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Impact of Servant Leadership on Performance: The Mediating Role of Affective and Cognitive Trust

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  • Farida Saleem
  • Yingying Zhang Zhang
  • C. Gopinath
  • Ahmad Adeel

Abstract

Servant leadership style has drawn much attention in the last decade to leadership studies on account of its focus on serving others first. Extant literature calls for a better understanding of the underlying mechanism for servant leadership to positively influence performance within an organization. We position servant leadership to contribute to firms’ sustainable performance, by empirically studying the mediating mechanism of bi-dimensional trust, namely affective and cognitive trust, between servant leadership and individual performance. Our data comprised of dyadic samples of 233 pairs of subordinates and their supervisors. The results from hierarchical linear model (HLM) for clustered data showed that servant leadership strongly predicted affective trust, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), and task performance of subordinates; affective trust fully mediated servant leadership’s effect on task performance while partially mediates servant leadership’s effect on subordinates’ OCB. In contrast, cognitive trust did not mediate servant leadership’s effect on either OCB or task performance. These findings reveal the relevance of affective trust as the underlying mechanism which mediates and deciphers servant leadership into positive individual performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Farida Saleem & Yingying Zhang Zhang & C. Gopinath & Ahmad Adeel, 2020. "Impact of Servant Leadership on Performance: The Mediating Role of Affective and Cognitive Trust," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440199, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:10:y:2020:i:1:p:2158244019900562
    DOI: 10.1177/2158244019900562
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    9. Jorge Linuesa-Langreo & Pablo Ruiz-Palomino & Dioni Elche-Hortelano, 2018. "Integrating Servant Leadership into Managerial Strategy to Build Group Social Capital: The Mediating Role of Group Citizenship Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(4), pages 899-916, November.
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    12. Helena Liu, 2019. "Just the Servant: An Intersectional Critique of Servant Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 1099-1112, June.
    13. Dong Chul Shim & Hyun Hee Park & Tae Ho Eom, 2016. "Public servant leadership: Myth or powerful reality?," International Review of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 3-20, January.
    14. Lora Reed & Deborah Vidaver-Cohen & Scott Colwell, 2011. "A New Scale to Measure Executive Servant Leadership: Development, Analysis, and Implications for Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 415-434, July.
    15. Dirk Van Dierendonck & Milton Sousa & Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir & Andrea Bobbio & Jari Hakanen & Armin Pircher Verdorfer & Emin Cihan Duyan & Raquel Rodriguez-Carvajal, 2017. "The Cross-Cultural Invariance of the Servant Leadership Survey: A Comparative Study across Eight Countries," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-11, April.
    16. Denise Parris & Jon Peachey, 2013. "A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 377-393, March.
    17. Émilie Lapointe & Christian Vandenberghe, 2018. "Examination of the Relationships Between Servant Leadership, Organizational Commitment, and Voice and Antisocial Behaviors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 99-115, March.
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    2. Abida Ellahi & Mobashar Rehman & Yasir Javed & Fahd Sultan & Hafiz Mudassir Rehman, 2022. "Impact of Servant Leadership on Project Success Through Mediating Role of Team Motivation and Effectiveness: A Case of Software Industry," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    3. repec:thr:techub:10014:y:2020:i:1:p:471-482 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Majid Ghasemy & Lena Frömbling, 2023. "A conditional time-varying multivariate latent growth curve model for the relationships between academics’ servant leadership behavior, affective commitment, and job performance during the Covid-19 pa," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4657-4680, October.
    5. repec:thr:techub:v:1:y:2021:i:2:p:45-58 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Usama Najam & Norizah Binti Mohd Mustamil, 2022. "Does Proactive Personality Moderate the Relationship Between Servant Leadership and Psychological Ownership and Resilience?," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, April.
    7. Ali Falah Dalain, 2023. "Nurturing Employee Engagement at Workplace and Organizational Innovation in Time of Crisis With Moderating Effect of Servant Leadership," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(2), pages 21582440231, May.
    8. Merkebu Limenih Getinet & Xiao-Yu Liu, 2024. "Emotional Alchemy in Hospitality: Transforming Discontent to Delight through Servant Leadership and Strategic Emotional Labor in Hotel Service Recovery Performance," International Journal of Science and Business, IJSAB International, vol. 31(1), pages 49-63.
    9. Derry Wanta & Yvonne Augustine, 2021. "The Effect of Servant Leadership, Job Satisfaction and Organizational Culture on Employee Performance Moderated by Good Governance in Women's Cooperative Institution," Technium Sustainability, Technium Science, vol. 1(2), pages 45-58, July.
    10. Kalpina Kumari & Jawad Abbas & Jinsoo Hwang & Lucian Ionel Cioca, 2022. "Does Servant Leadership Promote Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Citizenship Behavior among Employees? A Structural Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-18, April.
    11. Mou Lin & Azura Abdullah Effendi & Qaisar Iqbal, 2022. "The Mechanism Underlying the Sustainable Performance of Transformational Leadership: Organizational Identification as Moderator," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-19, November.
    12. Shilong Wei & Muhammad Safdar Sial & Wenxia Zhou & Alina Badulescu & Daniel Badulescu, 2021. "Improving the Environmental Footprint through Employees: A Case of Female Leaders from the Perspective of CSR," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-23, December.

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