<p>Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study aims to explore the relationship between empowering leadership and followers’ individual work reflection. Additionally, this study tested the mediating effect of followers’ thriving at work and the moderating role of role overload on the relationship between thriving at work and individual work reflection. The data were collected from followers in various Chinese organizations at two time points, with a time lag of two weeks. We used a latent variable-based structural equation modeling approach to conduct a moderated mediation analysis to test our hypotheses. As hypothesized, empowering leadership was a statistically significant predictor of followers’ individual work reflection, with followers’ thriving at work mediating the relationship between empowering leadership and individual work reflection. Furthermore, we found that followers’ role overload negatively moderates the direct impact of thriving at work on individual work reflection as well as the indirect impact of empowering leadership on individual work reflection through thriving at work. This study is the first empirical examination of the link between empowering leadership and followers’ individual work reflection, advancing the theory and research on leadership and followers’ work reflection, and offers valuable strategies for organizations and leaders to promote followers’ individual work reflection more effectively.</p>