research paper for servant leadership

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Servant leadership behavior at workplace and knowledge hoarding: a moderation mediation examination.

• 1 Business School, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
• 2 Department of Business Administration, ILMA University, Karachi, Pakistan
• 3 Department of Business Administration, Iqra National University, Peshawar, Pakistan
• 4 Institute of Business and Management Sciences, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan
• 5 Public Policy Observatory, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile
• 6 Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile

Servant leadership practice honesty, stewardship, and high moral standards while prioritizing the needs of subordinates. The moral concern of a servant leadership is to support others and put the needs of others first. We investigated the relationship between servant leadership, psychological safety, and knowledge hoarding in accordance with social learning theory in a survey of 347 workers across 56 teams. The results of this study illustrate that servant leadership is negatively associated with knowledge hoarding and positively associated with psychological safety. We also found that a mastery climate moderated the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. This study highlights the theoretical and practical implications that contribute to the body of knowledge. It helps organizations that the presence of servant leadership may discourage knowledge hoarding by providing a psychologically safe mastery climate.

Introduction

Employees who hide, hoard, or simply refuse to share knowledge with others in their organization are becoming a rising issue in today’s workplace. It is disruptive and has a significant impact on the lack of productivity in the workplace ( Flynn et al., 2022 ). It seems that employees who purposefully hoard knowledge will be met by similar selfish conduct on the part of their coworkers, which will eventually harm them and reduce their ability to be creative ( Wu J. et al., 2021 ). Organizations are developing new working methods. Our typical business problems are layered with additional challenges: new ways of functioning, keeping employee’s safe and addressing layoffs, furloughs, and loss of revenue ( Newman and Newman, 2021 ). Negative consequences on the global economy have adverse social implications (i.e., good health and well-being, poverty, quality education, etc.). We need servant leadership that helps employees emotionally and cognitively to survive and face all those challenges efficiently ( Obi et al., 2020 ). Servant leader’s primary moral objective and obligation are to serve their employees ( Lumpkin and Achen, 2018 ). They put the needs of their subordinates first, rather than their own self-interests ( Hunter et al., 2013 ). Leaders who practice servant leadership make certain their subordinates in developing their career professionally and even in terms of their physical well-being ( Latif and Marimon, 2019 ). Leaders who transfer their services to their workers are more likely to develop talented, knowledgeable, and motivated individuals who, in turn enhance the overall operations and management of the organization ( Abdulmuhsin et al., 2021 ). Scholars have studied servant leadership and its positive effect on employees and organizations extensively in the past ( Saleem et al., 2020 ). Servant leadership was positively related to employees work engagement, workplace spirituality, work motivation, individual and team performance, and organization effectiveness ( Baloch et al., 2021 ). Servant leadership also plays a crucial role in reducing employee’s turnover, CWB, employee cynicism, and job stress ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2017 ). Previous studies on servant leadership and knowledge management have been divided ( Hunter et al., 2013 ; He et al., 2021 ). Most studies have examined the relationship between servant leadership and employee knowledge sharing behavior, but there is a dire need of to examine servant leadership with knowledge hoarding behavior. Knowledge hiding and knowledge hoarding are two different concepts, knowledge hiding is intentional act to hide and conceal knowledge when someone request while knowledge hoarding is purposely keeping information and knowledge to themselves.

According to a poll of 1700 newspaper readers conducted by The Globe and Mail, employees are more prone to hoard knowledge from their coworkers than sharing it publicly. A similar study conducted in China, 46% of those polled admitted that they hoarding knowledge at their work place ( Peng, 2013 ). For Fortune 500 businesses, this turn in to a yearly loss of $31.5 billion in revenue Babcock (2004) . Organizations face a huge cost of knowledge hoarding; therefore, leaders must figure out to prevent it from happening in their organizations. When describing unethical conduct in organizations, in such situation servant leadership is one of the good choice ( Wah et al., 2007 ; Lumpkin and Achen, 2018 ). Servant leaders may positively influence their teams’ moral standards by serving as positive role models, enforcing better moral standards via the use of punishments and incentives, and showing concern and care for their workers ( Hunter et al., 2013 ; Sun et al., 2020b ). In general, most employees consider it unethical and detrimental to the interests of the company and its employees to hoard knowledge ( Serenko, 2019 ). Knowledge hoarding may also be deemed improper in an atmosphere characterized by high service levels ( Oliveira et al., 2021 ).

This research was based on Bandura’s social learning theory ( Bandura, 1977 ) and evaluated a connection between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding in the workplace. According to social learning theory, individuals try to follow leader’s behavior and actions in the workplace ( Wu J. et al., 2021 ). Servant leadership communication with their subordinates regarding what is wrong or right through open communication ( Latif and Marimon, 2019 ; He et al., 2020 ). Therefore, social learning theory is helpful to explain the social learning process through which followers adopt the learning approach ( Wu J. et al., 2021 ). This approach helps employees to less hoard their knowledge under servant leadership. Attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control all play a key role in employees’ desire to share their expertise with their co-workers in a servant leadership style. Understanding how servant leadership impacts workers’ knowledge-hoarding behavior is based on findings from social learning theory ( Bandura, 1977 ). It also looks at how servant leadership affects employee knowledge hoarding via psychological mechanisms. It is more probable that employees will have a high level of psychological safety when their supervisors exhibit servant leadership by emphasizing mutual respect which is beyond the interpersonal trust.

Psychological safety—“Psychological safety is a multi-dimensional, dynamic phenomenon that concerns team members’ perception of whether it is safe to take interpersonal risks at work” ( Liang et al., 2012 ; Ali et al., 2021 ). Additionally, by emphasizing psychological safety as a critical motivator for workers to express themselves, share their ideas, and exchange knowledge ( Iqbal et al., 2020 ). Here in this study, we examine the servant leadership role in psychological safety, which we further studied with knowledge hoarding. A necessary boundary condition of the supposed causal chain is also identified, further developing our servant leadership model and knowledge hoarding. In terms of knowing how to prevent knowledge hoarding occurring from the organization’s perspective, creating a mastery climate is essential. Knowledge hoarding is done for three reasons: (1) employees hoard knowledge so that they become irreplaceable. (2) It might be nerve-wracking to put oneself out there. What if your coworkers or superiors have anything terrible to say about you? (3) Employees will be less inclined to divulge their “secrets” if your company favors individual achievements over collective ones. Social learning and psychological well-being are essential ( Sendjaya et al., 2019 ; Saeed et al., 2022a ). A mastery climate, in which workers’ efforts, collaboration, understanding, and self-development are valued, is also assumed by theorists while developing their ideas.

Employees may see knowledge hoarding as a detrimental behavior in a mastery climate since it hinders the reciprocal advantages of knowledge sharing, such as developing skills in their teams ( Bari et al., 2019 ). The research on knowledge hoarding has also emphasized the importance of mastery climate as a critical contextual moderator ( Caniëls et al., 2019 ; He et al., 2019 ). As a result, we propose exploring the moderating function of mastery climate to determine the boundary conditions of the servant leadership–knowledge concealment relationship. Furthermore, our theoretical viewpoint and empirical findings make significant contributions to the literature on organizational behavior and knowledge management, both of which are key areas of study in their respective fields. The relation between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding is limited and has not been studied in the past. Therefore, studying the role of servant leadership with knowledge hoarding is our main of the research, and linking the mechanism between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding is limited. Abdullah et al. (2019) examined the direct link between ethical leadership and knowledge hoarding in the past. Still, this study is novel to explore the servant leadership role and mediation (psychological safety) and moderating role of (i.e., mastery climate). The target population was students in laboratory settings in previous studies, but this study used full-time employees from actual work settings.

Researchers believe that activities carried out in laboratories may fail to elicit the kinds of solid affective reactions needed to uncover the underlying causes of immoral behavior since they are not stimulating enough ( Shin, 2014 ). A further limitation of laboratory testing may be that it cannot accurately recreate the long-term connections and dynamics that occur in real-world work scenarios ( Tsai et al., 2012 ). Thus, in this research, we are interested in determining how and when servant leadership is associated with confidential information in the workplace. First, our data show that servant leadership and information hoarding negatively correlate. Second, a mediation framework is developed based on social learning theory that connects servant leadership to knowledge hoarding via psychological safety. Third, mastery climate was examined as a boundary condition between negative association of servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. Fourth, to affect knowledge hoarding, we evaluate the connection between psychological safety and mastery atmosphere. Additionally, the cross-level design and the two-phase data gathering technique were used in this work, which both contribute to the production of more relevant and dependable results. Our study model is shown in Figure 1 .

Figure 1. Conceptual model.

Theoretical Background and Hypotheses

Servant leadership and knowledge hoarding.

Servant leadership is defined as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and promoting such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making” ( Reed et al., 2011 ). Andersen (2018) defined that servant leadership consists of two essential attributes. The first one is related to their moral conduct, where servant leaders have trustworthiness, caring, and stewardship qualities. Second the management component, wherein service leaders influence their followers through their actions, encourage helping behavior in the organization, and discourage immoral behavior ( Andersen, 2018 ). Establishing high standards for followers and mentoring them to keep them accountable for acceptable behavior while still treating them equitably ( Latif and Marimon, 2019 ). According to social learning theory, social conduct is learnt through observing and copying the behavior of others in social situations. The technique of mentorship, which is explained by social learning theory, allows servant leaders to intentionally or unintentionally affect the conduct of their subordinates in this manner ( Bandura, 1977 ). Social learning theory helps us to analyze the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. Following social learning theory, people gain knowledge through the actions and behaviors of their mentorship. Through this role-modeling process, individuals learn appropriate behavior and activities that help them act decently. According to Liden et al. (2014) , leaders’ show and serves moral conduct and influence others through punishment and rewards approaches. Such an approach is reliable in followers in inducing moral behavior. They are seen as appealing and credible role models because of their position as servant leaders in organizations. When it comes to employees, servant leaders provide employees significant hints about how they might act in a servant-like manner instead of engaging in unethical practices like knowledge hoarding ( Song et al., 2015 ). Employees that follow a servant leader are more likely to engage in the servant or good behaviors ( Iqbal et al., 2020 ). Because of this, servant leaders may give incentives to their employees for participating in cooperative behaviors such as knowledge sharing while discouraging immoral behaviors such as knowledge hoarding ( Iqbal et al., 2020 ). In sum, it is stated that there is a negative relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding by influencing or adequately helping followers. Through their actions, followers can differentiate between wrong and right in the workplace. To be a servant leader, one must put the interests of others instead of one’s own, demonstrate empathy and care, and work for the betterment of their team members and organization ( Wu J. et al., 2021 ). As they develop connections with their subordinates and provide developmental opportunities, servant leaders may help their organizations successfully implement knowledge management practices ( Abdulmuhsin et al., 2021 ).

