SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWER JOB PERFORMANCE: THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION
| Author | BRIAN COOPER,NATHAN EVA,GARY SCHWARZ,ALEXANDER NEWMAN |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12266 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
doi: 10.1111/padm.12266
SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWER JOB
PERFORMANCE: THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF PUBLIC
SERVICE MOTIVATION
GARY SCHWARZ, ALEXANDER NEWMAN, BRIAN COOPER AND NATHAN EVA
This article advances our understanding of the effects of servant leadership, an employee- and
community-focused leadership style, on followers’ public service motivation (PSM) and job per-
formance. Based on social learning theory, we argue that by emphasizing to their followers the
importance of serving others both inside and outside the organization and by acting as role models
by serving others themselves, servant leaders enhance job performance by engendering higher PSM
in their followers. A multilevel analysis of three waves of multi-source data from a Chinese gov-
ernment agency reveals that PSM mediates the inuence that servant leadership has on followers’
job performance. The results are consistent with theoretical predictions that the altruistic behaviour
displayed by servant leaders elicits higher levels of the altruistic behaviours that characterize PSM,
which in turn increases job performance. Hence, this study contributes to our understanding of how
leadership drives institutional change and performance in the public sector.
INTRODUCTION
Faced with a turbulent and uncertain operating environment (Boin and ’t Hart 2003), the
pressure ‘to do more with less’ has left many public service organizations with the task of
redening their traditional roles and responsibilities (Vermeeren et al. 2014). This require-
ment has led them to examine effective methods of increasing performance (Fernandez
and Moldogaziev 2011). Public service motivation (PSM), dened as ‘an individual’s pre-
disposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions
and organizations’ (Perry and Wise 1990, p. 368), has generally been found to increase job
performance amongst employees (Bright 2007; Vandenabeele 2009; Bellé 2013). With this
nding in mind, the impact that leaders have on raising PSM to drive performance has
received increasing attention in the literature (Wright et al. 2012).
Leadership has been broadly dened as ‘an inuence relationship among leaders
and followers who intend real changes that reect their mutual purposes’ (Rost 1993,
p. 124). Over the last two decades, researchers have begun to examine the specic lead-
ership behaviours exhibited by supervisors and how they inuence employee attitudes
and behaviours (Van Wart 2013). In line with this behavioural approach to leadership
research, the present study examines the role of servant leadership in enhancing the job
performance of followers through fostering higher levels of PSM in the Chinese public
sector. This style of leadership, in which leaders strive selessly to assist others before
themselves and encourage their followers to do the same (Greenleaf 1977), has been the
focus of recent research in the Chinese public sector (Han et al. 2010; Miao et al. 2014).
In his essay The Institution as Servant, Greenleaf (1972, p. 5) states that ‘individuals who
want to serve must, on their own, become institution builders where they are’. Following
Greenleaf, we argue that servant leaders are institutional entrepreneurs (DiMaggio 1988),
i.e. change agents who take a leadership role in making issues that they value legitimate,
and who are also actively involved in the implementation of change (Battilana et al. 2009).
Gary Schwarz is at SOAS, University of London, UK. Alexander Newman is at Deakin University, Australia. Brian
Cooper and Nathan Eva are at Monash University,Australia.
Public Administration Vol.94, No. 4, 2016 (1025–1041)
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
1026 GARY SCHWARZET AL.
Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresaand Nelson Mandela are prominent examples of servant
leaders.
Instead of serving their superiors, which has been the traditional practice in the Chinese
public sector (Dong et al. 2010), servant leaders emphasize the benets for their followers
and the community at large (Sendjaya et al. 2008). Although a growing body of research
suggests that servant leadership may have positive effects on employee work outcomes
such as job performance (Liden et al. 2008), prior research has not examined the mech-
anisms that link servant leadership to job performance in the public sector. Moreover,
previous studies have not analysed whether servant leadership can be utilized to elicit
higher levels of PSM amongst public sector employees. Servant leaders who set aside their
self-interest are particularly important for the Chinese government, given that rampant
corruption has led to the arrest of several high-prole civil servants and the incarcera-
tion of thousands of other employees who have damaged the legitimacy of one-party rule
(Dong et al. 2010).
Utilizing three waves of multi-source and multilevel data from a Chinese government
agency, our study investigates whether followers’ PSM acts as a mechanism that links
servant leadership to the job performance of followers. Drawing on social learning theory
(Bandura 1977), which stresses the importance of role modelling by the leader as a central
process through which social inuence occurs in the workplace, we propose that servant
leadership will lead followers to exhibit higher levels of PSM. Weargue that this behaviour
in turn will lead followers to focus on serving the needs of those both inside and outside
the organization and exhibit higher levels of job performance accordingly.
In the following sections, we rst review the literature on servant leadership and PSM in
light of the current Chinese institutional environment before developing the hypotheses
accordingly. We then discuss how the data were collected and analysed, in addition to the
results of the study. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the
study before concluding with potential avenues for future research.
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Servant leadership is dened as a holistic and altruistic approach to leadership that is char-
acterized by the leader’s central focus on the aspirations and needs of his or her followers
(Van Dierendonck 2011). Within the organization, managers display servant leadership
behaviours by committing to the personal and professional growth of employees above
the nancial objectives of the organization (Graham 1991). For example, a servant leader
will listen to and understand the aspirations of his or her followers and will mentor follow-
ers to achieve these goals. Although other leadership styles that focus on followers have
started to emerge, servant leadership remains unique, given that helping followers reach
their full potential and serving the needs of wider stakeholder groups are at its core (Send-
jaya et al. 2008). Followers in turn view the servant leader as a role model and mirror his or
her behaviours, thus becoming servant leaders themselves (Greenleaf 1977). Servant lead-
ership behaviours have been shown across multiple studies and countries to be a predictor
of positive employee and organizational outcomes across cultures and contexts (Han et al.
2010; Liden et al. 2015). Specically, past researchhas demonstrated that servant leaders are
effective in highly bureaucratic organizations, given that they seek to empower and men-
tor employees regardless of the levels of organizational centralization and formalization
(Eva et al. 2013). In explaining the effects of servant leadership on follower outcomes, prior
research has typically drawn on social learning theory (Hunter et al. 2013; Liden et al. 2014).
Public Administration Vol.94, No. 4, 2016 (1025–1041)
© 2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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