How do servant leaders promote engagement? A bottom-up perspective of job crafting

In: Social behavior and personality: an international journal, Volume 45, Issue 11, p. 1815-1827

Abstract

We drew on the literature addressing servant leadership and job crafting, self-determination theory, and the job demands–resources model, and hypothesized that employees who are supported by servant leadership would craft their own jobs to stay engaged and perform well. Chinese
employees (N = 544) working in various organizations participated in a survey. We found that servant leadership, as evaluated by employees, predicted work engagement and that job crafting played a partial mediating role in this relationship. Results of structural equation modeling offered
strong support for the proposed model. Specifically, empowering promoted employees' absorption through task crafting, and emotional healing promoted employees' vigor through relational crafting. Our findings enrich the literature on positive organizational behavior and will help with identifying
practical considerations around promoting work engagement.