LEADERSHIP ROLE AND EMPLOYEE INTENTION TO STAY: NEW EVIDENCE FROM HEALTHCARE SECTOR IN EMERGING ECONOMIES

The report shows that healthcare employees experience more stress, emo­tional exhaustion, and burnout prevail during and post covid 19 and force em­­ployees to leave the profession. However, there are many more who take the challenge by staying on. This research investigates whether servant leader­ship, work-life balance, and behavior engagement play roles in employee in­tention to stay. This study surveyed 200 employees of 10 big healthcare com­panies in Indonesia. The number of respondents who filled out the questionnai­re via google form was 137. Data were analyzed using Smart Partial Least Squ­are (PLS). The findings of the study showed that servant leadership has a posi­tive effect on work-life balance, servant leadership has a positive effect on a leader's needs to trust, work-life balance has a positive effect on behavior enga­gement, work-life balance has a positive effect on leader needs to trust his subordinates, behavioral engagement has a positive effect on the intention to stay, empowerment leader moderates the positive effect of behavior engage­ment on intention to stay, and leader needs to trust his subordinates has a posi­tive effect on the intention to stay. However, service leadership has no effect on the inten­tion to stay, behavioral engagement has no effect on the leader's need to trust his subordinates, and behavioral engagement has no effect on the leader's need to trust his subordinates. The implication of this research is to retain employees in the company. Although the leadership style is not very supportive, it is still necessary to ensure that the employees feel comfortable at work, trusted by their superiors, and empowered by their abilities.