Servant leadership for sustainability in higher education: policy implications based on ethical behavior and conceptual skills of scholars with science-related backgrounds

Sustainable service-led universities actively promote sustainability initiatives and service provision. In this context, servant leadership is relevant for higher education, since it ensures sustainable performance over time, encourages the idea of serving stakeholders (e.g., students, staff, and beyond), and is in alignment with the concept of turnaround leadership for sustainability in higher education (TLSHE). However, with few exceptions, the topic of servant leadership for sustainability in higher education is under-researched so far. Our study contributes to closing this research gap by examining the impact of behaving ethically and conceptual skills, as two of servant leadership’s dimensions that are closely related to the interpersonal and intellectual capability dimensions of TLSHE, on three outcomes, namely job satisfaction, affective commitment, and work motivation. Due to the implementation of higher education harmonization policies in Southeast Asia, we focus on Malaysia, as a well-established educational hub in this region, and use a sample of 449 academics with science-related backgrounds. These scholars play an important role in achieving a few of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) as well as in dealing with societies’ present and future demands through educating students in STEM areas. We find support for the servant leadership dimensions’ role in explaining and predicting work motivation via job satisfaction and affective commitment. Subsequently, we discuss the findings’ practical implications and provide recommendations for future research in this area.