Hypothesis 1: There is a negative association between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding.

Servant Leadership and Psychological Safety

Workers’ psychological safety will improve in the presence of servant leadership. Leaders who have servants behavior follow the workplace rules and treat others how they want to be treated ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2017 ). When leaders practice servant leadership, they exhibit sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and caring for their employees by reminding them that their first duty is the psychological safety of their subordinates ( Andersen, 2018 ). It is believed that servant leaders’ actions may “trickle-down” to their subordinates. According to social learning theory, examines how both environmental and cognitive variables interact to impact human learning and behavior in order to understand how people learn and behave, which in turn may encourage others who observe the generally uniform acts of servant leaders toward their colleagues to follow their example ( Martin et al., 2016 ). When servant leaders engage honestly and openly with their workers, they create a win-win scenario for everyone involved. Mutual respect and inter-personal trust emerge between leaders and their followers due to this connection ( Obi et al., 2020 ). Additionally, the past study has shown that when employees see servant leaders’ interpersonal behaviors like compassion, excitement, devotion, and empathy, they feel more psychologically safe ( Ma et al., 2021 ). Employees’ psychological safety is increased by servant leaders, who create an environment where they feel comfortable expressing their thoughts views and making choices ( Ma et al., 2021 ; Saeed et al., 2022a , b ). According to Edmondson (1999) , people in a condition of psychological safety are characterized by their ability to be engaged, respected, and cherished. They are confident that if they speak out, ask questions, or make mistakes, they will not be embarrassed, sidelined, or penalized in any way. It is a safe space where servant leaders may be open and honest with their followers. In empirical study shows that psychological safety is associated with servant leadership ( Brohi et al., 2021 ; Khan et al., 2022b ), and it shows that it is an essential psychological mechanism in organizations ( Brohi et al., 2021 ).

Hypothesis 2: There is a positive association between servant leadership and psychological safety.

Psychological Safety and Knowledge Hoarding

Knowledge hoarding—“when employees purposely keep critical knowledge to themselves—is a fairly common phenomenon found in companies of all sizes.” It’s an uphill battle to create a culture of knowledge sharing ( Connelly et al., 2012 ). It is common for employees to keep their knowledge hidden from one another, and the level of trust between coworkers influences how each replies when asked for knowledge in the workplace ( Connelly et al., 2012 ). There are two reasons why knowledge hoarding is negatively associated with psychological safety. First, psychological safety is a consequence of mutual respect and trust between people who are close to one another, which is a key aspect that is the opposite of hoarding knowledge ( Connelly et al., 2012 ). Psychological safety refers to the degree to which a person feels free to be open and honest about their feelings and actions without fear of repercussions to their self-perception, social standing, or professional prospects. People are more likely to feel psychologically secure when they have connections with their coworkers based on mutual trust and support ( Kahn, 1990 ). Having excellent psychological safety means that individuals may trust their colleagues and not be ashamed or penalized for expressing themselves since interpersonal situations are not harmful ( Zhang and Bartol, 2010 ). Instead, someone who has a low sense of psychological safety may develop sentiments of distrust toward their coworkers, believing that they would do them harm ( Connelly et al., 2012 ). Obi et al. (2020) , have claimed that interpersonal mistrust can affect an individual’s knowledge hoarding practices. The inability to place faith in one’s coworkers may lead to hoarding information from one’s colleagues, which indicates poor psychological safety. Second, high levels of psychological safety encourage employees to share work-related knowledge with others and are less afraid of the recipient’s feedback ( Zhao and Jiang, 2021 ; Zada et al., 2022a ). Ehrhart (2004) argues that having regular conversations with coworkers on work-related events promotes the development of shared meanings and collective assessments of workplaces. Thus, the likelihood of employees expressing opinions with one another and fostering a culture of knowledge sharing amongst themselves increases when they feel comfortable and safe in their workplace ( Connelly et al., 2012 ).

Hypothesis 3: There is a negative relationship between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding.

The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety

The emotional trust between leaders and followers must be considered when evaluating the quality of social interaction between the two parties. For leaders to be trusted by their followers, trust creates the strong bond between leader and their followers. Trust in the leader has a favorable impact on various outcomes, including organizational citizenship behavior, performance, and satisfaction ( Chughtai, 2016 ; Sun et al., 2020a ). According to Edmondson and Lei (2014) , one of the most critical factors that contribute to psychological safety is a workplace that encourages open communication and mutual respect amongst co-workers and the ability to share information ( Ullah et al., 2021 ; Khan et al., 2022a ). Many studies have also stated that leaders who demonstrate an embodied service attitude and create an atmosphere of service help their employees to experience psychological safety ( Liden et al., 2014 ; Zada et al., 2022a , b ). Having a psychologically safe environment would alleviate any concerns about team members’ reactions that make the member feel ashamed or frightened. In an environment where people feel safe and do not fear the ramifications of taking interpersonal risks, people are less inclined to hoard knowledge. A servant leadership create good environment which fosters this kind of climate. In particular, prior studies have shown that servant leadership may prevent knowledge hoarding ( Song et al., 2015 ; Zhuang et al., 2021 ). Psychological safety is seen as a crucial precondition for exchanging knowledge ( Edmondson et al., 2004 ; Zada et al., 2021 ), and the importance of servant leadership in enhancing psychological safety cannot be overstated ( Eva et al., 2019 ). Through the creation of psychological safety, servant leadership is logically expected to reduce the tendency of its followers to hoard their knowledge ( Sendjaya, 2015 ; Wu S. et al., 2021 ). This suggests that servant leadership is a significant antecedent to psychological safety, reducing the likelihood of knowledge hoarding. Thus, we hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 4: The link between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding is mediated by psychological safety.

The Moderating Effect of Mastery Climate

According to C̀erne et al. (2014) , a situational factor that effect knowledge hoarding behavior has been identified as mastery climate. Furthermore, theories of social learning and psychological safety expressly imply the presence of a mastery climate. As a consequence of the increased psychological safety given by a high mastery atmosphere, the connection between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding should be reduced. Moreover, an environment of mastery may lessen the desire to hoard knowledge ( Nerstad et al., 2013 ). To achieve success in a mastery climate, a significant focus must be placed on teamwork ( C̀erne et al., 2014 ). Employees actually should be less inclined to participate in knowledge hoarding as long as their actions are communicated to be publicly acknowledged, anticipated, and rewarded in this manner. A study of Poortvliet and Giebels (2012) indicates that this propensity may be ascribed to employees’ desire to continue seeking methods to develop themselves, and they are unable to admit this by hoarding information. It is possible that employees in a mastery workplace will be more motivated to recognize their self-improvement. They put greater emphasis on it, promoting their skill development by engaging in less knowledge hoarding behavior and seeking constructive cooperation. Knowledge hoarding is affected by psychological safety and mastery climate from an interactionist approach. Several factors contribute to reduced knowledge hoarding practices, such as a high level of psychological safety, an internal urge to discuss and share work-related information, and an atmosphere of mastery in the workplace ( Ames and Archer, 1988 ). Work environments that promote, value, and reward knowledge-sharing efforts should increase the likelihood of people with high psychological safety participating in such activities ( Siemsen et al., 2009 ). Knowledge hoarding is more likely to be practiced by people who have a poor sense of psychological safety or live in an environment that discourages the communication or sharing of information and ideas. Therefore, psychological safety encourages team members to take risks and lessens the motive for knowledge hoarding in a climate with a high level of mastery. We therefore hypothesize:

Hypothesis 5: A mastery climate will moderate the link between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding. The higher the level of mastery climate the weaker the relation and vice versa.

Leaders may create psychological safety in their organizations by fostering the mastery climate, attitudes, and behaviors among members of their organizations. Mastery climates—in which team members appreciate each other’s contributions, care about their well-being, and have influence into how the team works—are the most essential driver of psychological safety and therefore prevent knowledge hoarding. We hypothesized that a mastery climate would have a conditional influence on the strength of the indirect link between ethical leadership and knowledge hoarding, as seen in Figure 1 , revealing a pattern of moderated mediation between the variables in our study. Specifically, we hypothesize that in a high (low) mastery climate, there is a low (high) relationship between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding.

Hypothesis 5a: Mastery climate will impact how servant leadership and knowledge hoarding are mediated through psychological safety; when the mastery climate is high, the indirect effect of servant leadership on knowledge hoarding will be low.

Materials and Methods

Sample and procedure.

We gathered data from subordinates and supervisors working in various corporate sectors in Pakistan to compile the research study data was collected from (47.23% in textile; 32.45% in information technology; 20.32% in manufacturing). The author could access the participants because of their professional and personal connections(s). One of the authors contacted the team supervisors to inform them of the study’s findings. The departments of the organizations were considered teams. The questionnaires were distributed in two parts: subordinates and the supervisors (T1 and T2). Before being delivered, the questionnaires were coded with a unique identification code to match both phases’ questionnaires. Under the condition that they could acquire a copy of the results, the teams agreed to participate. Participation was entirely optional, and respondents were guaranteed that their replies would remain anonymous. We told them that all given information will be deleted from the database to protect the participants’ privacy. The data collection was done in two rounds, each separated by 6 weeks, to minimize the possible common method biases identified by Podsakoff et al. (2003) . Data collection should not be delayed for an excessively long or concise period, according to Podsakoff et al. (2012) . Leadership styles and employee turnover may disturb employee’s perceptions if the time lag is too long ( Babalola et al., 2017 ). However, if the time lag is too small, employees will go with the same approach as previous ( Babalola et al., 2017 ). As a result, 6 weeks should be the ideal time lag to choose ( Babalola et al., 2017 ). In phase one, 356 responses were obtained from 382 workers polled regarding servant leadership and psychological safety, knowledge hoarding and demographics (93.1%). Eighty-eight supervisors were questioned for their thoughts on the mastery climate, and we got responses out of 77 (87.5%). In the second phase, we reach out to respondents who participated in the first phase. Three hundred and fifty-six employees and 77 supervisors responded to the study and submitted their completed surveys. Respondents with missing data were excluded from the final sample ( Shin et al., 2012 ). At last we received (287 employees and 60 supervisors) data as a final sample for analysis. Their demographic statistics show that the male participation ratio was 72.32%, with an average of 34.51 years. A total of 76.2% of employees participated with a master’s degree or above.

