Socially responsible leadership and employee’s work passion in public universities in Uganda: the mediating effect of psychological safety

Abstract

ABSTRACT The major purpose of this study was to find out the impact of Socially Responsible Leadership on employee’s work passion with mediating role of psychological safety among a sample of 214 permanent faculty members and administrative staff of Public Universities in Uganda. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among the participants for data collection. Data analysis was done by using SPSS software program, version 23.0. Pearson correlation coefficient and Mediation analysis by using ‘PROCESS’ were applied to find out the association between Socially Responsible Leadership, psychological safety and employee’s work passion as well as the mediating effect of psychological safety between Socially Responsible Leadership and employee’s work passion. The study clearly signified the positive link of Socially Responsible Leadership with psychological safety and work passion. Moreover, the mediation analysis showed that psychological safety partially mediated this link. These findings incite the importance of Socially Responsible Leadership in the organizations by exhibiting that employee’s feeling about psychologically safety which makes them more passionate about work. This study guides the leaders, managers and supervisors that need to pay more attention to behavior at the workplace. Moreover, this study indicates that psychological safety of the employees is strongly affected by the ethical behavior of leader which in return increases the work passion of the employees.