LEADERSHIP STYLE

How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX, Empowerment, and Proactive Personality

A. Newman1 • G. Schwarz2 • B. Cooper1 • S. Sendjaya1

Received: 31 January 2015 / Accepted: 16 August 2015 / Published online: 3 September 2015

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract While the link between servant leadership and

organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been

established, the individual-level mechanisms underlying

this relationship and its boundary conditions remain poorly

understood. In this study, we investigate the salience of the

mediating mechanisms of leader–member exchange

(LMX) and psychological empowerment in explaining the

process by which servant leaders elicit discretionary OCB

among followers. We also examine the role of followers’

proactive personality in moderating the indirect effects of

servant leadership on OCB through LMX and psycholog-

ical empowerment. Analysis of survey data collected from

446 supervisor–subordinate dyads in a large Chinese state-

owned enterprise suggests that while servant leadership is

positively related to subordinate OCB through LMX, psy-

chological empowerment does not explain any additional

variance in OCB above that accounted for by LMX.

Moderated mediation tests confirm the moderating effect of

proactive personality through LMX. By providing a

nuanced understanding of how and when servant leadership

leads followers to go above and beyond their job role, our

study assists organizations in deciding how to develop and

utilize servant leaders in their organizations.

Keywords LMX � Organizational citizenship behavior � Psychological empowerment � Servant leadership

Introduction

Over the last decade, growing empirical research has

highlighted the utility of servant leadership as a manage-

ment technique that enables business organizations to

develop and maintain a competitive advantage. Servant

leadership refers to a leadership approach by which leaders

set aside their self-interest and altruistically work for the

benefit of their followers, and the communities in which

they operate (Avolio et al. 2009; Parris and Welty Peachey

2013). Servant leaders invest in the development of their

followers by acting as role models who provide support,

involve followers in decision making, display appropriate

ethical behavior, and stress the importance of serving the

wider community in which they are embedded (Reed et al.

2011; Stone et al. 2004). Empirical evidence suggests that

servant leaders foster more satisfied, committed, engaged

and better-performing followers (Carter and Baghurst

2013; Liden et al. 2008; Mayer et al. 2008; Neubert et al.

2008).

Research has revealed that servant leaders make fol-

lowers go beyond their job role to exhibit organizational

citizenship behavior (OCB) (Ehrhart 2004; Reed 2015;

Walumbwa et al. 2010a, b), defined as discretionary

behavior that is not recognized by the formal reward sys-

tem and promotes the effective functioning of the organi-

zation (Organ 1988). As highlighted in a recent systematic

& G. Schwarz [email protected]

A. Newman

[email protected]

B. Cooper

[email protected]

S. Sendjaya

[email protected]

1 Department of Management, Monash University, 900

Dandenong Road, Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia

2 SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russel

Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK

123

J Bus Ethics (2017) 145:49–62

DOI 10.1007/s10551-015-2827-6

review of the literature (Parris and Welty Peachey 2013),

prior research considering the effects of servant leadership

has typically measured OCB at the team level, and focused

on team-level mediators such as procedural justice and

service climates (Ehrhart 2004; Hunter et al. 2013). There

has, however, been limited examination of the relative

importance of the different psychosocial processes under-

lying this relationship at the individual level of analysis. In

addition, there has been a dearth of research on the

boundary conditions of the relationship between servant

leadership and work outcomes. For example, although

exploratory work has begun to look at the relationship

between followers’ personality dimensions and servant

leadership (Reed 2005), prior research has not examined

how followers’ personalities and other individual differ-

ences influence how followers respond to servant leader-

ship. Better understanding of how, and in which situations,

servant leadership leads followers to go above and beyond

their job role is of critical importance to managers when

deciding how to develop and mobilize servant leaders in

their organizations.

To address these gaps in the literature, the present study

asks two main questions. First, it asks whether servant

leadership elicits followers to engage in greater OCB by

enhancing the quality of their relationship with their

supervisor, as captured by Leader–Member Exchange

(LMX) and/or by heightening their psychological

empowerment, defined as an individual’s motivation to

perform tasks. Although such mechanisms have been

suggested as possible explanations for the effects of servant

leadership on followers’ OCB in the extant literature

(Henderson et al. 2009; Liden et al. 2008; Russell and

Stone 2002; Van Dierendonck 2011), they have not yet

been examined in a single study. Understanding the relative

effects of LMX and psychological empowerment will

allow us to make a theoretical contribution by testing the

salience of social exchange theory (Blau 1964) and

intrinsic motivation theory (Ryan and Deci 2000) as indi-

vidual-level psychosocial processes by which servant

leadership leads followers to engage in OCB. Second, the

present study asks whether the proactive personality of

followers strengthens the influence of servant leadership on

OCB by facilitating the building of strong relationships

with their supervisor as captured by LMX, and by moti-

vating them to perform in the workplace. We chose to

focus on proactive personality, which has been defined as

an individual’s behavioral tendency to identify opportuni-

ties to enact change and manipulate the environment to act

on such opportunities (Crant 2000) because it has been

shown to be a stronger predictor of employee OCB than

other personality measures (Fuller and Marler 2009) and

influences the propensity of employees to build productive

relationships in the workplace and maintain high levels of

intrinsic motivation (Li et al. 2010; Thompson 2005; Yang

et al. 2011; Zhang et al. 2012). By focusing on whether

proactive personality moderates the influence of servant

leadership behavior, we address the calls of researchers for

greater investigation into how individual differences

among followers, such as personality, influence how they

perceive and respond to different styles of leadership

(Antonakis et al. 2012; Zaccaro 2012). Although previous

work has shown that personality characteristics influence

how followers respond to leadership behavior (Ehrhart and

Klein 2001), limited research has investigated whether

follower’s personality may accentuate or attenuate the

effects of servant leadership.