Servant Leadership

The Servant leader scale adopted from Liden et al. (2015) , was employed in the current study. It consists of 7 items with good to excellent Cronbach alpha values (α = 0.95).

Knowledge Hoarding

We used a 4-item scale developed by Evans et al. (2014) to assess knowledge hoarding. Sample items from this scale included “I keep news about what I am doing secret from others until the appropriate time” (α = 0.92).

Psychological Safety

The 5-item scale developed by Liang et al. (2012) was used to assess psychological safety. A sample item is “Nobody in my unit will pick on me even if I have different opinions” (α = 0.80).

Mastery Climate

We used Nerstad et al. (2013) a 6-item scale to assess mastery climate. A sample item is “In my department/workgroup, team members are encouraged to cooperate and exchange thoughts and ideas mutually” (α = 0.75).

Control Variables

Employee’s demographics (age, gender, and educational level) have impacted workers’ knowledge practices in the past ( Connelly et al., 2012 ; Zhao et al., 2016 ; Fong et al., 2018 ). Thus, we controlled demographic variables in this study. Furthermore, educational levels of employees have been controlled (1 = Secondary school certificate; 2 = HSSC; 3 = master; 4 = M.Phil./Ph.D.). Employees genders were codded (Female = 0 and Male = 1).

Descriptive Statistics

Correlation and scale reliability are shown in Table 1 , together with mean values and standard deviations. All of the research variables’ correlations were in the predicted directions, as indicated in Table 1 , and all of the study variables were internally consistent. The servant leadership of workers was shown to be positive correlated with psychological safety ( r = 0.32, p < 0.01) and negatively related to knowledge hoarding ( r = −0.146, p > 0.05). Furthermore, employees’ psychological safety was negatively related to knowledge hoarding ( r = −0.172, p < 0.01). The data reliability was further tested by rho_A mechanism, the results shows (see Table 1 ) that all values are greater the cutoff scores of 0.7 ( Dijkstra and Henseler, 2015 ; Henseler et al., 2015 ). The convergent validity was determined by evaluating factors loading, composite reliability and average variance extracted (see Table 2 ), all values are in acceptable range (CR < 0.7, and AVE < 0.5), thus confirming composite validity. The discriminant validity was checked through HTMT ratio, the results shows in Table 3 , that all values are below than 0.85, confirming discriminant validity ( Henseler et al., 2015 ).

Table 1. Mean, standard deviation, correlations, reliability, and rho_A.

Table 2. Factors loadings.

Table 3. Heterotrait–monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMTs).

Construct Validity

Before testing the study hypotheses, we followed ( Anderson and Gerbing, 1988 ) recommendations and by examined the variables’ construct validity. We used AMOS 18.0 to run a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to investigate the construct uniqueness of our model’s four primary variables. Our servant leadership, psychological safety, and knowledge hoarding measurements all originated from the same source. With all fit indices falling within acceptable ranges, the four-factor model generated adequate results (χ 2 = 213.34, CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.03). The four-component model was compared to a one-factor model, which comprised of a single factor (χ 2 = 632.43, CFI = 0.57, TLI = 0.37, RMSEA = 0.42, SRMR = 0.47) (see Table 4 ).

Table 4. Confirmatory factor analyses and construct validity.

Common Method Variance

There is a risk of common bias while the data were gathered from a single source ( Podsakoff et al., 2003 ). According to Chang et al. (2010) , Harman’s single factor test was employed to investigate this issue. The results showed that the variation explained by a single component was 24.23%, which is far less than the 50% cutoff score. Further, to confirm the common method biasness, we compare different models with the four-factor model. The results show that our four-factor model best fits the one-factor model. This confirms that there is no issue of common method biasness in the current study (see Table 4 ).

Hypothesis Testing

For our direct research hypothesis, we analyzed the data in Table 5 . As shown in Hypothesis 1, a negative relation exists between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding ( B = −0.057, SE = 0.67). Hypothesis 2 stated that servant leadership is positively linked with psychological safety ( B = 0.452 ∗∗∗ , SE = 0.040). Furthermore, Hypothesis 3 shows a negative association between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding ( B = −0.104, SE = 0.077). Moreover, Hypothesis 4, which illustrates the mediation results of our study, we used the bootstrapping method ( Preacher and Hayes, 2004 ), utilizing the Process macro Model 4 ( Hayes and Rockwood, 2017 ). The CI for the indirect effect of servant leadership on knowledge hoarding through psychological safety does not include “0” (−0.1675, −0.0117), supporting the existence of partial mediation (see Table 6 ). Next, to test Hypothesis 5, we assessed the (psychological safety × mastery climate) interaction term for predicting knowledge hoarding. This interaction term is significant (β = −0.34, p < 0.001, CL = LLCI = −0.1675, ULCI = −0.0117) (see Table 7 ). The link between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding is moderated by mastery climate as a simple slop test shows in Figure 2 . When mastery climate was high, the relation will be weak. To test the moderation mediation effect in Hypothesis 6, we applied ( Hayes and Preacher, 2013 ; Hayes, 2017 ) macro model 7. The 95% bootstrap confidence intervals for the conditional indirect impact of servant leadership on knowledge hoarding through psychological safety at the low level (−1 SD) were generated by this approach ( MacKinnon et al., 2004 ) and Mean level of the mastery climate did not contain zero (LLCI = 0.2157, ULCI = 0.4350), respectively, at the moderator’s high (+1 SD) level, they did not have zero (LLCI = 0.5216 ULCI = 0.8351), indicating that mastery climate serves as a moderator against the indirect effect of servant leadership on knowledge hoarding, via psychological safety, in support of Hypothesis 6 ( Table 8 ).

Table 5. Regression results.

Table 6. Mediation analysis.

Table 7. Moderation analysis.

Figure 2. Interaction effect.

Table 8. Moderated mediation model.

Grounded on social learning theory, we examined the link between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. The findings indicate that servant leadership and knowledge hoarding are negatively associated. Our research looked at the mediating function of psychological safety, and the findings revealed that psychological safety is a partial mediator in this relationship. A mastery climate was used as a moderator between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding, and results stated that mastery climate moderates the negative association between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding. Further, in situations where the mastery climate was strong rather than low, the indirect influence of servant leadership on knowledge hoarding via psychological safety was less apparent than in situations where the mastery climate was inadequate or non-existent.

Theoretical Implications

Several theoretical additions are made to the literature on servant leadership and knowledge hoarding due to this research. First, Positive leader behaviors influence the development of knowledge hoarding practices, and our results add to a deeper understanding of this impact. Previous research on the relationship between leadership and knowledge management has mostly focused on finding successful knowledge management activities, such as knowledge sharing ( Xiao et al., 2017 ). Servant leadership and knowledge sharing have been studied by Bavik et al. (2018) . On the other hand, the effect of leadership on detrimental knowledge behaviors such as knowledge hoarding has been largely unexplored until recently ( Connelly et al., 2012 ). Participants in their research, on the other hand, were full-time workers. This is the first research to look specifically at the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding in the workplace, and it is the first of its kind in the workplace. Second, according to the results, psychological safety was shown to be a key intervening element in the link between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. According to social learning theory and the psychological safety viewpoint, servant leadership may contribute to the growth of employees’ psychological safety, preventing knowledge hoarding. Overall, the findings demonstrate the potential advantages of servant leadership and the fact that its impact on knowledge hoarding is mediated via the psychological safety of those who follow it. Third, the outcomes of this study show that the indirect link between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding through psychological safety is contingent on the existence of a mastery climate in the organization. Psychological safety has a more significant influence on knowledge hoarding in a low mastery environment than in a high mastery climate, as seen in Figure 2 . Additionally, as a consequence of this study, we have been able to identify the contextual boundary elements that impact the nature of the servant leadership–knowledge hoarding relationship. This is an important addition in the body of knowledge. Fourth, this study proved that psychological safety and mastery environment affect knowledge hoarding. It also looked into mastery climate as a mediator in the link between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding. Lastly, with Edwards and Lambert (2007) moderated mediation technique, we observed that psychological safety has a considerable impact on the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding, depending on the level of mastery climate in the organization.

Practical Implications

The findings of our research also have managerial implications. First, we urge managers to put the needs of their teams and organizations ahead of their interests. Managers do not place a high value on achieving their personal goals. They need to help their employees to attain a goal ( Khan et al., 2022c ). Organizational progress and well-being should be manager’s primary concern, not personal gain. On the other hand, traditional leadership is characterized by the amassing and exercise of authority by a person at the “head of the pyramid.” The servant-leader shares authority prioritizes the needs of others, and encourages employees to reach their full potential. This kind of endeavor is beneficial since it can increase the psychological safety of each employee. Workers who report feeling secure in their positions are less likely to engage in knowledge hoarding. Organizations can provide training programs to cultivate leaders’ professionalism give examples of serving conduct that leaders should demonstrate in their management policies and day-to-day behavior. Establish formal and informal mentoring programs to assist leaders in improving their serving leadership abilities. Second, the findings of our study indicate that a mastery atmosphere seems to be an ideal work environment for lowering employees’ propensity to hoard their knowledge. Organizations may reduce the incidence of knowledge hoarding practices by cultivating a mastery environment that encourages learning, cooperation, and skill development. Managers, for example, may foster a mastery atmosphere by offering particular training and development programs that enable workers to acquire job-related abilities, recognize the importance of teamwork, and recognize the conditions for success and failure during task completion. Also, to facilitate communication and knowledge exchange, managers might establish institutionalized platforms or channels. They may be advantageous in developing a mastery climate, which will prevent the occurrence of knowledge hoarding from happening. Third, the outcomes of our research demonstrated that psychological safety plays an essential role in controlling the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding in organizations. To protect the psychological safety of their employees, managers should take proactive measures. Psychological safety is dynamic and may be enhanced via healthy leader-member interactions ( Frazier et al., 2017 ). Managers, for example, should communicate with workers openly and transparently and offer them a psychologically stable workplace. The perceived psychological safety of workers will increase due to this, and knowledge hoarding practices will be reduced.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

Every study has some limitations that should be addressed in the future. This study also has some limitations. First, this study was examined at individual and team levels. Therefore, we have to control demographics at both levels. However, organizational culture plays a crucial role in knowledge management (i.e., knowledge sharing, knowledge hoarding) and effect employees knowledge hoarding behavior. Future research should control organization culture. Second, our sample is from Pakistani corporate culture, where trust matters among individuals compared to other organizational factors. Many organizations are family-run and have reference base jobs in some scenarios. Our study results are therefore not generally applicable to other countries. The different organization have a different culture that influences employees. Accordingly, we suggest that the same conceptual model be tested in other settings. We have grounded this study based on social learning theory and examined the link between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. Further, it is suggested to link other approaches to this model, i.e., social cognitive theory. It is also suggested that other potential mediators should be used in the future, i.e., psychological capital and psychological empowerment may minimize employees’ intention toward knowledge hoarding. In addition, we have used mastery climate as a potential moderator in this study because such climate believes in support, cooperation and emphasis on team and individual development. Further, it is suggested to study other potential moderators, i.e., organization commitment and interpersonal trust. For example, Connelly et al. (2012) indicated that when employees are committed to organization are less likely to hoard knowledge, because they view responding to coworkers’ requests as their professional responsibility. To effectively create, share, and utilize knowledge in teams, individuals must trust one another. To be successful in a team environment, it is critical to have complete faith in the group’s ability to work together and share information. These processes are influenced by the degree of interpersonal trust relationships.

