The Mechanisms Of Servant Leadership On Proactive Behaviors

Due to the increasing dynamics and uncertainty in external business environment,the flat and decentralized tendency of internal organization construction,and the emergence of selfmanagement teams,to show more proactive behaviors is increasingly important for employees.How to motivate employees to actively respond to the external environment and demonstrate more proactive behaviors has increasingly become a topic of common concern for scholars and managers.Previous studies have explored how to effectively motivate employees' proactive behaviors from the perspectives of individual and context.As an important part of the organizational context,leadership's influence on employees' proactive behaviors has received much research attention.Although previous studies have examined the impact of some leadership factors,such as transformational leadership,ethical leadership,leader's supportive and empowered behaviors on proactive behaviors,the servant leadership which combines service,altruism,empowerment,and ethics with the natural fit of proactive behaviors has not been tested by empirical research.There are many contextual variables that affect proactive behaviors of employees.A single behavior or style of leadership can't stimulate employees well.Only when they are organically integrated into a multi-faceted leadership that interacts and promotes each other,can employees' proactive behaviors be influenced strongly.Besides,we divide proactive behaviors into individual task proactivity and team member proactivity.Different-directed proactive behaviors require employees to assume different degree of risk,and the psychological needs to focus on satisfying are also different,finally resulting in variation in their generating mechanisms.Therefore,the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between servant leadership and proactive behaviors.Apart from this,drawing on the cognitive evaluation theory,we regard that proactive behaviors are driven by intrinsic motivation and further propose three psychological constructs to clarify the underlying mechanisms of servant leadership on employees' proactive behaviors: job autonomy,leader-member exchange and role breadth self-efficacy.Using a sample of 227 leader-employee dyads from two companies,the empirical results show that:(1)Servant leadership had positive effects on individual task proactivity and team member proactivity;(2)The relationship between servant leadership and individual task proactivity was mediated by job autonomy and role breadth self-efficacy,while leader-member exchange and role breadth self-efficacy mediated the influence of servant leadership on team member proactivity.All hypotheses were supported.Overall,this study enriches and develops related theories of proactive behavior's influencing factors.It uses cognitive evaluation theory to integrate the mechanisms that motivate employees' proactive behaviors.It species the different psychological processes that servant leadership promotes employees' proactive behaviors directed to different targets.It provides important references for managers to effectively encourage employees' individual task proactivity and team member proactivity.