Engagement and Anxiety during Covid-19: The Role of Servant Leadership and PsyCap through Telework

Abstract

This study adopts the servant leadership framework to investigate the importance of leadership in managing engagement and anxiety in the context of telework induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines the impact of servant leaders on work engagement and anxiety, the mediating role of psychological capital, and telework’s moderating role on these relationships. The hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling, based on a survey with 327 professionals. The results show that servant leadership has a direct, positive association with work engagement and a direct, negative association with work anxiety. These effects are partially mediated through psychological capital. The analysis also shows the moderating effects of teleworking on the relationship between servant leadership and psychological capital, and servant leadership and engagement.