Effective knowledge management is impossible without effective leadership. A leader is thus the one who should establish an organization that fosters the development, sharing, and application of new knowledge inside organizations. This study provides a negative association between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. Servant leadership play a key role in knowledge sharing among employees. Further, psychological safety mediates this relationship significantly. Furthermore, this study illustrates that mastery climate plays a moderating role in between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding, presence of mastery climate weakens the link between psychological safety and knowledge hoarding. The integrated model illustrates that the importance of servant leadership that encourage and cultivate safe atmosphere to prevent knowledge hoarding in the organization. This study is important to body of knowledge by introducing new leadership style with knowledge hoarding, that is unexplored till date. With these findings in mind, this work serves as a helpful study for further research into additional components and processes that impede knowledge hoarding.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Author Contributions

SZ, JK, ZJ, and IS contributed to the conception and design of the study. SZ organized the database. JK performed the statistical analysis. SZ, JK, and IS wrote the first draft of the manuscript. ZJ, AV-M, and NC-B wrote sections of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Scientific and Technological Innovation Talents Support Program for Colleges and Universities of Henan Province (Humanities and Social Sciences) (No. 2020- cx-28), the Basic Research Project of Philosophy and Social Science in Henan Province (No. 2022-JCZD-04), and ILMA University, Karachi, Pakistan.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords : mastery climate, psychological safety, knowledge hoarding, servant leadership, workplace

Citation: Zada S, Khan J, Saeed I, Jun ZY, Vega-Muñoz A and Contreras-Barraza N (2022) Servant Leadership Behavior at Workplace and Knowledge Hoarding: A Moderation Mediation Examination. Front. Psychol. 13:888761. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.888761

Received: 03 March 2022; Accepted: 13 April 2022; Published: 04 May 2022.

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Copyright © 2022 Zada, Khan, Saeed, Jun, Vega-Muñoz and Contreras-Barraza. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Shagufta Zada, [email protected] ; Zhang Yong Jun, [email protected]

† ORCID: Jawad Khan, orcid.org/0000-0002-6673-7617 ; Alejandro Vega-Muñoz, orcid.org/0000-0002-9427-2044 ; Nicolás Contreras-Barraza, orcid.org/0000-0001-6729-4398

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Servant Leadership and Employee Engagement: A Qualitative Study

Alice canavesi.

1 Business Economics, Carlo Cattaneo University (LIUC), Castellanza, Italy

Eliana Minelli

2 Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

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Servant Leadership is a holistic approach whereby leaders act with morality, showing great concern for the company’s stakeholders and engaging followers in multiple dimensions, such as emotional, relational and ethical, to bring out their full potential and empower them to grow into what they are capable of becoming. Servant leadership has been linked through various mediators to positive individual and collective outcomes, including behavioral, attitudinal, and performance. Among follower attitudinal outcomes, the present study aims at deepening the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement in a large Italian consulting firm; first, by assessing the implementation of a servant leadership approach through a survey based on SL-7; second, by qualitatively investigating the servant leadership experiences lived by junior employees and their influence on individual engagement though a semi-structured questionnaire. The findings of the study suggest that employee engagement is positively influenced by servant leadership through various mediators, either leader-centered, such as empowerment, team-centered, such as team cohesion, organization-centered, such as positive organizational climate, job-centered, such as challenging tasks, and employee-centered, such as proactive personality. Some factors also emerged to hinder the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement, particularly those related to the working environment: namely, high pressure, poor work-life balance and remote-working. The article also provides theoretical and practical implications and identifies potential areas for future research on servant leadership.

Introduction

Servant leadership.

In response to negative outcomes emerging from leadership styles associated with the promotion of the leader’s self-interest, moral-based leaderships have recently emerged with the aim of promoting integrity and prioritizing the support and development of followers (Liden et al., 2015 ). Servant Leadership is a holistic approach whereby leaders act with morality, showing great concern for the company’s stakeholders (Shirin, 2015 ) and engaging followers in multiple dimensions, such as emotional, relational and ethical, to bring out their full potential and empower them to grow into what they are capable of becoming (Eva et al, 2019 ). In other words, leaders, instead of pursuing their self-interest, focus on investing in personal relationships with employees and other company stakeholders to increase trust, loyalty and commitment. Key qualities of servant leaders are humility, ensuring followers’ development, listening, sharing in decision-making, behaving ethically and promoting a sense of community (Jit et al., 2016 ). The idea is that when followers’ needs and well-being are prioritized, they are able to achieve their goals, and this flows upward so that the leader’s and the organizational goals are met in turn (Kohntopp & McCann, 2018 ). Servant leadership has been linked through various mediators to positive individual and collective outcomes, including behavioural, such as organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and proactive behaviour (Bande et al., 2016 ; Chen et al., 2014 ; Hu & Liden, 2011 ; Liden et al., 2015 ; Walumbwa et al., 2010 ; Zhao et al., 2016 ) attitudinal, such as engagement and job satisfaction (Amah, 2018 ; Chan & Mak, 2014 ; Coetzer et al., 2017 ; Mayer et al., 2008 ; Schneider & George, 2011 ; Sousa & van Dierendonck, 2014 ; van Dierendonck et al., 2013 ), and performance, such as team performance and innovative behaviour (Hu & Liden, 2011 ; Krog & Govender, 2015 ; Panaccio et al., 2015 ; Rasheed et al., 2016 ; Schaubroeck et al., 2011 ; Song et al., 2015 ). For these reasons, several companies, including some of those ranked by Forbes Magazine among the “best 100 to work for”, such as Marriott, Starbucks, SAS and Zappos.com (Eva et al., 2019 ), foster an organizational climate based on service, ethics and healthy work relationships that significantly contribute to organizational success.

The concept of servant leadership is not new among both academics and practitioners, as it was introduced by Greenleaf in his essay “the servant as leader” ( 1970 , 1977 ), where he argued that true leadership is synonymous with service, and servant leaders’ highest priority is to serve others, namely employees, customers and the community. However, it has recently received growing consideration by scholars especially in the late 2010s. The literature on servant leadership can be divided into three main streams of research: a first stream focusing on its conceptual development, a second stream investigating its measures and its most relevant outcomes, and a most recent stream deepening these relationships to identify antecedents, mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions (Allen et al., 2016 ; Eva et al., 2019 ).

In the second stream of research, different measures of servant leadership have been developed with the aim of testing its degree of implementation in a given organizational context. Eva et al ( 2019 ) identified 16 measures in extant literature and examined each of them according to their relative theoretical and methodological rigour in construction and validation phases. They ended up recommending 3 out of 16 scales of servant leadership under study, including Liden et al.’s ( 2015 ) 7 item composite measure (SL-7). SL-7 consists in a shortened version of the global servant leadership measure of 28 items developed by Liden et al. ( 2008 ). As a multidimensional construct, it covers 7 different dimensions identified in servant leadership: 1) emotional healing, which addresses the leader’s involvement in the follower’s well-being and personal problems; 2) creating value for the community, which assesses the leader’s concern towards the community surrounding the organization; 3) conceptual skills, which captures the leader’s ability to deal with work problems and understand organizational goals, 4) empowering, which reflects the extent to which the leader delegates to followers entrusting them with autonomy and responsibility; 5) helping subordinates grow and succeed, which is related to the development of followers’ full potential by the leader to help them grow into what they are capable of becoming; 6) putting subordinates first, which involves the leader’s motivation to serve followers and prioritize their needs and well-being; 7) behaving ethically, which includes behaving with integrity, honesty and trustworthiness (Liden et al., 2015 ). The limited number of items (i.e. seven) makes this scale concise, while still valid and reliable, and does not introduce fatigue or boredom among respondents with a negative impact on quality. Even though SL-7 has already been validated and tested by scholars across various organizations (Karatepe et al., 2018 ; Lapointe & Vandenberghe, 2015 ; Tang et al., 2016 ), to the authors’ knowledge, it has not yet been applied to the Italian cultural, economic and political context.

Employee Engagement

Servant leadership has been linked to several individual and collective outcomes including follower centred, leader centred, team centred and climate and organization centred. With regards to followers, three types of outcomes seem to be influenced by servant leaders: behavioural outcomes, attitudinal outcomes and performance outcomes (Eva et al., 2019 ). Among follower attitudinal outcomes, some scholars assessed a positive relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement (Coetzer et al., 2017 ; Ling et al., 2017 ; Sousa & van Dierendonck, 2014 ; van Dierendonck et al., 2013 ).

The term engagement was first mentioned by Kahn in 1990 in his article “Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work” ( 1990 ), where he stated that “in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances”. Since his conceptualization, several authors have defined and measured the construct differently, to the point that nowadays there is little consistency around the term (Borah & Barua, 2018 ). Overall, employee engagement refers to a series of positive attitudes displayed by employees, such as passion for their work and organization, commitment and contribution to organizational success. Since the human capital represents one of the most important assets in an organization, leaders are challenged to identify those drivers that can either increase or decrease engagement. When employees are engaged, they become in fact more emotionally involved, loyal and productive, thus providing better customer service experiences, particularly in services-oriented firms (Carter & Baghurst, 2013 ; Keith, 2008 ). Disengaged employees, on the other hand, can negatively affect organizational performance through absenteeism, non-participation, poor customer service and an adverse approach towards colleagues (Carter & Baghurst, 2013 ). It is therefore essential for leaders to create a unique organizational culture based on ethics where they lead through service, meaning that they collaborate with followers for the achievement of established organizational goals without imposing authoritative power.