By investigating these issues, our work brings important

practical benefits. As well as providing an in-depth

understanding of the process by which servant leaders

engender greater discretionary behavior among followers,

our study also identifies which followers may benefit most

from being placed with servant leaders. This knowledge

will allow organizations to better deploy servant leaders to

the maximum benefit of the organization. Figure 1 illus-

trates the research framework of our study.

In the following sections, we review the literature on

servant leadership and the mechanisms linking servant

leadership to work outcomes and their boundary conditions

before presenting our hypotheses. We then explain how the

data were collected and analyzed, and present our findings.

Finally, we discuss our findings and their implications

before presenting suggestions for future research.

Literature Review

In this section, we review the literature on servant leader-

ship and its relationship with follower OCB. We then

review the literature on LMX, psychological empower-

ment, and proactive personality, and develop hypotheses

concerning the mediating effects of LMX and psycholog-

ical empowerment, and the moderating effects of proactive

personality.

Fig. 1 Hypothesized moderated mediation model. PAP = proactive personality

50 A. Newman et al.

123

Servant Leadership

Although servant leadership has been measured in

numerous ways in prior empirical research (Barbuto and

Wheeler 2006; Ehrhart 2004; Laub 1999; Liden et al. 2008;

Sendjaya et al. 2008), and there is no overall consensus

regarding the exact behaviors that constitute servant lead-

ership (Parris and Welty Peachey 2013), most empirical

studies adopt Greenleaf’s (1977) definition of a servant

leader as one who focuses on developing and empowering

his/her followers, while at the same time encouraging the

followers to act as servant leaders themselves (Parris and

Welty Peachey 2013). For the purposes of this study, we

adopt Ehrhart’s (2004) global measure of servant leader-

ship, which highlights seven main behaviors exhibited by

servant leaders: putting subordinates first, forming rela-

tionships with subordinates, helping subordinates to

develop and succeed, having conceptual skills, empower-

ing subordinates, behaving ethically, and creating value for

those outside the organization. Ehrhart’s conceptualization

of servant leadership is similar to that of other widely

adopted scales (e.g., Laub 1999; Liden et al. 2008; Send-

jaya et al. 2008). For example, the seven behaviors high-

lighted by Ehrhart (2004) overlap with six out of the seven

dimensions captured by Liden et al.’s (2008) multidimen-

sional scale (i.e., putting subordinates first, helping subor-

dinates grow and succeed, having conceptual skills,

empowering subordinates, behaving ethically and creating

value for the community). In addition, Ehrhart’s measure

shares some similarities with four of the six dimensions

from Laub’s (1999) multidimensional scale. It examines

the extent to which the leader emphasizes subordinate

development (e.g., values and develops people), empowers

subordinates (e.g., shares leadership), and creates value for

the community (e.g., builds community). Ehrhart’s (2004)

measure also corresponds to four of six dimensions in

Sendjaya et al.’s (2008) scale; voluntary subordination,

covenantal relationship, transforming influence, and

responsible morality. Ehrhart’s (2004) measure has also

been validated at the individual level of analysis in prior

empirical work in the Chinese organizational context

(Miao et al. 2014). While there are other measures of

servant leadership available (see Parris and Welty Peachey

2013 for a review), we excluded most of them because they

do not include an ethical moral dimension. As Ehrhart

(2004) rightly contends, servant leadership is a moral-laden

approach to leadership, of which ethical behavior is a

distinguishing characteristic. We believe that it is essential

to employ a scale that is conceptually parsimonious with

the theorizing of the construct. Liden’s (2008) and Send-

jaya et al.’s (2008) scales include an ethical dimension, but

in the absence of a ‘gold standard’ of servant leadership

measure, we believe it is prudent to use the most

theoretically reliable and empirically validated global scale

of servant leadership based on extant literature at the time

of our study.

Although servant leadership shares some commonalities

with other leadership styles, such as transformational and

empowering leadership, given its focus on follower

development and empowerment, there is growing evidence

that it is conceptually distinct and has incremental pre-

dictive validity (Ehrhart 2004; Liden et al. 2008; Parolini

et al. 2009; Peterson et al. 2012; Reed 2015; Schaubroeck

et al. 2011; Schneider and George 2011). In addition,

although it shares a moral component with ethical leader-

ship (Brown et al. 2005), it is more inclusive given its

stress on both acting ethically and providing service to the

wider community.

Servant Leadership and Follower OCB

Although there is growing research linking servant

leadership to follower job performance (Jaramillo et al.

2009; Liden et al. 2008), limited work has focused on its

positive influence in eliciting follower OCB (Ehrhart

2004; Hunter et al. 2013; Walumbwa et al. 2010a, b).

While some studies have looked at the mechanisms

linking servant leadership to workplace outcomes, these

have typically been conducted at the team level, through

the examination of mechanisms such as team-level pro-

cedural justice and service climate (Ehrhart 2004; Hunter

et al. 2013; Walumbwa et al. 2010a, b). In contrast, there

has been limited examination of mediators at the indi-

vidual level of analysis. Although recent research has

begun to examine the effects of servant leadership on

OCB at the individual level, it has not looked at the

mechanisms that explain its effects (Ozyilmaz and Cicek

2015).

Mediating Role of LMX

LMX theory has been put forward as a mechanism that

explains the process by which servant leaders influence

their followers to go above and beyond their job role, and

engage in behavior that benefits the organization and

other organizational members (Van Dierendonck 2011;

Henderson et al. 2009). For example, Van Dierendonck

(2011) proposes that servant leaders influence follower’s

extra-role behavior such as OCB through the develop-

ment of high-quality social exchange relationships char-

acterized by the reciprocated exchange of care and

concern.

LMX refers to the degree of emotional support and

exchange of valuable resources between a supervisor and

his/her direct subordinate (Liden et al. 2008). In other

words, it measures the extent to which both parties engage

How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX,… 51

123

in a process of reciprocated social exchange (Masterson

et al. 2000). Relationships high in LMX are characterized

by high levels of mutual trust, respect, and obligation (Nie

and Lämsä 2013).

