A blessing and a curse: The influence of showing servant leadership behaviors on leader work engagement

Abstract

Servant leadership is known to benefit recipients such as employees, teams, and organizations. However, its impact on leaders themselves is largely understudied. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we adopt an actor-centric perspective to explore the double-edged sword effect of daily servant leadership behaviors on leader work engagement. Regarding the resource gain pathway, we argue that leaders who engage in daily servant leadership behaviors experience elevated work meaningfulness, resulting in increased work engagement. For the resource loss pathway, we suggest that daily servant leadership behaviors are positively associated with role overload, which undermines work engagement. Additionally, we propose that leaders’ proactive personality moderates these indirect effects by strengthening the resource gain indirect effect and attenuating the resource loss indirect effect. The results of a two-week diary study provide support for all hypotheses. Finally, we establish the study’s theoretical and practical implications and the directions for future research.