Creating the right climate: how servant leadership can drive employee creativity

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings The authors of the study find that servant leadership encourages employee creativity by supporting the development of a climate of creativity, which sets the right conditions for employees to engage in creative behaviors. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Leadership Styles and Psychological Empowerment: A Meta-Analysis

Psychological empowerment has become a popular construct in organizational research and practice. Leadership ranks high among the best predictors of employees’ psychological empowerment, yet little is known about which leadership styles prove more effective than others. This meta-analysis investigates the effects of four leadership styles on psychological empowerment. More specifically, we test whether empowering leadership evokes more psychological empowerment than transformational leadership, servant leadership, or transactional leadership. We found that empowering, transformational and servant leadership contribute almost equally to psychological empowerment. No relationship was found with transactional leadership. In an explorative manner, we tested the effects on the different dimensions of psychological empowerment. We found that the leadership styles had a weaker influence on the competence dimension of psychological empowerment. We also investigated the effects of several moderators on the relationships with psychological empowerment: country culture (power balanced freedom (PBF)), study design (cross-sectional vs. multi-wave studies) and publication status (published vs. unpublished). We found no moderating effects of culture, which indicates the universally empowering effects of the leadership styles. The relationships between leadership and empowerment were somewhat weaker when data were collected at different measurement points, and publication bias does not seem to be an issue in this research field.

Linking leadership styles to communication competency and work engagement: evidence from the hotel industry

PurposeThis study examines the mediation effects of leaders' communication competency in the link between leadership styles (i.e. servant and transactional leadership) and employees' work engagement.Design/methodology/approachCross-sectional survey data from 392 employees in 33 hotels in Bangladesh were collected. To analyze the data, structural equation modeling was adopted, and partial least squares (PLS) analysis was used.FindingsResults of PLS analysis revealed that servant leaders and leaders' communication competency positively influence employees' work engagement. In boosting employees' work engagement, communication competency is an important tool for servant leadership but not for transactional leadership.Practical implicationsHoteliers and managers may want to adopt a servant leadership style and develop effective leadership communication skills to increase employees' engagement at work.Originality/valueThis study introduces communication competency as a mediating mechanism between leadership styles and work engagement in the hospitality industry.

Servant Leadership Styles as a Challenge to Develop Innovation in Resilient Environments

The current challenge for the survival and growth of companies is the appropriation of innovation in all its senses, the generation of propitiate resilient environments, the innovation philosophy acquisition into action, and improve internal dynamics and cohesion through a comparison of leadership styles oriented by the motivation to serve as a servant leadership. This chapter analyses the relevance of the culturally intelligent organizations to carry out innovation. Likewise, the styles of servant leadership and administration that generate a collective consciousness tend to create innovation and more resilient environments.

Impact of Servant Leadership on the Development of Change-Oriented Citizenship Behavior

Due to globalization; utilization of new innovations; adapting to a tempestuous climate; and political, cultural, and economical challenges, organisations face progressing cycles of change. They relegate the duty of expecting change and giving direction to their employees for their professional growth. Because of the change-oriented behavior of employees, the study proposed the importance of understanding the phenomena while examining the subject of change readiness and psychological empowerment of employees during the current era of change. This study examines the mechanism of the effect of servant leadership on change-oriented behavior. The study employed a survey-based method, and data is collected with the help of a questionnaire. The rate of response was 50%, qualifying for the minimum criteria of response rate. For the data analysis, SEM-PLS is used. Results of the current study supported the hypothesised relationships.