Although there has been a dearth of empirical work

linking leadership behavior to LMX development, recent

studies highlight a positive relationship between leadership

behaviors such as transformational, moral or ethical lead-

ership, and follower perceptions of LMX (Gu et al. 2015;

Walumbwa et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2005). These studies

also find that LMX mediates the influence of such leader-

ship behaviors on follower work outcomes such as job

performance, creativity, and OCB.

We might expect servant leadership to elicit high levels

of LMX for a number of reasons. First, by focusing on the

development of their followers and providing opportunities

to learn new skills (Smith et al. 2004), servant leaders

facilitate the development of strong interpersonal rela-

tionships with their followers. Indeed, widely used mea-

sures of servant leadership highlight relationship building

with subordinates and the provision of support to subor-

dinates to enable them to develop and succeed, as key

behaviors exhibited by servant leaders (Ehrhart 2004; Laub

1999; Liden et al. 2008). Second, by soliciting followers’

ideas and encouraging them to become involved in deci-

sion making (Hunter et al. 2013), servant leaders are able to

build high-quality LMX relationships with their followers

that go beyond specified economic exchange. Third, by

stressing to their followers the importance of making a

contribution to society and following through on promises

(Walumbwa et al. 2010a, b), servant leaders are seen as

principled decision-makers who care about others. This

will lead followers to perceive that such leaders are acting

in their best interests, resulting in enhanced LMX from

higher levels of loyalty and emotional connectedness.

Although some researchers have suggested that leaders

may develop differentiated LMX relationships with their

followers, Henderson et al. (2009) argue that servant

leaders are concerned with developing and engaging all of

their followers. By establishing high-quality working

relationships with all of their subordinates, servant leaders

minimize LMX differentiation within the team.

In addition to enhancing LMX, servant leadership is also

likely to enhance follower OCB through the development

of high-quality LMX relationships. Strong LMX relation-

ships are characterized by high levels of trust and support

between leader and follower as well as the exchange of

both material and non-material benefits, above the speci-

fications of the job description (Ilies et al. 2007; Liden

et al. 2008). To reciprocate the development of strong

LMX relationships and maintain a balanced and equitable

social exchange with their leader, followers are likely to go

beyond what is required of them in their job description

through the exhibition of OCB (Wayne et al. 2002). In

support of such assertions, recent meta-analyses of empir-

ical work highlight a strong relationship between LMX and

OCB (Dulebohn et al. 2012; Ilies et al. 2007). Given such

findings, we would expect LMX to mediate the relationship

between servant leadership and OCB. Based on the above

arguments, we develop the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1 Servant leadership will be positively rela-

ted to follower perceptions of LMX.

Hypothesis 2 Follower perceptions of LMX will mediate

the relationship between servant leadership and follower

OCB.

Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

Psychological empowerment has been conceptualized as a

form of intrinsic motivation to perform tasks manifested in

four dimensions: meaning, competence, self-determination,

and impact (Spreitzer 1995). Meaning refers to when

individuals perceive their jobs as having value or impor-

tance (Zhang and Bartol 2010). Competence is the indi-

vidual’s feeling of self-efficacy or confidence that they

have the skills and knowledge to complete the task at hand

(Bandura 1986; Conger and Kanungo 1988). Self-deter-

mination refers to whether the individual feels that they

have the freedom or autonomy to make decisions about

how they perform their work (Avolio et al. 2004). Finally,

impact reflects the extent to which individuals feel that

their work makes a difference in achieving the purposes of

a given task and organizational outcomes more generally

(Avolio et al. 2004; Spreitzer 1995). Spreitzer (1995)

demonstrated that the four dimensions, although empiri-

cally distinct, formed a higher-order construct of psycho-

logical empowerment.

Although researchers have argued that psychological

empowerment is one of the main mechanisms by which

servant leaders influence their followers’ work outcomes

(Liden et al. 2008; Russell and Stone 2002), no empirical

work has been conducted to verify whether this is indeed

the case. This is in spite of the fact that several major scales

of servant leadership highlight empowerment as one of the

key behaviors exhibited by servant leaders (Ehrhart 2004;

Laub 1999; Liden et al. 2008). For example, both Ehrhart

(2004) and Liden et al. (2008) highlight subordinate

empowerment as a key characteristic of servant leaders,

whereas Laub (1999) argues that servant leaders empower

followers by engaging in shared leadership.

Servant leadership might be expected to lead to greater

feelings of empowerment in followers for several reasons.

First, by considering the needs of followers and providing

them with opportunities for development (Ehrhart 2004;

Liden et al. 2008; Stone et al. 2004), servant leaders should

52 A. Newman et al.

123

lead followers to perceive their jobs as having value. In

addition, by treating their followers with respect rather than

simply using them for their own gain, servant leaders lead

followers to experience a heightened sense of meaning in

their jobs. Second, by treating followers with benevolence

and responding to their individual developmental needs

(Van Dierendonck 2011), servant leaders should enhance

followers’ confidence that they have the skills and

knowledge to fulfill their job roles. Indeed, recent work by

Walumbwa et al. (2010a, b) finds strong evidence of a link

between servant leadership and self-efficacy. In addition,

by providing opportunities for followers to learn new skills

and access training, servant leaders are also likely to foster

followers’ feelings of competence in their job. Third,

because servant leaders provide followers with opportuni-

ties to participate in decision making (Greenleaf 1977; Van

Dierendonck 2011), they are likely to enhance followers’

perceptions of self-determination. Indeed Laub (1999)

highlights the provision of shared leadership as one of the

key characteristics of servant leadership. Finally, by

encouraging followers to become involved in decision

making, servant leaders provide opportunities for them to

understand the impact that they have in their job and the

organization as a whole. In summary, by enhancing fol-

lowers’ perceptions of meaning, competence, self-deter-

mination, and impact, servant leadership is likely to

enhance the psychological empowerment of individuals.

