Empowering Leadership and Employee Innovation: The Distinct and Collective Implications of Close and Distant Leaders

Organizations increasingly emphasize innovation and recognize the critical role of employee empowerment in fostering it. Departing from prior research, this study examines how empowering leadership coming from different hierarchical levels—close (direct supervisors) and distant (senior managers)—distinctly influences employee psychological empowerment and, in turn, supervisor's perceptions of innovative performance. Drawing on leader distance theory and signal detection theory, we theorize and find empirical support for the notion that empowering leadership from close leaders directly enhances psychological empowerment, thereby promoting innovation. In contrast, empowering leadership from distant leaders needs to surpass a certain threshold before it can positively influence psychological empowerment and perceptions of innovative performance. Furthermore, we theorize the implications of what we refer to as dual-source leadership – or the collective implications of close and distant leader empowering leadership. Our findings suggest that high empowering leadership from either source alone is as effective in fostering psychological empowerment and innovation as when both sources exhibit high levels. These results offer new insights into the nuanced dynamics of hierarchical leadership and their implications for innovation.