When analysing the concept of employee engagement, an overlap of attributes emerges with respect to servant leadership, such as the fact that both constructs imply the emotional attachment of employees to their organization. This further suggests that servant leadership may have a positive influence on employee engagement.

Purpose of the Study

Although the concept of servant leadership is not recent, significant empirical research started after the seminal work by Ehrhart ( 2004 ) and mainly consisted in quantitative research conducted in the United States and China (Eva et al., 2019 ). Most studies have focused on quantitative analyses of the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement (e.g. Coetzer et al., 2017 ; Ling et al., 2017 ; Sousa & van Dierendonck, 2014 ; van Dierendonck et al., 2013 ). According to two recent literature reviews on the topic, very limited qualitative research is available on the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement (Eva et al., 2019 ). Thus, the present study aims at providing a complementary qualitative contribution in the Italian context, where the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement has been very little investigated. In particular, it addresses an organization where the servant leadership approach is likely to be adopted: a large and long-term oriented services firm (i.e. consulting), having several female leaders. Servant leadership has indeed been predominantly observed in organizations having some degree of permanence, with a long-term orientation (Kohntopp & McCann, 2018 ). Moreover, servant leadership, as a leadership style focused on serving others, is closely related to employees' service behaviours (Su et al., 2020 ). By providing guidance to their subordinates and inspiring them with vision, servant leaders can pass on to them their motivation to serve and help them grow into service-oriented employees (Greenleaf, 1970 ; Lemoine et al., 2018 ). Last but not least, the organization under study has been chosen as it has several female leaders compared to other consulting firms. Females differ from males in their moral reasoning modes, as they are more communal and affiliative (Eagly, 1987 ) and generally display higher relationship and caring characteristics (Butz & Lewis, 1996 ; Fridell et al., 2009 ). Overall, women are reported to show behaviours of altruistic calling, emotional healing, and organizational stewardship, which have been identified as central in servant leadership (Beck, 2014 ; de Rubio & Kiser, 2015 ; Politis & Politis, 2012 ). The fact of having several female leaders in the organization further increases the likelihood of producing a higher level of service to followers and creating a culture of help, humility and vision.

The purpose of the paper is therefore that of qualitatively investigating the servant leadership experiences lived through by employees and their influence on individual engagement in a typical large Italian consulting firm, by identifying the leader-centred, employee-centred, team-centred, job-centred and organization-centred drivers at the basis of the relationship between the two constructs. This will contribute to the body of knowledge on servant leadership and partly also to that on employee engagement.

To gain an initial understanding of the company and explore the existence of a servant leadership approach, a first preliminary qualitative analysis of the firm’s secondary data and internal documentation was carried out, as well as three interviews to senior managers were conducted. With regards to secondary data, the firm’s website as well as the intranet of the company, including a video of the Chief Executive Officer talking about the leadership fundamentals, were evaluated in the analysis. With regards to the interviews, three senior managers volunteered to take part in this preliminary analysis by responding to semi-structured questions aimed at investigating:

• whether the organizational structure was top-down or bottom-up and which degree of autonomy and responsibility was given to subordinates;
• what the main characteristics and values were that a leader should possess within the organizational context under study;
• what the role of the leader was with respect to the organizational objectives as well as to people needs (subordinates, final clients and other company’s stakeholders);
• how employees were valued from both a personal and professional standpoint;
• what the risk appetite and the approach to innovation was.

Once the bases of a servant leadership approach were identified, the first part of the research was launched with two main objectives. First, it aimed at collecting the demographic variables of the participants (gender, role and length of service) as well as of their direct supervisor (gender and role) with multiple choice questions. Second, it aimed at assessing the degree of implementation of servant leadership (high, moderate, low, extremely low) in the selected consulting firm through the SL-7, a survey based on the servant leadership scale developed by Liden et al. ( 2015 ) and consisting of seven questions with a 7-point Likert scale.

The second part of the study was conducted on the basis of a qualitative and phenomenological design, with the aim of investigating the drivers through which servant leadership may influence employees’ engagement. In particular, a semi-structured questionnaire consisting of three open-ended questions was distributed to determine the mediating mechanisms that can foster or hinder the relationship between the two constructs, as reported in Table ​ Table2 2 .

Research questions

According to the literature, mediating mechanisms fostering the positive relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement can be of four types: leader-centred, follower-centred, team-centred and finally climate and organization-centred (Eva et al., 2019 ).

The first question was developed on the basis of the extant literature (Carter & Baghurst, 2013 ) to investigate the leader-centred mechanisms that mediate the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement. The second question addressed the other three types of mechanisms mentioned above which could possibly foster employee engagement. The third question was developed to explore the existence of mediating mechanisms of the four different types that hinder the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement, which, to the authors’ knowledge, has not been addressed in the literature so far.

Overall, the phenomenological design based on these three questions sought to identify the engagement level of the participants and how this was influenced by servant leadership.

Participants

The investigated firm is among the largest companies in the world, with more than 500,000 people employed in 80 different countries, and has ranked among the top ten management consulting firms by revenues in 2019 (CNN Money, 2011 ). When undertaking the study, according to the purpose of the research, only the Italian division headquartered in Milan was targeted. In Italy, the firm employs 17,000 people divided into three different practices: Technology Consulting, Business Process Operations and Strategy and Management Consulting. The last practice was addressed for the objective of the study, as it bases its core business on consulting services, whereas the other two practices are characterized by a working methodology and approach to clients which are not fully representative of consulting firms. In particular, within the Financial Services industry, the segment providing consulting services to banking groups, numbering 350 employees (250 junior resources and 100 senior resources), was selected for the analysis, due to the fact that it represents the key revenue contributor of the business. The main reason is that it is the most representative and heterogeneous segment in terms of gender and different seniority levels. In particular, junior resources (i.e. analysts, with a working experience between 0 and 3 years, and consultants, with a working experience between 3 and 6 years) were involved in the study. Thus, the present study used individuals as the unit of analysis.

Out of the 250 employees invited to participate, 159 completed both the survey and the questionnaire, with a response rate of about 64%. Eight surveys and the related questionnaires were discarded due to the fact that the answers to the semi-structured questions lacked content validity and were not connected to the purpose of the research. The final sample consisted of 151 junior employees, including 73 females (48%) and 78 males (52%). The majority of them (62%) were in the role of analysts, the entry level job, while the others were consultants. With regards to the length of service, 17% had been working in the company for less than a year, 60% for a period between 1 and 3 years and 23% for more than 3 years. With regards to their direct supervisor, 59% said they report to a man and 41% to a female, while the seniority of leaders was distributed as follows: 59% managers, 37% senior managers, 2% managing directors and 2% principal directors.

Data Collection and Analysis

Prior to the distribution of both surveys and questionnaires, confidentiality was ensured to all participants and the researcher asked for honest responses. Two URLs containing a web-based survey and a web-based questionnaire were provided to the participants via email. This method allowed for an electronic collection of data, which ensured the effectiveness of data entry and integration while reducing the time. Surveys and questionnaires were completed during a seven-week period.

An approach of theoretical coding was employed on survey data and questionnaire information to analyse the servant leadership practices shown by leaders and their influence on subordinates. The process of thematic analysis enabled to systematically analyse qualitative information by attributing explicit “codes” which captured the essence of observations, thus enhancing the clarity of results (Boyatzis, 1998 ). The manual coding procedure, compared to the use of automated or computerized software, allows for deeper insights into the meaning of words and themes identified (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2009 ) and it is particularly precise for the detection of subtle themes. For this reason, it was preferred and adopted together with the previous literature (Eva et al., 2019 ) for the generation of themes and subthemes. As a first step, data were transferred and listed in a proper worksheet (i.e. Excel), to have a clear display of the experiences of each participant in relation to their personal characteristics and those of their leaders. In the second step, the responses of participants were reviewed in order to eliminate unclear words or comments. From the third step on, the coding procedure started to be applied by taking notes on invariant constructs to identify recurring themes. In the fourth step, the meanings of themes were analysed individually and then compared together to detect subthemes. The following step consisted in gathering the demographic information of the sample as well as counting the occurrences of themes and subthemes in order to understand their relevance with respect to the object of the study. As a last step, some analyses were made through tables of statistics (i.e. pivot tables), with the aim of gaining an overview of participants’ responses.

Data Validity, Reliability and Triangulation

The validity of data refers to how accurately data are measured, while reliability indicates the consistency of the research approach across different researchers and projects (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018 ; Gibbs et al., 2007 ). Even though confidentiality was assured at the beginning of the study, some factors could have influenced the findings.

Above all, participants could have felt pressured to participate in the survey and the questionnaire as they have been solicited by a company manager, who represented the company’s entry point for the author. However, there was no direct interaction between the researcher and the respondents, thus reducing the possibility of bias; in fact, researchers who have little familiarity with a phenomenon tend to direct their attention to the manifest level (Boyatzis, 1998 ). Moreover, the survey and the open-ended questions employed for the purpose of the study may have been limited in investigating the mechanisms at the basis of the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement, compared to face-to-face interaction. Personal interviews and focus groups could have helped gain better insights on the topic. However, using a semi-structured questionnaire made it possible to reduce the risk of introducing the researchers’ personal bias or prior knowledge in the data collected.

Data triangulation consists in “the process of corroborating evidence from different individuals, types of data or methods of data collection in descriptions and themes in qualitative research” (Creswell, 2005 ). Secondary data and internal documentation (i.e. intranet, internal annual surveys) on the leadership style implemented by the firm and on employee engagement helped triangulate the research findings, which were also confirmed by the preliminary interviews with senior managers. Additional objectivity was obtained by including a second researcher in the analysis, external to the company, who reviewed the transcripts of the questionnaires and the coding process.