In addition to enhancing psychological empowerment,

servant leadership can also be expected to enhance fol-

lower OCB through psychological empowerment because

empowered employees are likely to take an active orien-

tation to work and do more than is required in their job

description (Kim and Kim 2013; Spreitzer 2008). Mean-

ingfulness is likely to lead to higher OCB because it pro-

motes a sense of attachment to the organization, not just to

one’s strictly defined role (Seibert et al. 2011). Competence

and impact are also likely to encourage OCB because they

will lead employees to see themselves as being more

capable of achieving positive outcomes in their work if

they exert the requisite effort (Spreitzer 1995). Indeed, a

recent meta-analysis highlights a positive and statistically

significant relationship between psychological empower-

ment and OCB (Seibert et al. 2011). Given such findings,

we would expect psychological empowerment to mediate

the relationship between servant leadership and OCB.

Based on the arguments above, we develop the following

hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3 Servant leadership will be positively rela-

ted to follower psychological empowerment.

Hypothesis 4 Follower psychological empowerment will

mediate the relationship between servant leadership and

follower OCB.

Moderating Role of Proactive Personality

Proactive personality refers to a behavioral tendency to

identify opportunities to enact change and manipulate the

environment to act on such opportunities (Crant 2000).

Compared to more passive individuals, individuals high in

proactive personality do not wait for information and

opportunities to come to them, but instead actively seek

new ideas and take the initiative to improve things (Fuller

et al. 2012; Ng and Feldman 2013). They are more inclined

to change their circumstances by individual means rather

than let themselves be shaped by their environments

(Bakker et al. 2012). In the workplace, proactive person-

ality manifests itself in employees searching for new ideas

to improve work practices, investing in skill development,

and seeking to understand organizational politics (Seibert

et al. 2001).

Research over the last two decades has shown proactive

personality to be conceptually independent from the ‘Big

Five’ personality factors and to be predictive of follower

behaviors not accounted for by the ‘Big Five’ (Bakker et al.

2012). For example, Major, Turner, and Fletcher (2006)

found that the ‘Big Five’ personality factors accounted for

approximately only 26 % of the variance in proactive

personality. In addition, they established that, after con-

trolling for the ‘Big Five,’ proactive personality explained

unique variance in motivation to learn.

Although previous research has established that indi-

viduals high in proactive personality perform better in the

workplace by developing social networks and strong LMX

relationships with their supervisor (Li et al. 2010;

Thompson 2005; Yang et al. 2011; Zhang et al. 2012) and

exhibit higher levels of psychological empowerment

(Fuller and Marler 2009), no research has examined how

proactive personality influences follower responses to

leadership behavior. In addition, despite the fact that recent

work has established that servant leadership may result in

more proactive followership behavior (Reed 2015), the

extant literature has not examined whether a follower’s

proactive personality influences how followers respond to

servant leadership.

Given that recent work has shown that proactive indi-

viduals do not operate in a social vacuum but instead

respond to different facets of the organizational and team

context in which they are situated (Joo and Lim 2009;

Thompson 2005), we propose that followers high in

proactive personality will be more likely to benefit from

working under a servant leader than more passive indi-

viduals. Specifically, we argue that when followers high in

proactive personality work under a servant leader who acts

unselfishly for their benefit, they will typically develop

higher-quality LMX relationships and higher levels of

psychological empowerment for several main reasons.

How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX,… 53

123

First, because prior research has shown that proactive

individuals are more likely to establish positive social

exchange relationships with their supervisors to perform

their jobs better (Li et al. 2010), we might expect such

individuals to take greater advantage of the opportunities

provided by servant leaders to become involved in deci-

sion-making and develop skills. In addition, proactive

individuals are more likely to seek and act upon the

extensive feedback provided by servant leaders than more

passive individuals (Lam et al. 2007). This should lead

them to develop higher-quality LMX relationships and go

beyond what is required of them in their job description, to

reciprocate their supervisor’s positive treatment through

the exhibition of OCB. From the supervisor’s perspective,

given that proactive individuals are more committed to

work goals and exert higher levels of effort than passive

individuals (Fuller et al. 2012), servant leaders should be

more willing to provide them with support and autonomy

in their work. This should further contribute to the devel-

opment of a high-quality LMX relationship and lead to

followers reciprocating by engaging in OCB that goes

beyond formal expectations. Similarly, recent empirical

research suggests that individuals with proactive person-

alities are more likely to respond to positive leadership

behaviors, in terms of discretionary extra-role behaviors,

through the development of high-quality LMX relation-

ships with their supervisors. For example, Li et al. (2010)

found that proactive personality led to higher OCB by

facilitating LMX. Building on this work, Zhang et al.

(2012) found that when the proactive personality of fol-

lowers was higher than that of their leader, the followers

exhibited higher-quality LMX and improved work

outcomes.

Second, as prior research has established a positive link

between proactive personality and the intrinsic motivation

of individuals (Fuller and Marler 2009), we might expect

proactive individuals to exhibit higher levels of psycho-

logical empowerment because it has been conceptualized

as a form of intrinsic motivation to perform tasks (Spreitzer

1995). As argued previously, this should in turn lead them

to go beyond their job role and engage in discretionary

OCB. However, in addition to its direct effects, we might

expect proactive personality to interact with servant lead-

ership and influence OCB by eliciting higher levels of

psychological empowerment, considering the focus placed

by servant leaders on empowering followers through the

provision of work autonomy and participative decision

making (Ehrhart 2004). From the supervisor’s perspective,

given that proactive individuals are more likely to seek out

new ideas and take the initiative (Fuller and Marler 2009),

servant leaders are more likely to provide such individuals

with greater autonomy. This should further contribute to

their empowerment and lead them to engage in

discretionary behavior in an attempt to maintain a balanced

and equitable social exchange relationship. This leads us to

the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 5 Proactive personality will positively mod-

erate the mediating effects of servant leadership on OCB

through LMX.

