Abstract
Ph.D. (Leadership in Performance and Change)
Background: Low employee engagement, ineffective organisational cultures, high levels of stress-related ill health, and insufficient leadership capability seem to be global human capital issues that influence organisational performance negatively. Possible reasons for these problems might be ineffective leadership and leadership development. A potential solution might be to apply a more philanthropic leadership practice, such as servant leadership, which focusses primarily on serving people and secondarily on producing the best returns for multiple stakeholders. However, research on the application of servant leadership is scarce.
A framework to implement servant leadership in organisations is not yet available. Empirical evidence on the relationships between servant leadership, job demands, job resources, work engagement, and burnout is also limited. The antecedents of and barriers to developing serving leaders are, furthermore, not clearly defined in literature, and a servant leadership intervention has not yet been validated.
Research Purpose: The general aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a servant leadership intervention, and to explore the impact of servant leadership on work engagement and burnout in the construction industry.
The objectives of this study were (1) to establish a framework to operationalise servant leadership, (2) explore the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement, (3) explore the relationship between servant leadership and burnout, (4) explore the relationship of servant leadership with job demands and job resources, (5) determine personal and organisational barriers and antecedents for developing servant leaders, and (6) to evaluate the effectiveness of a servant leadership intervention...