The effects of servant leadership and despotic leadership on employees’ happiness at work (HAW): the role of job crafting

Abstract

PurposeDrawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to examine the effects of servant leadership and despotic leadership on employees’ happiness at work (HAW) through job crafting.Design/methodology/approachTo test the hypothesized relationships, the data were collected from 309 Pakistani employees. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe findings showed that servant leadership is an optimal leadership style for creating employees’ HAW. In addition, job crafting was found to mediate the effects of servant leadership on employees’ broad-based positive attitudinal outcome (HAW). Moreover, results showed that despotic leadership negatively influences employees’ HAW through job crafting.Originality/valueThis study is novel as it investigates how newer forms of positive (servant) and negative (despotic) leadership styles influence employees’ multidimensional attitudinal outcome (HAW) via job crafting. By doing so, this research extends the nomological network of servant leadership, despotic leadership, job crafting and HAW.