Team‐level servant leadership and team performance: The mediating roles of organizational citizenship behavior and internal social capital

Abstract

Among the many approaches to leadership, servant leaders stand out for the emphasis they place on the importance of service to their followers, the organization, and the broader community. We develop and test a multilevel mediation model, in which the relationship between servant leadership and team performance is sequentially transmitted through individual‐level organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and team‐based internal social capital. Multilevel structural equation modeling was applied to a sample of 343 teams, reflecting 835 respondents from various departments at 171 hotels in Spain; both top‐down (between team leaders and individual employees) and bottom‐up relationships (individual employee behavior and team outcomes) were assessed. As anticipated, individual‐level OCB and group‐level internal social capital fully mediated the positive effect of servant leadership on team performance. Our findings illustrate that servant leadership in the team‐based business enterprise context can foster virtuous individual‐level OCB to help build task‐focused community, in which leaders, followers, and teams can flourish for the common good. Thus, managers should know that serving their team members first and foremost is a positive for the flourishing of all involved. As such, policymakers should pursue communication and training initiatives to encourage the practice of servant leadership.

Virtuous leadership, moral behavior, happiness and organizational citizenship: the mediating effect of virtues-centered moral identity

“…overall organizational efficiency and effectiveness (Podsakoff et al, 2009;Ruiz-Palomino et al, 2021). Support for our hypotheses requires first, that subordinate-rated virtuous leadership associates positively with followers' self-rated VCMI.…”

“…In addition to preventing unethical conduct, VCMI is likely to encourage OCB, which some have argued can have broad multilevel consequences (e.g. Ruiz-Palomino et al. , 2021).…”

“…In addition to preventing unethical conduct, VCMI is likely to encourage OCB, which some have argued can have broad multilevel consequences (e.g. Ruiz-Palomino et al, 2021). For example, leaders' self-cultivation of the cardinal virtues and its' influence on subordinates could ultimately be a positive for the perceived brand of the business, prompting media coverage of positive social environments, to balance their coverage of unethical conduct.…”

“…It is an especially valued outcome that builds social capital, and contributes overall organizational efficiency and effectiveness (Podsakoff et al. , 2009; Ruiz-Palomino et al. , 2021).…”

How Are Leadership, Virtues, HRM Practices, and Citizenship Related in Organizations? Testing of Mediation Models in the Light of Positive Organizational Studies

“…By testing a multilevel model of mediation, Ruiz-Palomino, Linuesa-Langreo, and Elche [84] found a mediating role of organizational citizenship behaviors in the relationship between leadership and team performance, ratifying the positive association between leadership and organizational citizenship. Moreover, Mansur et al [80] found a positive association between ethical (virtue-based) leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors.…”