EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP, EMPLOYEE VOICE BEHAVIOUR AND CREATIVITY; SPECIAL REFERENCE TO WELIMADA AREA OF BADULLA DISTRICT

Abstract

This study explores the impact of empowering leadership on employee voice behavior and creativity, with a specific focus on the Welimada area of the Badulla District. Empowering leadership, characteized by the delegation of authority, encouragement of autonomous decision-making, and provision of support and resources, is posited to foster an environment conducive to employee voice behavior employees' proactive communication of ideas, suggestions, and concerns. This study underscores the importance of a supportive leadership framework in fostering a culture of open communication and creativity, essential for the sustainable development of apparel sector in the Welimada area. The study employed a quantitative research design and sample size is selected as 300 employees in apparel sector in Welimada area. The structured questionnaire was used as the method of data collection and questionnaire consist with personal information of the respondent and research information of the empowering leadership on employee voice behavior and creativity. Questionnaire included 32 questions with Five Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. It has been conducted pilot test to test the reliability of the questionnaire. The findings show that empowering leadership, employee voice behavior, and creativity are at a high level. Furthermore, the results show that there is a significant impact of empowering leadership on creativity, there is a significant impact of empowering leadership on employee voice behavior, there is a significant impact of employee voice behavior on creativity, finally, the results show that the impact of empowering leadership on creativity is mediated by employee voice behavior.