Hypothesis 6 Proactive personality will positively mod-

erate the mediating effects of servant leadership on OCB

through psychological empowerment.

Method

Sample and Procedure

A total of 446 supervisor–subordinate dyads from 30 teams

within a large Chinese state-owned enterprise participated

in our study. At the end of 2013, the company had more

than 90,000 employees and sales of more than 80 billion

yuan. The data were collected in one subsidiary in which

approximately 9000 people are employed. We collected

survey data from two sources (supervisors and their

immediate subordinates) to minimize common method bias

(Podsakoff et al. 2012). Prior to their distribution, the

questionnaires were translated into Chinese from English

by bilingual members of the research team using the back-

translation procedure (Brislin 1993).

Data were collected in two phases. At time one, ques-

tionnaires were distributed to 500 subordinates in 30 teams.

At time two, two weeks later, questionnaires were dis-

tributed to supervisors. Prospective respondents were

assured that their responses were confidential and were

informed of the voluntary nature of participation. Both sets

of questionnaires were distributed in printed format and

coded to ensure that the responses of the subordinates and

their supervisors could be matched.

In all, 446 matched subordinate–supervisor responses

were received, representing a response rate of 94 %. Of the

subordinates, 73 % were male, their mean age was

36.66 years (SD = 8.22), and on average, they had worked

under their present supervisor for just over three years

(M = 3.23, SD = 2.64).

Measures

Servant Leadership

Servant leadership was measured at the individual level

using Ehrhart’s (2004) 14-item global scale. Subordinates

rated the servant leadership of their supervisor on a five-

point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly

agree). Sample items included ‘My supervisor creates a

54 A. Newman et al.

123

sense of community among department employees’ and

‘My supervisor makes the personal development of

department employees a priority.’ The Cronbach’s alpha

for this scale was .93. This measure of servant leadership

was chosen over competing measures for a number of

reasons. First, as highlighted in a review of the servant

leadership literature (Parris and Welty Peachey 2013), it

has been the most widely used and validated scale in prior

research (Hunter et al. 2013; Jaramillo et al. 2009; Mayer

et al. 2008; Miao et al. 2014; Neubert et al. 2008; Sch-

neider and George 2011; Walumbwa et al. 2010a, b), and

shares significant theoretical and empirical overlap with

other measures of servant leadership (as highlighted earlier

in the paper). Although some researchers have used mul-

tidimensional measures (e.g., Liden et al. 2008 and Laub

1999), recent research argues that servant leadership is

better captured using a global scale than a multidimen-

sional scale because it is not a higher-level construct, due

to the fact that its underlying dimensions capture different

aspects of leader behavior (Liden et al. 2015). The second

main reason for adopting Ehrhart’s scale was that it has

been used in previous research to measure servant leader-

ship at the individual level and in the Chinese cultural

context (Miao et al. 2014).

Leader Member Exchange (LMX)

LMX was measured using the LMX-7 scale (Graen and

Uhl-Bien 1995; Scandura and Graen 1984). Subordinates

self-rated each item on a five-point Likert scale

(1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Sample

items included ‘I have a good working relationship with

my supervisor’ and ‘My supervisor understands my

problems and needs.’ The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale

was .89.

Psychological Empowerment

Spreitzer’s (1995) 12-item scale was adopted to measure

psychological empowerment. Subordinates self-rated each

item on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree,

5 = strongly agree). The measure is composed of four

subscales: meaning, competence, self-determination, and

impact. An example item from each subscale is ‘The work

I do is very important to me’ (meaning); ‘I am confident

about my ability to do my job’ (competence); ‘I have

significant autonomy in determining how I do my job’

(self-determination); and ‘My impact on what happens in

my department is large’ (impact). Following Spreitzer

(1995), we averaged scores from the four subscales to form

a single empowerment score for each respondent. The

Cronbach’s alpha for the total psychological empowerment

scale was .86.

Proactive Personality

Proactive personality was self-rated by subordinates on a

five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly

agree) using the 10-item Proactive Personality Scale devel-

oped by Seibert et al. (1999). Sample items included

‘Nothing is more exciting than seeing my ideas turn into

reality’ and ‘Wherever I have been, I have been a powerful

force for constructive change.’ The Cronbach’s alpha for this

scale was .83.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)

OCB-I and OCB-O were measured by a 16-item scale

(eight items for each dimension) developed and validated

by Lee and Allen (2002). Sample items for OCB-I included

‘Helps others who have been absent’ and ‘Goes out of way

to make new employees feel welcome in the work group.’

Sample items for OCB-O included: ‘Attend functions that

are not required but that help the organizational image’ and

‘Offer ideas to improve the functioning of the organiza-

tion.’ Supervisors rated the OCB of their subordinates on a

five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly

agree). Following recent recommendations in the literature

(Hoffman et al. 2007; Walumbwa et al. 2010a), we com-

bined the two dimensions because we were interested in an

overall measure of OCB for the purposes of hypothesis

testing. The Cronbach’s alpha for the total OCB scale

was .93.

Control Variables

To control for potential confounding effects, we included

age and time under supervisor (both measured in years) and

gender (coded 1 = male, 0 = female) as controls in line

with previous research (Zhu et al. 2013). We did not

control for organizational tenure because it was very highly

correlated with age (r = .92).

Method of Analysis

We tested our hypotheses using ordinary least squares

(OLS) regression with the conditional process modeling

(PROCESS) program for SPSS (Hayes 2013). To reduce

problems associated with multicollinearity in moderated

regression, all variables were z-standardized prior to

analysis (Tabachnick and Fidell 2013). Evaluation of

regression assumptions of normality, homoscedasticity,

linearity, and the absence of multicollinearity were

satisfactory.