The analysis of secondary data, such as the company’s website and intranet, allowed to identify some of the underpinnings of servant leadership. Personalizing in a truly human way, collaborating across the ecosystem and innovating for results were clearly mentioned as part of the firm’s leadership DNA. Moreover, integrity (i.e. behaving ethically, inspiring trust and taking responsibility for actions), respect for the individual (i.e. valuing diversity and fostering an open and inclusive environment), and stewardship (i.e. developing people, meeting the commitment to stakeholders and improving communities and the global environment) were clearly mentioned as the core values shaping the organizational culture. A statement from the CEO was the following: “Our people around the world share something: we care about what we do and the positive impact we generate on our clients and in the communities we live and work in. It’s a personal matter for us.”

The three interviews to senior managers revealed that the organizational context under study was bottom-up and based on the idea that all employees must be given the right amount of autonomy and responsibility to express their full potential and become what they are capable of becoming. The most important values for a leader included showing empathy, caring about people, empowering subordinates, leading by example and delegating. People were valued individually for what they truly were and their professional needs tended to be accommodated to increase their engagement level and their contribution to the achievement of organizational goals. The company embraced innovation based on individuals’ diversity, proactiveness and cooperation. All these premises emerged in the preliminary analysis provide breeding ground for the implementation of a servant leadership approach, which was therefore tested in the following study.

The first part of the study intended to assess the degree to which leaders exhibited behaviours that are characteristic of servant leadership according to the employees’ perspective. The survey based on the short scale of SL-7 developed by Liden et al. ( 2015 ) was used to measure each of the seven areas corresponding to a different servant leadership behaviour (i.e. emotional healing, creating value for the community, conceptual skills, empowering, helping subordinates grow and succeed, putting subordinates first, behaving ethically) through a 7-point Likert scale question. Once the responses of 151 employees were collected, the mean of every single dimension of the servant leadership scale adopted in the study was calculated. The scoring interpretation was the following: high range (with a mean between 5,75 and 7), moderate range (with a mean between 3,5 and 5,5), low range (with a mean between 2 and 3,25) and extremely low range (with a mean between 0 and 1,75). Surprisingly, all seven items scored high, having a mean between 5,75 and 7, as reported in Table ​ Table1. 1 . These results confirmed the insights gained through the preliminary analysis on the firm’s secondary data and internal documentation, together with the interviews to senior managers, during which servant leadership traits and setting had already been observed.

SL-7 survey scoring

Once a servant leadership practice was identified within the organizational context, the second part of the study was conducted. Servant leadership effects had already been linked to employee engagement by previous literature (Bao et al., 2018 ; Carter & Baghurst, 2013 ; De Clercq et al., 2014 ). This was the starting point of the semi-structured questionnaire, with the final aim of deepening knowledge of the servant leadership experiences shared by employees and investigating the mechanisms that can foster or prevent their engagement (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

RQ1 ( How does your leader motivate you at work and inspire you to do and accomplish more in your role? ) sought to identify the factors through which leaders motivate employees to do and accomplish more in their role. According to Eva et al. ( 2019 ), some leader-centred mediators were identified and reported in Table ​ Table3, 3 , with their relative number of occurrences in employees’ responses: empowerment, leader prototypicality, LMX, trust, communication arrangements and identification with the leader.

Theme occurrences in responses to RQ1

Empowerment is here conceived as a set of managerial practices aiming at increasing employees’ autonomy, proactivity and responsibilities. Not surprisingly, it came out as the most significant theme affecting the level of employee engagement, with several subthemes emerging from responses.

Above all, junior resources claimed to be motivated by their leaders’ encouragement to do their best on a daily basis, leveraging on their strengths and improving their weaknesses, with the aim of achieving better results. Below are some representative comments from employees:

• “My leader always pushes me to perform at my best”;
• “She is really helping me accomplish more”;
• “My leader is inspirational (…) encouraging the entire team to perform well”.

Support from the leader to the individual and the team as a whole also emerged as a crucial empowerment factor increasing employee engagement. In particular, subordinates appreciated the fact that their leaders stood on the front line to provide them assistance when needed and helped them achieve their personal and professional goals. This aspect was emphasized in different ways:

• “He is always available to support when I ask for help and he gives me amazing advice in terms of daily routine management”;
• “My leader is a focal point for the team since he is part of our daily work, supporting and taking key decisions together”;
• “He is always ready to drive the group and to literally take care of you if needed. I think that these aspects match with the servant leadership definition”.

Other important factors fuelling engagement were autonomy and responsibility. Employees valued the fact of feeling reliable and self-sufficient in managing their everyday activities, tasks and even the relationship with the client. Very often, these two mechanisms were interrelated and also emerged in combination with trust. This has been widely analysed in literature as a frequent moderator in the leader–follower relation (Eva et al., 2019 ), due to its fundamental role in fostering engagement. Here are some of the most significant statements:

• “I appreciate the way she gives me the freedom to manage my work as well as the relationship with the Client”;
• “I feel confident and I perform better thanks to the independence I have when doing my job”;
• “He is giving me trust and a lot of responsibility that makes me accomplish more and increases my overall motivation”.

Finally, among the most relevant factors of empowerment, employees stressed the importance of undertaking new challenges on a daily basis, such as following new projects, carrying on different activities and serving more than one client. After all, providing a range of different tasks and creating variation are known to be excellent motivators for employees (Sabir, 2017 ).

Comments from participants reflected their willingness to get involved in various activities:

• “My leader motivates me by pushing me out of my comfort zone”;
• “The challenges she gives me are increasing day-by-day”;
• “He inspires me by involving me in interesting tasks”.

Other behaviours shown by leaders in inspiring employees were, to a lesser extent, personal appreciation and recognition, the support of their ideas as well as a greater and more direct exposure with clients.

Leader prototypically is defined as the extent to which a leader's characteristics are representative of the characteristics of his/her group (Pierro et al., 2007 ). The higher the affinity, the more likely it is that individuals will have positive perceptions of the leader, thus increasing their willingness to change accordingly. Among the most recurring aspects cited by subordinates was the leader’s personal commitment, namely the fact that the leader is very assiduous and shows a great dedication to work. This was confirmed as follows:

• “My leader is the first one in the office and the last one leaving the office”;
• “My leader is a hard-worker and motivates me by keeping concentration and effort high in all daily tasks”;
• “My senior manager (that I can consider my current leader) is what you call a go-to-guy: (…) he is incredible, and I can't still figure out where he gets all the energy he passes down to us”;
• “My leader is inspirational in terms of commitment and team-work management. I feel I am more than achieving my professional goal thanks to this”.

Another characteristic of the leader appreciated by employees was availability, which is fundamental, because when people feel that they can have personal access to their leaders, they are in turn more engaged (Catteeuw et al., 2007 ). Availability often came out in combination with the subthemes of personal and team support analysed before, as reported in the following statements:

• “My leader is a senior manager and he’s really busy; regardless of his agenda, he is always available to help me going through my work”;
• “He is available every time we need support or advice”;
• “My leader is (…) always available for a hint/ quick help and ready to listen to each one of us”;

The leadership and management style of supervisors also has a critical role with regards to employee engagement (Othman et al., 2017 ; Popli & Rizvi, 2016 ). The ability of a leader to guide a team and to effectively manage daily tasks and routines creates a positive climate that fosters employees’ productive behaviour and sense of belonging to the organization (Liden et al, 2008 ). This is true especially when the adopted approach is supportive, inclusive and ethical. On the other hand, the lack of a clear leadership approach or a wrong management style can de-motivate employees, kill productivity, and lead to disengagement and turnover (Catteeuw et al., 2007 ; Schyns & Schilling, 2013 ). This aspect came up several times in employees’ responses:

• “Working for the team is key when you are a leader and my manager puts this pillar into his managerial style and approach. This is inspirational because it makes all of us feel part of something important”;
• “I like the way my leader applies his leadership style: first of all, he is always standing by our side until we have all completed our work; second, he is always ready to intervene in case we are following the wrong approach; finally, he supports us in case we have trouble with the client”;
• “She is inspirational, as she can always manage tough situations”;
• “I feel I am more than achieving my professional goal thanks to this kind of leadership that is devoted to supporting the team”.

Additionally, some employees mentioned the importance of an approach oriented to action and the client, but also soft skills and enthusiasm shown by the leader.

Leader-Member exchange (LMX) focuses on the relationship developed between a leader and their subordinates, from both a conceptual and emotional standpoint. Its quality is predictive of outcomes at the individual, group and organizational level (Gerstner & Day, 1997 ), including employee engagement. The most recurring subthemes emerging from the questionnaire with regards to this point were guidance and leading by example. These behaviours make a leader an inspirational example for subordinates to follow, setting the standards for the right attitude at work and leading the team to the achievement of organizational goals. The most representative statements were:

• “He is always guiding the team without prevailing”;
• “My senior manager represents a key focal point as well as an inspirational model when guiding the team”;
• “She is a perfect example of how all junior resources should behave, work and perform”;
• “He provides us with examples and guidance according to the job we have to perform”.

A central aspect of servant leadership is stewardship, which was also found by the present study in the investigated organizational context, according to several respondents. Stewardship refers first and foremost to a commitment to serving the needs of others. The servant leader is distinguished from other leaders primarily by the motivation to serve his / her followers (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002 ), which relies on a feeling for people and a moral calling to help (Keith, 2008 ). By making the conscious choice of valuing others and behaving altruistically (Laub, 1999 ; Winston, 2004 ), servant leaders generate a shared vision of help and caring while providing employees with the freedom and resources to become servants themselves with respect to clients and the community. The implementation of servant leadership indeed creates the basis for an organizational culture where employees are committed to deliver a memorable customer experience (Carter & Baghurst, 2013 ). Some of the respondents reported:

• “My leader feels like the one that wants to serve, and this approach guides the team to feel really committed, hence perform highly and achieve professional goals”;
• “I feel like we are all really focused in reaching (…) our professional goals, and to do so we are supported and guided by our managers who are there to serve us when we need”;
• “She puts us above everything and this is great. We feel committed and part of something really important”;
• “My leader makes sure that our highest needs are met”.

The importance of having a positive interpersonal relationship with the leader was emphasized by more than one employee. This dimension involves the degree to which the leader is emotionally attached to his / her followers and cares about their personal problems and well-being. Thus, it requires some of the characteristics identified as critical to the development of servant leaders: listening, which also encompasses hearing one’s own inner voice, showing empathy, to accept and recognize people for what they truly are, and healing, to help make whole those with whom they come in contact (Spears, 2010 ). Examples of employees’ responses include:

• “I feel I can always rely on her, also after working hours”;
• “He is always ready to literally take care of you if needed”;
• “The positive relationship we developed motivates me and inspires me in my role”.

