Understanding teacher empowerment: Teachers' perceptions of principal's and immediate supervisor's empowering behaviours, psychological empowerment and work-related outcomes

•Both principal and teachers' immediate supervisor played key roles in empowerment.•Perceptions of leaders' empowering behaviours predicted psychological empowerment.•Teachers' psychological empowerment predicted teachers' work-related outcomes.•Psychological empowerment was both a predictor variable and a mediating variable.

This study examined the predictive relationships among teachers' perceptions of principal's and immediate supervisor's empowering behaviours, teachers' psychological empowerment and three teachers' work-related outcomes in terms of job satisfaction, organisational commitment and professional commitment. 304 teachers in Singapore participated in this study. Results from path analysis indicated that the four dimensions of psychological empowerment (i.e. ‘meaning’, ‘competence’, ‘autonomy’, and ‘impact’) mediated the relationships between teachers' perceptions of immediate supervisor's empowering behaviours and teachers' work-related outcomes. However, only ‘meaning’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘impact’ dimensions of psychological empowerment mediated the relationships between teachers' perceptions of principal's empowering behaviours and teachers' work-related outcomes.