Given that we were examining the interactive effects

between servant leadership and an individual-level per-

sonality variable, it is appropriate to conduct this analysis

How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX,… 55

123

at the individual (within-team) level rather than between

team-level. However, it is important to control for non-

independence in ratings among subordinates reporting to

the same supervisor. Given the relatively small number of

supervisors in the present study, we report fixed effects

specifications. A fixed effects model is a commonly used

extension of OLS regression whereby each unit (or

supervisor in our case) has its own intercept. These fixed

effects were captured in the present study by including

K-1 dummy variables, identifying the 30 supervisors. The

major advantage of a fixed effect model is that we control

for any unobserved heterogeneity (reflecting non-indepen-

dence and omitted variables) correlated with supervisor

membership. To test the robustness of our fixed effects, we

also estimated random-coefficients models (Cohen et al.

2003). Following Kenny et al.’s (2003) approach for lower-

level mediation, we examined if the paths (slope coeffi-

cients) that defined the indirect effects for LMX and psy-

chological empowerment were random (i.e., heterogeneous

across supervisors). We did not find statistically significant

variance in slope estimates across supervisors: servant

leadership to LMX (slope variance = .01, p [ .05), ser- vant leadership to psychological empowerment (slope

variance = .01, p [ .05), LMX to OCB (slope vari- ance = .02, p [ .05), and psychological empowerment to OCB (slope variance = .01, p [ .05). From these results, we can infer that the slopes can be treated as fixed (non-

random).

Results

Table 1 reports the means, standard deviations, and cor-

relations of the study variables. Consistent with our theo-

retical expectations, the zero-order correlations for servant

leadership, LMX, psychological empowerment, and OCB

were all in the expected direction, with the strongest cor-

relation between LMX and psychological empowerment

(r = .58). As expected, LMX and empowerment were

significantly related to the independent variable, servant

leadership, and the dependent variable, OCB. This suggests

that it is appropriate to proceed with more formal media-

tion analysis. Age, gender, and time under supervisor were

positively correlated with OCB, supporting their inclusion

as covariates in our regression models. Interestingly, the

correlations for gender show that males were rated as

having higher levels of OCB and greater self-reported

LMX and psychological empowerment than females.

Construct Validity

We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis using

LISREL 8.80 to establish discriminant validity between the

study variables. Scale items were used as indicators for all

constructs except for psychological empowerment, where,

consistent with previous research (Spreitzer 1995), the four

dimensions of empowerment were used as indicators. As

shown in Table 2, the hypothesized five-factor model (i.e.,

servant leadership, LMX, psychological empowerment,

proactive personality, and OCB) yielded an acceptable fit

to the data v2 (df = 1214) = 3601; RMSEA = .07, TLI = .95, CFI = .95, SRMR = .07. Standardized factor

loadings on the five factors were acceptable, averaging .66.

Correcting for measurement error, the average inter-cor-

relation among the five factors was .40. We also examined

a model with the four self-reported constructs that were

likely to be susceptible to common method variance (i.e.,

excluding OCB). This four-factor model had almost iden-

tical fit to the hypothesized five-factor model. As shown in

Table 2, the hypothesized models were a better fit than all

alternative models, providing evidence of discriminant

validity. Taken together, these results provide evidence for

construct validity of the measures used in this study.

Mediation

As shown in Table 3, Model 1, there was a strong positive

relationship between servant leadership and LMX

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations

among the study variables

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 OCB 3.83 0.54 –

2 Servant leadership 4.15 0.63 .15** –

3 LMX 3.81 0.69 .19** .63** –

4 Psychological

empowerment

3.82 0.49 .15** .45** .58** –

5 Proactive personality 3.66 0.50 -.04 .27** .38** .41** –

6 Gender 0.73 0.44 .10* .07 .17** .21** .12* –

7 Age 36.66 8.22 .15** .03 -.05 .10* -.19** -.03 –

8 Time under supervisor 3.23 2.64 .16** .06 -.02 .09 -.04 -.02 .14**

* p \ .05, ** p \ .01. Gender is coded as 1 = male and 0 = female

56 A. Newman et al.

123

(b = .64, p \ .01). Hence, Hypothesis 1 was supported. A bias-corrected bootstrap using 1000 resamples found that

the indirect effect of servant leadership on OCB through

LMX (with psychological empowerment controlled) was

.06 (95 % CI .01 to .12). As zero is not contained in the

95 % confidence interval for the indirect effect, Hypothesis

2 was supported.

In support of Hypothesis 3, servant leadership was

positively related to psychological empowerment (b = .46, p \ .01) (see Table 3, Model 2). The indirect effect of servant leadership on OCB through psychological

empowerment (with LMX controlled) was .01 (95 % CI

-.03 to .06). As zero is contained in the 95 % confidence

interval for the indirect effect, Hypothesis 4 was not

supported.

Finally, as shown in Table 3, Model 3, the direct effect

of servant leadership on OCB was not statistically signifi-

cant (b = -.01, p [ .05), supporting an inference of full mediation. Overall, our mediation model explained

approximately 10 % of the variance in OCB, an amount

comparable to other studies using supervisor ratings of

extra-role behavior (Podsakoff et al. 2000).

Moderated Mediation: The Moderating Effect

of Proactive Personality

To test the moderated mediation relationship suggested in

Hypotheses 5 and 6, we followed the approach outlined by

Hayes (2013). Consistent with our theoretical arguments

outlined previously, in our model, proactive personality

moderated the path from servant leadership to both LMX

and psychological empowerment. Expressed in path-ana-

lytic language, the moderation effect was hypothesized to

occur at the first stage (independent variable to mediator)

of the mediation model (Edwards and Lambert 2007). As

shown in Table 3, Models 4 and 5, the servant leadership

proactive personality interaction was statistically signifi-

cant for LMX (b = .11, p \ .05) but not for psychological empowerment (b = -.03, p [ .05).