Trust is a multidimensional construct representative of the level of confidence that one individual has in another’s competence and his or her willingness to act in a fair, ethical and predictable manner (Cufaude, 1999 ; Maren et al., 1999 ; Nyhan & Marlowe, 1997 ). Servant-led organizations have been found to exhibit higher levels of both leader and organizational trust, which act as mediating mechanisms for several follower behavioural and attitudinal outcomes, such as engagement. Comments that can be considered representative are:

• “My leader (…) has high working standards and she never leaves anything behind. At the beginning this behaviour was complex for me to manage, but now I feel that her trust is helping me overcome the initial concern I had and perform even better”;
• “I feel trusted and this gives me great stimuli to achieve my professional goals”;
• “She puts a lot of trust in our work and this is inspiring for me”.

With regards to communication arrangements, continuous feedback and tailor-made advice provided by the leader proved to be the most important factors triggering employee engagement. A one-to-one interaction aimed at learning more about each other and gaining insights on how to move the relationship forward, from both a personal and a professional standpoint, came out as a real stimulus for subordinates, as reported below:

• “I feel inspired by the fact that her feedback towards junior resources is continuous and important”;
• “She tells me how to improve on my weaknesses and reinforce my strengths”;
• “He is always available to support when I ask for help and he gives me amazing advice in terms of daily routine management, cutting-down of complex tasks and issues simplification”.

Some respondents also mentioned straight forward communication as the basis for a relationship generating engagement.

The last theme emerging from RQ1 was identification with the leader, which is related to the sharing of objectives, attitudes and values to create an organizational culture where both leaders and followers unite to reach higher organizational goals. In particular, goal congruence, was the most recurring subtheme, with such statements as:

• “There is a strong goal congruence between what we have to deliver and how my manger wants us to act in order to achieve the project objectives”;
• “We both have the same mid-term professional goals”.

Moreover, according to subordinates, leaders have to act in a manner that is both inspirational and an example for their followers, thus becoming key-role models to aspire to, as shown in the following comments:

• “My senior manager represents a key focal point for the team as well as an inspirational model when delivering and guiding the team”;
• “I feel like my work is always at a higher level when helped and supported by my senior manager. This makes me think he is really making the difference”.

RQ2 ( Which are other factors—related to your personality, your team and the organizational context—increasing your engagement?) explored those factors of servant leadership, other than leader-centred, that may influence employees’ engagement. On the basis of the previous literature (Eva et al., 2019 ), the mediating mechanisms were divided into: team-centred, organization-centred, job-centred and employee-centred. In Table ​ Table4, 4 , they are listed on the basis of their impact on engagement, with the number of occurrences in employees’ responses.

Theme occurrences in responses to RQ2

Factors related to the team clearly emerged as the most significant in influencing the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement. In particular, the most commonly recurring topic was team cohesion, which refers to a dynamic process where forces bind members to each other so that the team sticks together and remains united in the pursuit of common objectives (Carron et al., 1989 ; Guzzo & Shea, 1992 ). According to the similarity–attraction perspective, the perception of similarities in personality, attitudes and values increases the level of attraction among team members (O'Reilly, 1989 ; O'Reilly et al., 1991 ). This factor was stressed by several employees:

• “Spending time with the team outside work and sharing personal issues with them is motivating”;
• “The team is really united and we all feel like one. We are part of something that moves and grows together”;
• “Team cohesion is something impressive and is fostered by my leader”.

Other factors reported by respondents, to a lesser extent, were team support, team efficacy and group identification.

At the organizational level, a positive organizational climate and inclusive organizational practices are very likely to influence the effectiveness of servant leadership on employee engagement. Organizational climate is a multi-dimensional concept that refers to those aspects of the environment that are consciously perceived by organizational members (Armstrong, 2003 ). Many participants reported that the fact of perceiving a positive organizational climate increased their commitment to work. Inclusive organizational practices empower employees, promote equitable and more humane workplaces, and are more responsive with regards to various societal expectations (Gotsis & Grimani, 2016 ), thus reflecting the servant leadership philosophy. Below are some of the most significant statements supporting this sub-theme:

• “I like the overall organizational climate that is inclusive and positive”;
• “Enthusiasm and positive working environment motivate me”;
• “The internal supportive environment and the inclusive organizational practices are inspiring”.

Other emerging subthemes were a climate based on trust and a culture focused on valuing people.

In relation to the characteristics of the job itself, its content, in terms of tasks and activities, a relevant aspect proved to be fuelling employee engagement. In particular, many respondents claimed they felt really engaged by the work topics, which were described as dynamic, diversified and challenging:

• “My current project assignment is of great interest to me”;
• “Challenging tasks and goals are what I look for”;
• “We deal with different opportunities and challenges everyday”.

Finally, when dealing with possible employee-centred mediators, the proactive personality and motivational orientation of the follower may play a major role. Proactive personality is the personality of those who tend to take control of the environment, by seeking out opportunities, showing initiative and persevering to bring about meaningful change (Bateman & Crant, 1993 ; Parker & Collins, 2010 ). Previous literature has already demonstrated that proactive personality influences how followers respond to servant leaders (Newman et al., 2017 ) and is in turn influenced by servant leadership itself (Panaccio et al., 2015 ; Song & Lee, 2020 ), leading to a series of positive individual outcomes, such as the willingness to master tasks and goals. All these factors contribute significantly to increasing employee engagement, as reported by junior resources:

• “I try to create my own motivation, ambition and vision in everyday work”;
• “Personal motivation is very high and I am enthusiastic about my work”;
• “The fact that the more effort I put in, the better the result I obtain, is inspirational to me”.

In contrast to RQ1 and RQ2, RQ3 ( What about your leader and your working environment does not motivate you?) investigated the factors that can hinder the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement. The mediating mechanisms identified were divided into organization-centred and leader-centred, as reported in Table ​ Table5. 5 . Some participants reported that there is nothing about their leader or their working environment that does not motivate them.

Theme occurrences in responses to RQ3

Nearly all participants stated that the main factors lowering their engagement were linked to the organization and specifically to the intense working environment. High-pressure and a poor work-life balance are not the ideal conditions for employees to thrive in; indeed a lot of resources are required and these are not possessed by everyone, often leading to poor psychological and emotional outcomes. Rushing, long working hours and stressful deadlines during peak periods were reported as the main reasons at the heart of the problem. It must be underlined that these aspects are typical of the consulting industry, regardless of the degree of servant leadership implemented by the single firm. Below are some representative statements reported by employees:

• “There is a lot of pressure and this increases the level of stress that sometimes might turn into team-conflicts, which are unusual and do not last longer than a day”;
• “Working hours are sometimes really tough and pressure is always very high”;
• “Sometimes the client needs are put ahead of the work-life balance principle”;
• “Work-life balance is critical during peak periods and pressure is generally very high”.

Another critical aspect that seriously affected employee engagement during 2020 is related to the lockdown and restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of the health crisis, several companies, including the one under study, forced their employees (especially those with junior positions) to work remotely. According to some researchers, the intense use of agile working will lead to an increase in productivity and other positive financial outcomes (Hickman, 2019 ). On the other hand, it can generate stress, weaken ties among employees and obviously reduce the managers’ span of control, as claimed by some subordinates of the company under study. In fact, the theme of agile working often arose in combination with two other leader-centred mediators: the unclear definition of tasks and the low supervision exercised by leaders.

• “I like working in a team, sitting near my teammates; hence I feel demotivated by remote-working”;
• “Remote-working has changed the approach to work, creating a gap between us and reducing supervision”;
• “Agile-working has negatively changed the way we work: tasks now are unclear and I miss my team and the working environment as a whole”.

Missed promotion was another aspect considered quite relevant by employees in fuelling disengagement.

In accordance with the previous literature, all the mechanisms that emerged in this study influencing the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement in a typical consulting firm located in Italy are summarized in Table ​ Table6 6 and ​ and7 7 .

Leader-centred mediators

Job-centred, employee-centred, team-centred and organization-centred mediators

The drivers identified have been divided into leader-centred (Table ​ (Table6), 6 ), job-centred, employee-centred, team-centred and organization-centred (Table ​ (Table7). 7 ). In each category, they have been listed according to their relevance in terms of occurrence in employees’ responses (from the most relevant to the least relevant) and are distinguished between positive mediators ( +) and negative mediators (-).

In particular, among the themes listed as top, empowerment by the leader (73%) and team cohesion (52%) seem to be at the baseline of an effective servant-led environment fuelling employee engagement. This means that a leadership approach based on giving increasing autonomy and responsibility to subordinates, encouraging them to take on new challenges and improve their work on a daily basis as well as supporting and appreciating them as persons seems to be fundamental for Italian firms operating in the consulting industry. Also, a strong peer-to-peer relationship and a climate of inclusion, trust and support within the team can further contribute to the achievement of organizational goals without the leader’s imposition of authoritative power.

When considering the gender of leaders who emerged as truly servant according to the employees’ perspective (i.e. rated the maximum score of 7 in at least four out of the seven dimensions investigated in the servant leadership questionnaire), women prevailed. In fact, out of 62 respondents referring to a female leader, 24 (representing 39%), rated their leader’s behaviour as truly servant in four or more dimensions of the SL-7 survey; while out of 89 respondents referring to a male leader, 16 (representing 18%) rated their leader’s behaviour as truly servant in four or more dimensions of the SL-7 survey. This may be explained by the fact that women are reported to show behaviours of altruistic calling, emotional healing and organizational stewardship, which have been identified as central in servant leadership (Beck, 2014 ; de Rubio & Kiser, 2015 ; Politis & Politis, 2012 ). Hence, gender may have a role in determining the likelihood of producing a higher level of service to followers and creating a culture of help, humility and vision.

With regards to the seniority level of the leaders identified as truly servant, 27 out of 89 subordinates reporting to a young manager (representing 30%) rated their leader’s behaviour as truly servant in four or more dimensions of the SL-7 survey; while 13 out of 56 subordinates reporting to a senior manager (representing 23%) rated their leader’s behaviour as truly servant in four or more dimensions of the SL-7 survey. In the company under study, young managers have an average of 7/10 years of experience in consulting, while senior managers usually have more than 10 years of experience. This may suggest that, with the renewal of the leadership DNA and the code of business ethics emphasized by the firm through different channels (e.g. company intranet, website, social media, etc.), new managers and young generations are moving towards the core values of “integrity”, “respect for the individual”, “stewardship”, and “client value creation”, which again are essential in servant leadership. Thus, also the level of seniority may influence the likelihood of displaying servant leadership behaviours within a typical Italian consulting company, with a stronger inclination shown by the middle management.

