Leadership Research Summary:
- A good deal of evidence indicates that servant leadership play a critical role in employees’ job outcomes. However, research studies on the variables that could mediate the effect of servant leadership in determining this relationship are relatively few.
- Utilizing the framework of leader-member exchange and social exchange theories, this study examines the mediating effect of “trust in coworkers” in the effect of “servant leadership” on employee job outcomes.
- Survey data were sourced from 315 bank employees and managers in Northern Cyprus. Partial least square structural equation modeling was utilized with the aid of WarpPLS (7.0) to test the study hypotheses.
- Servant leadership was found to have a direct and indirect relationship with employees’ career satisfaction, service recovery performance, and innovative work behavior. In contrast, the servant leadership relationship with job satisfaction was indirect. In addition, trust in coworkers was found to be a mediator in the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ job outcomes.
Leadership Research Findings:
- There are several implications from the study for managers and organizations. Managers need to ensure employee engagement at the individual level and to have a first-hand understanding of their abilities and capabilities which would promote their possible job outcomes.
- The present business climate characterized by “globalization” and “competitive advantage” requires firms to inspire their employees’ positive outcomes. By confirming the significance of SL in a firm, this study argues that firms need to employ leaders who display SL tendencies like authenticity, humility, and stewardship.
- Moreover, the implementation of SL should be the priority of every manager because if this is not honestly pursued, any efforts about SL are bound to fail. Thus, managers should be interested in supporting high-quality exchange relationships among members. This could be achieved by recruiting employees characterized by openness to extroversion and experience.
- It is worthy to note that companies should develop a team-oriented atmosphere through events and other activities that could encourage job and non-job-specific interaction among the workers to nurture trust among the employees. The exercises could be specifically at training sessions or the first stages of the team development, although they might be constituted as part of the team’s work schedule.
- In addition, training programs would be beneficial. Specifically, the bank employees should be trained about the SL practice in an organization. This training would provide an avenue to get effective feedback and thoughts that could assist the organization in better implementation. Consequently, employees with favorable views of servant leaders’ practices will develop trust, which is essential in a social exchange relationship.