. Further, an excessive working environment leads to high workaholism that puts nurses with low psychological hardiness in a challenging situation [82, 128]. In contrast, nurses with high psychological hardiness demonstrate confidence in their ability to mobilize personal capabilities can lead to meet the healthcare organization’s expectations [51] to deal with the patients empathetically and with positive energy that ultimately results in reduced adverse outcomes such as occupational burnout.
The final hypothesis of the current study supported the moderated mediation model, which articulated that psychological hardiness moderated the indirect effect of empowering leadership on occupational burnout through workaholism. The results of our holistic moderated mediation model indicated a significant indirect influence of empowering leadership on occupational burnout via workaholism and psychological hardiness as a moderator. These findings explains that when individuals were at higher level of empowerment by their leaders (i.e., autonomy, meaningful work, and confidence) they do excessive work than their job requirement and suffer from occupational burnout, but higher level of psychological hardiness reduces the level of occupational burnout in presence of higher empowering leadership indirectly with higher workaholism. These findings further explain that psychological hardiness provide resources to nurses that how to control the undue circumstances showing their commitment with their organization and profession through which they enable to save their life from pressure in the form of occupational burnout.
Theoretical contribution
The results of this investigation contribute to the existing literature of organizational psychology and the healthcare sector in many ways. Particularly, our findings indicated that empowering leadership positively and negatively affects occupational burnout depending on the organization’s prevailing factors. This study through empowerment theory revealed that empowering leadership has two aspects; one is progressive in that empowerment by the leaders motivates subordinates to participate in organizational activities and provides high autonomy that creates positive behaviors and reduces occupational burnout. In addition, with the support of empowerment theory, this study unveiled interesting results of empowering leadership on occupational burnout through the mediating impact of workaholism that aggravates occupational burnout. This finding is consistent with Liu et al. [129] and empowerment theory that when workers have higher level of empowerment in the organization and free hand to do the work in their own way might sometimes lead to high workload, especially for those individuals who have workaholic tendencies and they are more likely to involve in excessively performing the task irrespective of their health [130]. Thus, this finding reveals that empowering leadership has two sides, positive and negative, on job outcomes.
Further, by employing hardiness theory, this study contributes immensely to the present model. The findings indicated that high psychological hardiness nurses could buffer the harmful effects of stressful elements such as workaholism. Psychological hardiness is considered one of the most vital factor in the nursing profession that boosts the immunity system and stabilizes emotions [90]. The addition of psychological hardiness in the present model demonstrates that nurses with high degrees of psychological hardiness are more likely to experience positive energies such as hope despite high degrees of perceived stress such as workaholism. Therefore, psychological hardiness plays an essential role in eliminating stress factors and strengthening the relationship between empowering leadership and job outcomes such as occupational burnout [90].
Additionally, the Pakistani healthcare industry is identified by low salaries with greater responsibility, overwork, fewer opportunities, high staff turnover, and bad working conditions [131, 132]. In such circumstances, an empowering leadership style may be beneficial for obtaining positive work outcomes. As a result, Pakistani hospitals must first recognize empowering leaders in their institutions so that they can be deployed in strategic positions. It should also be noted that empowerment is not a panacea for all workplace issues, but the proper application of empowering techniques can result in various positive consequences in the workplace [60, 124]. Moreover, Cheong et al. [17] elaborated the two aspects of empowering leadership i-e., the positive and negative. In line with this, empowering leadership can enable the process to channelize positive attitudes towards work. On the other side, it could be a burdening factor for employees, especially in the healthcare sector, by aggravating job-related stress. Thus, leaders should assess the advantages and disadvantages of empowering employees before deciding why, when, how, and to whom to empower to realize the desired objectives.
