Servant Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Trust

Abstract

The study aimed to examine the influence of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour through trust at Christian religious universities in Indonesia. This study used quantitative methods with a sample of 180 lecturers from 27 Christian universities in East Java, Indonesia. This study used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) for data analysis. The results showed that (i) servant leadership has a direct effect on organizational citizenship behaviour and trust; (ii) trust has a direct effect on organizational citizenship behaviour and (iii) the effect of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour was mediated by trust. Trust was competitive mediation for the effect of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour. The results of this study contribute significantly to the rector/chairman to improve knowledge, attitudes and skills related to the characteristics of servant leadership through training. The rector/chairman needs to design a mentoring programme to empower lecturers to prepare them to become leaders in the future. Lecturers need to increase awareness of organizational citizenship behaviour by participating in mentoring so that they have reflective skills, understand concept exploration, and engage in collaboration spaces to be able to detect that servant leadership rector/chairman influences the growth of organizational citizenship behaviour and trust in leaders.