Navigating the hybrid workplace: The role of benevolent leaders and its impact on empowering employees psychologically

The gradually accepted hybrid work mode has redefined the modern workplace, necessitating a transformation in leadership. Traditional management practices, such as controlling and closely monitoring employees’ performance, have become impractical and inefficient due to the distance. The challenges of juggling roles between work and family responsibilities faced by employees also demand more individualised support from leaders. To address these realities, focus should be placed on empowering employees and taking their perspective to recognise the dual-role pressure. This study discusses how benevolent leaders fit into the emerging hybrid working trend in empowering employees by practicing perspective taking in considering employees’ real needs. The data collection involved 299 respondents from the banking industry in the major cities of Malaysia. Structural equation modeling was adopted for hypothesis testing. The result shows that both benevolent leadership and perspective taking are significantly and positively related to psychological empowerment, and perspective taking moderates the relationship between benevolent leadership and employee engagement.