Shaping subordinate's adaptive performance-impact of supervisor's empowering leadership: a moderated mediation effect

Purpose This study explores the dynamic relationship between empowering leadership (EL) and subordinates' adaptive performance (AP), with a focus on the mediating role of proactive vitality management (PVM). Additionally, it examines how subordinates' learning goal orientation (LGO) moderates these effects, providing a boundary condition that emphasizes how leadership and individual traits jointly shape AP. Design/methodology/approach The study utilizes a questionnaire survey method to gather data from 411 supervisor-subordinate dyads from selected organizations representing the service and manufacturing sectors. CB-SEM and Hayes PROCESS Macro were utilized to test the proposed hypothesis. Findings The findings revealed that supervisors' EL enables the subordinates' AP. It indicates that if supervisors exhibit core attributes of EL (e.g. feedback, coaching and collaborative decision-making), it enriches subordinates' problem-solving competencies and hence positively impacts their AP. Further, the findings highlight the mediating role of PVM between EL and AP, suggesting that supervisors' EL encourage subordinates to proactively manage their energy resources, which helps them improve their AP. Also, LGO moderates the relationship between PVM and AP. This implies that subordinates with strong LGO channelize their energy resources in learning new skills, thus elevating their AP. Originality/value Grounded in the JD-R model and Achievement Goal theory, this study offers novel insights by introducing PVM as a crucial pathway through which empowering leaders foster adaptability while also highlighting the conditions under which LGO amplifies or diminishes this effect, thus offering actionable insights for leadership development and performance optimization.