The feedback-seeker in his social labyrinth: the mediating role of goals and cooperative norms in linking empowering leadership to feedback-seeking behavior

This study examines the intra-personal and interpersonal mechanisms through which empowering leaders impact their followers’ selection of feedback sources. Drawing on goal theories and the group-norms literature, we developed and tested an individual and multilevel model of feedback-seeking behavior. Using a sample of 991 employees, working in 185 teams, we found that empowering leaders indirectly influenced their followers’ selection of feedback sources by encouraging autonomous goal pursuit and cooperative group norms.