The Relationship Between Servant-Leadership and Employee Resilience

Abstract

Liu et al. (2019) wrote, “resilience has become increasingly important for individuals, organizations and society to flourish in the uncertain, risky, turbulent and ambiguous world we live in today.” Resilience enhances the functioning of individuals, teams, and organizations (Britt et al., 2016). Workplace stressors lead to outcomes antithetical to resilience, such as burnout (Lee & Ashforth, 1996), poor physical and mental health (Beasley et al., 2003; Holden et al., 2010), absenteeism (Väänänen et al., 2003), intention to turnover (Chiu et al., 2009; Deery et al., 2010), anxiety, and depression (Melchior et al., 2007). In contrast, Robertson et al.’s (2015) review of 14 studies exploring the results of resilience training in the workplace found that increasing the resilience of employees increases their (a) well-being, (b) mental health, (c) psychosocial functioning, and (d) job performance. Resilient employees are more emotionally stable when faced with adversity, more open to new experiences, and more adaptable to shifting demands (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). Continuous, substantive change is increasingly common for organizations and their members (Wee & Taylor, 2017). Studies indicate that resilient individuals respond to change (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004) better than less resilient colleagues do. Resilience also positively influences employees’ commitment to organizational change (Shin et al., 2012) and overall performance (Luthans et al., 2005). Significant, positive relationships exist between resilience and job satisfaction as well as between resilience and work happiness (Youssef & Luthans, 2007). Kuntz et al. (2016) suggested, “the demonstration of resilient behaviors is predicated on the organization’s and its leaders’ ability to create an environment that enables and supports employees” (p. 461). Therefore, organizational leaders seeking to minimize workplace distress and enhance workplace flourishing should seek to increase employee resilience. Such resilience plasticity (i.e., an individual’s resilience can be increased or decreased) within an organizational setting (Reyes et al., 2015) should encourage and challenge organizational leaders to identify and engage employee-resilience developing behaviors. Research not only reveals that leaders can help followers develop resilience by modeling resilient behaviors (Norman et al., 2005; Shek & Leung, 2016) but also that servant-leadership can reduce stress in employees, an indicator of resilience (Badger, 2017). In contrast to the negative outcomes of workplace stress, research shows that servant-leadership increases employees’ intention to stay (Jaramillo et al., 2009), decreases burnout (Babakus et al., 2010), and relates positively to the psychological health of employees (Rivkin et al., 2014). However, while research demonstrates these likely linkages between servant-leadership and resilience or its benefits, studies have not empirically assessed the relationship. Thus, this study investigated the research question: what relationship, if any, exists between servant-leadership behaviors and employee resilience?