The Impact of Servant Leadership on Courageous Followership and Supervisor-Related Commitment

This study helped determine the extent to which perceived servant leadership behaviors in an immediate supervisor encouraged courageous followership behaviors and supervisor-related commitment in their subordinates. This relationship was expected to be moderated by organizational proximity to the leader and the length of time working for that same supervisor. This study measured the perceived servant leadership behaviors of supervisors using The Servant Leadership Survey (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011), the followers' courageous followership levels were measured by the Followership Profile (Dixon, 2003), and their supervisor-related commitment was measured by the Supervisor-Related Commitment Scale (Becker, Billings, Eveleth, & Gilbert, 1996). The relationship between the dimensions of servant leadership and both the dimensions of courageous followership and supervisor-related commitment were analyzed using multiple regression analysis moderated by the organizational proximity to the supervisor and length of time spent with the supervisor. While the predicted moderating effects were largely unsupported by the findings, all hypotheses were partially supported and at least one servant leadership behavior was found to be a significant predictor of each aspect of courageous followership and each aspect of supervisor-related commitment. Organizational proximity was also found to be a significant predictor of supervisor-related commitment.