The Effects of Empowering Leadership on Job Performance among Beauty Industry Employees: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction

The purpose of this study was to examine and analyze the effects of leaders’ empowering leadership on job satisfaction and job performance of employees in beauty companies, and to propose practical strategies for enhancing organizational and employee performance. A self-administered survey was conducted among hair salon employees in their 20s to 40s working for the ‘J’ beauty franchise, and a total of 305 questionnaires were used for the final analysis. The results indicated that providing training to enhance employees’ professional competencies and creating an environment conducive to task focus led to improved job performance. In addition, when opportunities to participate in key decision-making processes were guaranteed and autonomy was expanded, a horizontal organizational culture was established, resulting in increased job ownership and job satisfaction. Leaders’ empowering leadership had positive effects on both job satisfaction and job performance, and job satisfaction was found to mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and job performance. These findings suggest that enhancing empowering leadership and job satisfaction can positively influence job performance and customer satisfaction, and may serve as a basis for human resource management and organizational strategy development in beauty service organizations.