To aid in interpreting the moderated effect for LMX, we

plotted the statistically significant interaction (Cohen et al.

2003). As shown in Fig. 2, the relationship between servant

leadership and LMX was stronger when proactive per-

sonality was above average (one SD above the mean) than

when below average (one SD below the mean). For

Table 2 Results of confirmatory factor analysis

Model X 2

df TLI CFI RMSEA SRMR

Hypothesized five-factor model 3601 1214 .95 .95 .07 .07

Hypothesized model (four self-reported constructs only) 1735 554 .96 .96 .07 .07

Four-factor model: Servant leadership and LMX combined 5388 1218 .93 .93 .09 .07

Four-factor model: Servant leadership and psychological empowerment combined 3920 1218 .94 .94 .08 .07

Three-factor model: Servant leadership, LMX and psychological empowerment combined 5732 1221 .92 .92 .10 .08

One-factor model (five factors) 15740 1224 .83 .84 .17 .15

One-factor model (four self-reported constructs only) 5685 560 .89 .90 .15 .11

X 2 = normal-theory weighted least-squares Chi square. TLI is the Tucker–Lewis fit index, CFI the comparative fit index, RMSEA the root-mean-

square error of approximation, and SRMR, the standardized root-mean-square residual

Table 3 Results of mediation and moderated mediation regression analyses

Variables Model 1 LMX Model 2 empowerment Model 3 OCB Model 4 LMX Model 5 empowerment

Time under supervisor -.03 .05 .14** -.04 .05

Age .04 .20** .12** -.01 .25**

Gender .12** .19** .01 .10** .15**

Servant leadership .64** .46** -.01 .62** .36**

LMX .09*

Psychological empowerment .03

PAP .17** .30**

PAP 9 servant leadership .11** -.03

R 2

.42** .24** .09** .47** .33**

Standardized regression coefficients reported. PAP = proactive personality. Gender is coded 1 = male, 0 = female

* p \ .05, ** p \ .01

How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX,… 57

123

robustness, we also tested if there was a moderation effect

of proactive personality on the second stage (mediator to

dependent variable) of our mediation model. Neither the

LMX–OCB relationship (b = .07, p [ .05) nor the psy- chological empowerment–OCB relationship (b = -.04, p [ .05) was moderated by proactive personality.

Taken together, these results support an inference of

moderated mediation for LMX (Hypothesis 5) but not for

psychological empowerment (Hypothesis 6). We pro-

ceeded to calculate the conditional (simple) indirect effect

of servant leadership on OCB through LMX. The condi-

tional indirect effect measures the strength of the indirect

effect at different values (levels) of the moderator (in this

case proactive personality). As recommended by Hayes

(2013), we examined the statistical significance of the

conditional indirect effect at one SD below and one SD

above the mean for proactive personality. A bias-corrected

bootstrap using 1000 resamples found that the conditional

indirect effect for LMX was weakest at one SD below the

mean for proactive personality (bootstrapped indirect

effect = .05; 95 % CI .01 to .10). The conditional indirect

effect for LMX was strongest at one SD above the mean

value of proactive personality (bootstrapped indirect

effect = .07; 95 % CI .01 to .14). Overall, these results

support Hypothesis 5.

Discussion

In the present study, we found that LMX mediated the

positive relationship between servant leadership and OCB.

However, although servant leadership was positively rela-

ted to psychological empowerment, the mediating influ-

ence of psychological empowerment did not explain any

additional variance in OCB above that accounted for by

LMX. We also found that subordinates’ proactive person-

ality moderated the indirect effect of servant leadership on

subordinate OCB through LMX. These findings provide a

number of theoretical implications for the leadership

literature.

First, by examining the relative importance of LMX and

psychological empowerment as mediators of the relation-

ship between servant leadership and OCB, the present

study establishes the salience of two competing mecha-

nisms that have been identified in the literature as potential

mediators by which servant leadership transmits its effects.

In contrast to previous work on transformational leader-

ship, which highlights the importance of psychological

empowerment as a mechanism that transmits the effects of

such leadership styles on follower work outcomes (Avolio

et al. 2004), our research suggests that servant leadership

primarily exerts its influence on followers at the individual

level by facilitating social exchange between them and the

leader, measured by high-quality LMX. Our findings sug-

gest that because servant leaders put followers’ develop-

ment and interests above those of the organization,

followers working under servant leaders develop intense

personal bonds marked by shared values, open-ended

commitment, mutual trust, and concern for the welfare of

the other party. This in turn leads them to reciprocate in the

form of discretionary behaviors that benefit the leader. This

is supportive of social exchange theory and previous work

by Sendjaya and Pekerti (2010), who highlighted the

reciprocal nature of servant leadership behavior by which

its recipients are likely to voluntarily return the favor, not

out of specified obligation, but out of gratitude to the leader

and the organization.

Although servant leadership was positively related to

psychological empowerment as manifested in the four

dimensions of meaning, competence, self-determination,

and impact (Spreitzer 1995), psychological empowerment

did not lead followers to engage in discretionary behavior

above and beyond that accounted for by LMX. These

findings may result from the cultural context in which the

research was conducted. More specifically because Chinese

culture is characterized by high levels of collectivism and

power-distance (Bond et al. 1985), employees are more

likely to go above and beyond their job role and engage in

OCB when they have a high-quality social exchange rela-

tionship with members of their work group, especially their

supervisor (Li et al. 2010). For example, recent research

revealed a positive relationship between the strength of the

supervisor–subordinate social exchange relationship and

subordinate OCB (Chou et al. 2014; Liu and Wang 2013).