Practical contributions
This study offers several practical implications for the nursing profession and practitioners. Nursing is well recognized as one of the challenging professions, so organizations must devise strategies that encourage nurses to work empathically for the welfare of society. To achieve this, the nurse’s psychological health is crucial; thus, this study suggests implications for the management and nurses that encompass both positive and negative effects of empowering leadership in the healthcare sector. In terms of practical implications, our research demonstrates that empowering leadership can be beneficial and harmful for nurses as it can affect emotional well-being. Occupational burnout is a significant outcome of empowering leadership due to workaholism and has an adverse impact. The stressful aspect of workaholism reduces staff capability to work efficiently because of excessive workload on nurses. Therefore, this study recommends that leaders actively check the nurses’ workloads and emerging pressures. Supervisors should assist when employees display signs of exhaustion or psychological strain to relieve work pressures and aid social learning processes. For instance, leaders could employ the tailoring methods [133], which engage nurses reporting on work pressures and achievement of tasks assigned. Likewise, organizations can conduct training programs that help nurses become mindful of their job stressors, which gives information for coaching sessions and helps employees learn how to design their tasks to reduce obstructive stressors [134]. To maintain psychological balance in the workplace, the organizations must regulate employees’ emotions by frequently organizing retreats and providing rest breaks. Besides this, the study proposes a promising psychological resource -psychological hardiness, that boosts employee morale. Alternatively, through platforms such as psychological hardiness training, organizations can provide opportunity for nurses to acquire enhanced emotion-focused self-regulatory abilities [35, 94, 127] that helps in personal development. Consequently, the nurses will have positive behavior towards work, and through empowerment, leaders effectively manage their tasks.
Future directions and limitations
The present study has some limitations. By tracking the data of this study in two phases; reduced the biases in responses [135]. The temporal separation between predictor and criterion variable measures reduces biases as this method enables the respondents to give their responses without recalling the previous information [109]. The temporal separation between predictor and criterion variable produces an authentic relationship; thus, the findings of this study evident the negative relationship between empowering leadership and occupational burnout; on the other side workaholism also mediates this relationship, which explains that workaholism also becomes the cause of occupational burnout for nurses when they empower by their leaders/supervisors. This study was conducted in the healthcare sector of Pakistan; therefore, it could be explored in the sectors (i.e., manufacturing, service and public sector organizations). Moreover, this study focuses only on healthcare sector it would be better if future researchers replicate the results of this study from hospitality context. In the present study, the data was collected from a single source (nurses); to find out the relationship in-depth, it would be better to collect data from multi-sources ‘pear rated’ and ‘supervisor-rated’ [108, 109] and from medical and administrative staff of healthcare sector. Although, temporal separation approach is helpful to overcome the biasness of responses, but it would be better for future researcher collect data through multisource by applying nested structure to confirm our study results. Next, this study focused on occupational burnout as an outcome of empowering leadership, allowing future studies to investigate other job outcomes, as empowerment by the leaders gives independence for the utilization of resources which may not only reduce negative outcomes but may also produce positive outcomes, i.e., higher job satisfaction, organizational innovation, affective commitment etc. Moreover, this study investigated workaholism as a mediator in the framework that leaves room for further assessment of other mediators, as empowering leadership work has double edge sword, from one side it enhances workaholism and from the positive perspective it produces work engagement which may leads to several positive outcomes. Finally, in this study psychological hardiness has been investigated as a moderator; thus, future researchers may use other moderators that may help the individuals to minimize the occupational burnout, i.e., passion, psychosocial work environment, and morale which may provide psychological resources to individuals to overcome the negative attitudes and behaviors.
Conclusion
The present study investigated the dual aspect of empowering leadership by employing empowerment theory that empowering leadership reduces burnout. Contrarily, empowering leadership engenders workaholism that leads to occupational burnout. Further, this study examined the moderating effect of psychological hardiness in the framework. Empowering leadership has a motivational effect on employees and promotes a sense of control, boosts confidence, induces empowerment, and delegates authority and autonomy that minimize occupational burnout. In contrast, workaholism was identified as a significant mediator that engenders occupational burnout, because when employees feel more authority and autonomy, they would like to work with long hours which lead to occupational burnout. Moreover, psychological hardiness was divulged as a pivotal resource that helps individuals to overcome stressful situations, i.e., occupational burnout and negative emotions due to excessive work, i.e., workaholism.
Conceptual Framework
Interaction Effects
Data availability
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
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Acknowledgements
The authors extend their appreciation to the hanonymous reviewers and participants who supported in achieving our research objectives.
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This research was funding by National Natural Science Foundation of China (71974082) and National Foreign Expert Project (Y20240100, Y20240101 ).
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Conceptualization: Hira Salah ud din Khan Muhammad Salman Chughtai and Ma Zhiqiang; Methodology, formal analysis and investigation: Muhammad Salman Chughtai Writing—original draft: Hira Salah ud din Khan; Writing—review and editing: Muhammad Salman Chughtai and Wadi B. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Khan, H., Salman Chughtai, M. & Zhiqiang, M. Empowering leadership and occupational burnout: the moderated mediation model. BMC Psychol 13, 378 (2025). https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/s40359-025-02492-8
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DOI: https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/s40359-025-02492-8