Spanish Validation of the Leader Empowering Behavior Questionnaire (LEBQ)

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Management Science

Background:

• Empowering leadership (EL) is a significant concept in management, yet lacks a validated Spanish-language measurement tool.
• Existing research highlights the importance of EL but requires culturally adapted instruments for diverse linguistic contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To translate, adapt, and validate the Leader Empowering Behavior Questionnaire (LEBQ) for Spanish-speaking populations.
• To examine the relationship between managers' empowering leadership and employees' job satisfaction.
• To investigate the link between employee participation in continuous improvement (CI) programs and the prevalence of empowering leadership behaviors.

Main Methods:

• Translation, adaptation, and validation of the LEBQ into Spanish (LEBQ-sp).
• Confirmatory factor analysis to assess the psychometric properties of the LEBQ-sp.
• Pearson's correlation and analysis of variance to test relationships between EL, job satisfaction, and CI.

Main Results:

• The LEBQ-sp demonstrated strong internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, supporting a six-factor model.
• A significant positive relationship was found between empowering leadership and employee job satisfaction.
• Companies with greater investment in formal CI programs exhibited leaders who displayed higher levels of empowering behaviors.

Conclusions:

• The LEBQ-sp is a psychometrically sound and reliable instrument for measuring empowering leadership in Spanish-speaking contexts.
• Empowering leadership is crucial for enhancing employee job satisfaction and is associated with engagement in continuous improvement initiatives.
• The validated LEBQ-sp offers a valuable tool for both research and practical applications in organizational settings across Spanish-speaking countries.