Turner College Management Professor Kevin Hurt and Former MSOL Students Examine Effect of Servant Leadership on Individual Commitment and Workplace Engagement

Turner College management professor Kevin Hurt and two graduates of the Turner College's MSOL program – Pierce Ippolito and Joshua Kay – are beginning the new year on a positive note with publication of their paper on the effect of servant leadership and psychological safety on employee commitment and workplace engagement in the current issue of the Journal of Values-Based Leadership. The trio's study presents a conceptual model of servant leadership, psychological safety, work engagement, and individual commitment wherein psychological safety, defined as freedom from fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career, is positioned as a causal factor that provides answers addressing why servant leaders have positive effects on individual commitment and work engagement. 

Hurt and his colleagues first point out that a psychologically safe climate describes an environment in which employees are safe to speak up and/or take initiative without fear of punishment or rejection. Followers operating in these climates experience enhanced learning behaviors, increased creative potential, increased team learning, higher levels of job involvement and exertion of greater effort, and greater collaboration in solving problems, all resulting in higher degrees of performance. According to Hurt, "Psychologically safe environments complement the adoption and implementation of process innovations through problem-solving and facilitate learning from work failures, which results in increased performance. Servant leaders work to cultivate these types of climates and environments through the prioritization of their followers and their needs."

The researchers' depicted model defines commitment as the act of dedicating oneself to the completion of a task due to an intrinsic desire to see the task completed for the benefit of the leader or the organization, and engagement as the display of passion for one's work and organization. Commitment is amplified by increasing employee identification with the organization, which occurs when individuals who identify with the organization adopt the attitudes and behaviors encouraged by the organization. This identification leads to an individual who actively accepts the values and goals of the organization and employs effort to the completion of those goals. "The psychological safety established in a servant-led culture creates a safe atmosphere that enables individuals to more easily identify with the organization. When this safe atmosphere occurs, individuals will put forth the effort for the completion of a goal for the sake of the leader or organization," Hurt explained.

According to Hurt et al.'s approach, a person’s perceived meaningfulness in the workplace directly leads to the psychological safety they experience. A person feels a sense of meaning when they feel worthwhile, useful, and valuable. Employees are more engaged under servant leaders because employees perceive their opinions are welcomed and valued. Servant leaders encourage followers to think critically, make decisions, share ideas, and learn from mistakes, thus empowering them in the process. These types of behaviors generate a sense of ownership and create an emotional connection between the leader, the follower, and the organization.

"Given that servant leaders value employee development, prioritize their followers’ needs, and promote open communication, we contend that psychologically safe environments are a natural outcome of servant leadership. Hence, servant leaders may be uniquely positioned, relative to other styles of leadership, to positively influence individual commitment and work engagement," Hurt explains in summarizing the work. Lastly, Hurt and his colleagues add that future studies may want to explore the directionality of effects. That is, future researchers may want to consider whether alternative causal orderings exist. For example, it may be possible that psychological safety is the result of highly engaged individuals. Or it could be that the relationship between servant leadership and psychological safety is moderated by pre-existing levels of commitment. Researchers may also want to explore whether the model's predictors have differential effects. Whether servant leadership may be more strongly related to engagement, while psychological safety may be more strongly related to commitment, or vice-versa, is currently unknown.