The study examined the leader experiences individually lived through by junior employees in an Italian consulting company. First of all, the responses of participants confirmed that servant leadership was practised by managers and experienced by employees, and the organization overall emerged to be significantly “servant”.

Additionally, several themes were identified revealing that employee engagement is positively influenced by servant leadership through various drivers, as supported by other studies (Bao et al., 2018 ; Carter & Baghurst, 2013 ; De Clercq et al., 2014 ; McNeff & Irving, 2017 ). Employees felt more engaged when leaders valued their opinions, giving them autonomy and responsibility, acknowledged their behaviours, through appreciation and recognition for work contributions, and encouraged them to do their best daily and to take on new challenges. Trust, feedback on a continuous basis and ad-hoc recommendations came out as factors that helped them improve confidence in their work and willingness to perform better. Moreover, leaders were expected by employees to share professional goals and values, to lead by example and act as role models towards the clients and the community. The sense of caring from managers and their motivation to prioritize followers’ needs and well-being strongly contributed to having more devoted and committed employees. The characteristics of leaders most appreciated by employees came out as their personal commitment and dedication to work, their availability and support towards the team and their management approach, especially when dealing with complex situations. All these factors contribute to the success of the organization, by creating employees who are committed and want to become servant leaders themselves to deliver an outstanding client experience. When considering drivers increasing engagement and not related to the leader, the employee proactive personality, the strong peer-to-peer relationship, the organizational climate of trust and inclusion as well as the variety and stimulating content of the job emerged as the most valuable.

However, the findings from this study also revealed that there are factors hindering the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement, which, to the authors’ knowledge, have been little investigated so far. In a servant-led organization where leaders do not impose authoritative or positional power, welcoming and valuing the opinions of all subordinates and encouraging them to take initiatives and make decisions, low supervision and unclear definition of tasks may sometimes occur. These aspects, observed in the organization under study, were also amplified by agile-working brought on by the restrictions of the covid-19 pandemic. Some of the observed dynamics negatively affecting motivation are typical of consulting companies, such as a poor work-life balance, due to long working hours, and intense pressure, due to a fast-paced and turbulent working environment. Last but not least, it is not surprising that employees expect to have a fast career growth in a consulting firm, compared to other companies; missing the opportunity to be promoted has therefore a harmful effect on their engagement.

From a practical standpoint, the findings of the study have some implications. In similar organizational contexts (i.e. Italian consultancy which desires a long-term growth profile), leaders should try to foster a climate of inclusion, trust, open communication, flexibility and peer relationships to have more loyal and devoted employees, contributing more to the organizational success. Displaying empowering, supporting and people-centric behaviours could foster the growth and development of followers, facilitate their task accomplishment and lead them to become servants of the organization. Since servant leadership is a combination of a learned behaviour and an innate trait, dedicated workshops, seminars and training could benefit managers and senior managers in empowering and developing followers, as well as emerging professionals in building their relationship with clients. Additionally, managers should try to reduce criticalities like those that emerged in the company under study. In order to avoid low supervision and confusion, they should diversify individual tasks while distinguishing roles, provide guidance and set clear directions, develop communication strategies to overcome difficulties derived from agile-working and establish a well-defined career path and the relative steps to be achieved. They should also try to reduce pressure and enhance a better work-life balance by granting employees the necessary support, by setting clear and realistic goals, by encouraging mindfulness within the team and with the leader and by offering a flexible working environment.

The findings of this paper should be considered in the light of its limitations. First of all, since the respondents of the survey and the questionnaire were junior resources who were asked to take part in the research by a company manager, they may have felt somehow pressured to do so. However, there was no direct interaction between the researcher and the respondents, with no possibility for the former to guide responses. Research bias was reduced by providing the confidentiality statement and by asking semi-structured open-ended questions. Moreover, data were collected and analysed by the first researcher and then revised by a second researcher to achieve greater objectivity. In future research, face-to-face interaction (i.e. individual interviews or focus groups) could provide better insights and more meaningful data specifically with regards to servant leadership, even though the possibility of influencing participants with comments by the researcher would be higher. The results of the study cannot be generalized to the consulting industry, as the sample consisted in a limited number of respondents and was taken from a single organization. However, the purpose of the present paper was not that of obtaining generalizable results through a quantitative analysis, but rather that of gaining qualitative in-depth insights on the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement in a typical large Italian consulting firm. Future studies could assess whether this servant leadership approach is implemented by different consulting firms and the effect on the engagement of employees. Moreover, the relationship between the two constructs under study may not necessarily be the same with outside consulting. Quantitative correlational studies could additionally expand the scope of the research by assessing the main differences and commonalities across various industries. Last but not least, the results could be somehow culturally driven, as the leadership style is influenced not only by organizational culture but also by national culture (Janicijevic & Marinkovic, 2015 ). It would therefore be interesting to assess whether the findings of the present study could be obtained in branches of the same consulting firm located in different countries.

This paper analysed the servant leader experiences of 151 subordinates of a large and long-term oriented Italian consulting firm and provided additional support to those studies showing that servant leadership is connected to employee engagement. In particular, through a qualitative analysis, the research made it possible to identify those mechanisms that positively influence the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement and those that have a negative impact on it.

All in all, it can be inferred that organizational leaders have a fundamental role in establishing a culture based on ethics and trust, where subordinates are engaged to be autonomous, productive and committed to the clients, to serve them with the best possible approach. Moreover, a strong tie both between a leader and his or her peers and among peers themselves can be acknowledged as the baseline for the creation of a servant-led environment, where several other factors highlighted in this study can further contribute to the achievement of organizational success.

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Contributor Information

Alice Canavesi, Email: ti.cuil@isevanaca .

Eliana Minelli, Email: ti.cuil@illenime .

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A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts

• Published: 22 April 2012
• Volume 113 , pages 377–393, ( 2013 )

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• Jon Welty Peachey 2  

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A new research area linked to ethics, virtues, and morality is servant leadership. Scholars are currently seeking publication outlets as critics debate whether this new leadership theory is significantly distinct, viable, and valuable for organizational success. The aim of this study was to identify empirical studies that explored servant leadership theory by engaging a sample population in order to assess and synthesize the mechanisms, outcomes, and impacts of servant leadership. Thus, we sought to provide an evidence-informed answer to how does servant leadership work, and how can we apply it? We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), a methodology adopted from the medical sciences to synthesize research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducible manner. A disciplined screening process resulted in a final sample population of 39 appropriate studies. The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed: (a) there is no consensus on the definition of servant leadership; (b) servant leadership theory is being investigated across a variety of contexts, cultures, and themes; (c) researchers are using multiple measures to explore servant leadership; and (d) servant leadership is a viable leadership theory that helps organizations and improves the well-being of followers. This study contributes to the development of servant leadership theory and practice. In addition, this study contributes to the methodology for conducting SLRs in the field of management, highlighting an effective method for mapping out thematically, and viewing holistically, new research topics. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research.

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Parris, D.L., Peachey, J.W. A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts. J Bus Ethics 113 , 377–393 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1322-6

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Team Leadership in a Peer Group Project

April 7, 2024 by mzg5691 Leave a Comment

I have to say when I think of team leadership, I immediately recall experiencing this a few semesters ago. It was one of many Psychology classes I had taken and in this one class, we had a peer group assignment writing an essay paper together. We were only 4 members in the group but the energy to meet the same goal was there. The goal was writing this 10-page paper together and this paper would receive one grade for all, typical in these types of group assignments.

As soon as we were assigned to a group, my group consisted of 5 people including myself. The first to reach out the me was a student we’ll call Gina, and she sent these friendly, open messages to all of us in the group inviting us to join a group chat she had set up through a student chatting app. She explained why she set this up stating it was easier and quicker for us to communicate throughout the course of this assignment. We were all World Campus students, different schedules, different time zones, different lives and she said we could all keep in contact with work together.

As each of us logged in, reintroduced ourselves, we got to work through the chat right away. Gina was kind, friendly, empathetic, and positive to everyone. She had also made each of us feel our participation mattered. From deciding on what our project was supposed to be about, to who was going to write what part, Gina wanted to hear from everyone, and everyone else wanted too also. We brainstormed and tackled the harder questions, and we all gave each other feedback on our writings. Northouse (2021, pg.462) writes that there are three key factors in the effectiveness of virtual teams. First, the use of technology, second, managing distance, and third, team structure. I believe our group hit all three factors, with Gina initiating communication with technology that helped us manage our distance from each other and we were all engaged in our structure as a group.

Gina never made us feel like she was our leader. She just brought us together and made clear we were all equals in the common goal: the grade from this assignment. Although she clearly displayed leadership ability, not once did she ever make us feel that way or insinuate, she was leader. It was a positive experience I had with group projects I hope to have again.

(Northouse, 2021-02-02)

Northouse, P. G.  (2021-02-02). Leadership: Theory and Practice,  9th Edition. [[VitalSource Bookshelf version]].  Retrieved from bned://9781071834473

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Wang Wins AALS Award for Paper on Religious Freedom

Xiao Wang  (MPP '09), professor at UVA's School of Law and an affiliated Batten faculty member, has won an Association of American Law Schools award for his paper on a recent trend in religious freedom litigation.

For his paper “ Religion as Disobedience ,” Wang will receive the 2024 Harold Berman Award for Excellence in Scholarship, presented to scholars for an outstanding article on the subject of law and religion published within their first 10 years teaching at an AALS member school. 

Wang's research addresses generally how lower courts implement and apply Supreme Court precedent. He directs the law school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, organizes the En Banc Institute and supervises the National Appellate Clinic Network. He has led appeals before state courts, federal circuit courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Xiao Wang (MPP '09) is director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and assistant professor of law and public policy at the University of Virginia. Wang worked as a litigator at Williams & Connolly and Wilkinson Stekloff, where he led investigations or litigation on behalf of Mars, Under Armour, and the National Football League. He has led appeals before state courts, federal circuit courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. Wang writes about federal courts, constitutional law, and law and religion.

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