In addition, our findings may be explained by the fact that

participants in our study were non-managerial employees,

who typically exhibit a greater need for affiliation with

other members of their work group and place less impor-

tance on autonomy at work. Recent work on participative

leadership in China (Huang et al. 2010) found that

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Low Servant leadership High Servant leadership

O C B

Low PAP

High PAP

Fig. 2 Interaction between servant leadership and proactive person- ality (PAP) in predicting OCB

58 A. Newman et al.

123

psychological empowerment only mediated the relation-

ship between participative leadership and OCB for man-

agerial employees who had higher levels of autonomy in

their job, in contrast to non-managerial employees, for

whom it had no mediating influence. This suggests that

non-managerial employees in China are only likely to

engage in OCB when they have good relationships with

other members of the work group, particularly their

supervisor.

Our second contribution arises from examining the

moderating impact of followers’ proactive personality on

the relationship between servant leadership and OCB

through LMX. Our results suggest that followers with

proactive personality respond more positively to servant

leaders in terms of developing higher-quality LMX rela-

tionships and OCB towards the organization and its

members. By providing us with a deeper understanding of

which types of followers respond more positively to ser-

vant leadership, the present research enables us to establish

the boundary conditions under which servant leadership

might be more effective. It also contributes to a growing

literature examining how the individual differences of

followers influence how they perceive and respond to their

leaders (Antonakis et al. 2012).

Contrary to what was hypothesized, we found that the

indirect effect of servant leadership on OCB through psy-

chological empowerment was not stronger for those high in

proactive personality (as opposed to low). These findings

might be explained by the relatively high correlation

between proactive personality and psychological empow-

erment and indicate that proactive individuals have higher

levels of psychological empowerment irrespective of ser-

vant leadership (the latter was less strongly related to

psychological empowerment than LMX). As a result, they

are supportive of previous work that establishes a positive

relationship between an individual’s proactive personality

and their intrinsic motivation (Fuller and Marler 2009).

Our findings also have important managerial implica-

tions. We found that servant leadership is effective in

fostering followers’ OCB through eliciting high-quality

LMX relationships rather than engendering a sense of

meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. This

suggests that followers value the quality of their relation-

ship with the leader in terms of its profundity and gen-

uineness over their sense of being empowered by the

leader. We therefore recommend that leaders prioritize the

cultivation of strong interpersonal relationships with fol-

lowers and their development. This may sound deceptively

obvious, but often leaders blissfully neglect this important-

but-not-urgent agenda given their preoccupation with

short-term goals. We recommend specifically that leaders

demonstrate individualized concern and respect for fol-

lowers, treat followers as equal partners in the

organization, and mentor and facilitate others to be what

they are capable of becoming. As the leader–follower

reciprocal relationship grows, followers are more likely to

engage in citizenship behaviors, which in the long run will

benefit the organizational bottom line.

Given that followers with proactive personality were

found to respond more positively to servant leadership in

the form of higher LMX and greater OCB, we would also

advise organizations to consider evaluating employees’

proactive personality to advise managerial-level staff of

which employees would benefit more from the exercise of

servant leadership. In addition, organizations might use

information to match subordinates’ proactive personalities

with supervisors’ leadership styles to maximize subordi-

nate OCB which benefits the organization.

Limitations

This study has some limitations that need to be considered

when interpreting its findings. First, as the independent and

mediating variables were collected at the same time, rela-

tionships among such variables should not be interpreted as

causal. For example, followers with high levels of LMX or

psychological empowerment might rate the servant lead-

ership of their supervisors more favorably. Nevertheless, it

is important to note that the results of our model are con-

sistent with theoretical predictions based on extant

research.

Second, because the data used in this study came from a

single organization in China, its generalizability to other

organizations and other industrial and cultural contexts

may be brought into question. For example, the mediating

effects of LMX on the relationship between servant lead-

ership and OCB might be expected to be stronger in China

due to a collectivistic and high power-distance culture

where subordinates are more likely to reciprocate positive

treatment from their supervisors in the form of discre-

tionary behaviors such as OCB than in more individualistic

and low power-distance cultures where there are fewer

expectations that employees should reciprocate positive

treatment (Westwood et al. 2004). This is supported by

prior research which suggests that the effects of LMX on

employee work outcomes might be stronger in China than

in cultures that are more individualistic and lower in power

distance (Wang et al. 2005).

Suggestions for Future Research

To determine the generalizability of our findings, similar

research should be conducted in different industrial sectors

and cultural contexts. In addition, to strengthen causal

How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX,… 59

123

inferences, future research should adopt a longitudinal

design to establish whether servant leadership enhances the

development of LMX and psychological empowerment

over time. Because our study did not control for the pos-

sible effects of other leadership approaches, such as

transformational leadership (Choudhary et al. 2013), it

would also be prudent for future studies to include other

leadership approaches to further ascertain the additional

variance explained by servant leadership on particular

outcome variables. Finally, while other studies (Ehrhart

2004; Hunter et al. 2013; Walumbwa et al. 2010a, b) have

analyzed team-level mediating mechanisms of servant

leadership and OCB, more work needs to be done to

examine the link between servant leadership and OCB in

groups, for example, on the influence of servant leadership

on OCB group norms that usually influence individual-

level behavior (Raver et al. 2012).

Conclusion

The present study contributes to the growing literature on

servant leadership by examining the underlying mecha-

nisms linking servant leadership and follower OCB, as well

as examining whether follower’s proactive personality

accentuates the effects of servant leadership on OCB

through such mechanisms. In line with social exchange

theory, our findings demonstrate that servant leadership

leads followers to engage in OCB by enhancing the quality

of their relationship with their supervisor, as captured by

LMX, rather than by enhancing their psychological

empowerment. In addition, we found that followers high in

proactive personality responded more positively to servant

leadership than those low in proactive personality.

As well as helping us to understand why servant lead-

ership leads followers to engage in greater discretionary

behaviors that benefit the organization, the present study

identifies which followers may respond more positively to

servant leadership. This allows us to address the calls of

researchers for additional studies about how individual

differences among followers influence how they respond to

different styles of leadership (Antonakis et al. 2012; Zac-

caro 2012). We hope this provides a basis from which other

scholars can conduct future research in this area.

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