This study compares the effectiveness of servant versus authentic leadership in hospitality firms by examining relationships with group-level trust and individual-level work outcomes (i.e., organizational commitment, work engagement, and work performance), and their influencing mechanisms through trust climate. Using two-wave data from 1,132 employee–supervisor pairs from 80 departments in 16 star-level hotels in China, we find that these two forms of leadership have positive effects on group trust climate and employee work outcomes; however, the magnitudes and paths of their effects are distinct. In comparison with authentic leadership, servant leadership has a more significant effect on creating a trust climate and a more direct effect regarding increasing employees’ positive work attitudes (i.e., organizational commitment and work engagement), ultimately influencing work performance. This study also demonstrates the importance of group trust climate in relationships between group-level leadership and individual-level employee work attitudes and performance. These findings extend the scope of servant and authentic leadership research, and advocate servant leadership in the hospitality industry.
AvolioB. J.GardnerW. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 315-338.
2.
AvolioB. J.GardnerW. L.WalumbwaF. O.LuthansF.MayD. R. (2004). Unlocking the mask: A look at the process by which authentic leaders impact follower attitudes and behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 801-823.
3.
AvolioB. J.LuthansF. (2006). The high impact leader. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
4.
AvolioB. J.WernsingT. S. (2008). Practicing authentic leadership. In LepezS. J. (Ed.), Positive psychology: Exploring the best in people (pp. 147-165). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing.
5.
BerryL. L.ParasuramanA.ZeithamlV. A. (1994). Improving service quality in America: Lessons learned. Academy of Management Executive, 8(2), 32-52.
6.
BlauP. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York, NY: Wiley.
7.
BlieseP. D. (2000). Within-group agreement, non-independence, and reliability: Implications for data aggregation and analysis. In KleinK. J.KozlowskiS. W. J. (Eds.), Multilevel theory, research, and methods in organizations (pp. 512-556). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
8.
BlieseP. D.HalversonR. R.SchriesheimC. A. (2002). Benchmarking multilevel methods in leadership: The articles, the model, and the data set. The Leadership Quarterly, 3, 3-14.
9.
BonoJ. E.JudgeT. A. (2003). Self-concordance at work: Toward understanding the motivational effects of transformational leaders. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 554-571.
10.
BrahmT.KunzeF. (2012). The role of trust climate in virtual teams. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 27, 595-614.
11.
BrislinR. W. (1970). Back-translation for cross-cultural research. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1, 185-216.
12.
BrownellJ. (2010). Leadership in the service of hospitality. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 51, 363-378.
13.
BrykA. S.RaudenbushS. W. (1992). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
14.
BurkeR. J.KoyuncuM.FiksenbaumL.TekinY. (2013). Antecedents and consequences of work engagement among frontline employees in Turkish hotels. Journal of Transnational Management, 18, 191-203.
15.
CarterD.BaghurstT. (2013). The influence of servant leadership on restaurant employee engagement. Journal of Business Ethics, 124, 453-464.
16.
ChoJ.DansereauF. (2010). Are transformational leaders fair? A multi-level study of transformational leadership, justice perceptions, and organizational citizenship behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 21, 409-421.
17.
ChuangC. K.ChanC. F. (2005). Philosophical foundations of eminent Hong Kong Chinese CEOs’ leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 60, 47-62.
18.
Clapp-SmithR.VogelgesangG. R.AveyJ. B. (2009). Authentic leadership and positive psychological capital: The mediating role of trust at the group level of analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15, 227-240.
19.
ClarkeB. D.MatzeM. G. (1999). A core of global leadership: Relational competence. In MobleyW. H.GressnerM. J.ArnoldV. (Eds.), Advances in global leadership (pp. 127-161). Stamford, CT: JAI Press.
20.
DarlingtonR. B. (1968). Multiple regression in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 69, 161-182.
21.
DayD. V.HalpinS. M. (2004). Growing leaders for tomorrow: An introduction. In DayD. V.ZaccaroS. J.HalpinS. M. (Eds.), Leader development for transforming organizations (pp. 3-22). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
22.
De ClercqD.BouckenoogheD.RajaU.MatsyborskaG. (2014). Servant leadership and work engagement: The contingency effects of leader–follower social capital. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 25, 183-212.
23.
DerueD. S.NahrgangJ. D.WellmanN.HumphreyS. E. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64, 7-52.
24.
DieneschR. M.LidenR. C. (1986). Leader-member exchange model of leadership: A critique and further development. Academy of Management Review, 11, 618-634.
25.
DirksK. T.FerrinD. L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 611-628.
26.
EhrhartM. G. (2004). Leadership and procedural justice climate as antecedents of unit-level organizational citizenship behavior. Personnel Psychology, 57, 61-94.
27.
FornellC.LarckerD. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18, 39-50.
28.
FuP.TsuiA. S. (2003). Utilizing printed media to understand desired leadership attributes in the People’s Republic of China. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 20, 423-446.
29.
GardnerW. L.AvolioB. J.LuthansF.MayD. R.WalumbwaF. O. (2005). “Can you see the real me?” A self-based model of authentic leader and follower development. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 343-372.
30.
GardnerW. L.CogliserC. C.DavisK. M.DickensM. P. (2011). Authentic leadership: A review of the literature and research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 22, 1120-1145.
31.
GeladeG. A.IveryM. (2003). The impact of human resource management and work climate on organizational performance. Personnel Psychology, 56, 383-404.
32.
Giampetro-MeyerA.BrownT.BrowneM. N.KubasekN. (1998). Do we really want more leaders in business?Journal of Business Ethics, 17, 1727-1736.
33.
GillC.CazaA. (in press). An investigation of authentic leadership’s individual and group influences on follower responses. Journal of Management. doi:10.1177/0149206314566461
34.
GohS.-K.LowB. Z. (2014). The influence of servant leadership towards organizational commitment: The mediating role of trust in leaders. International Journal of Business and Management, 9, 17-25.
35.
Gould-WilliamsJ.DaviesF. (2005). Using social exchange theory to predict the effects of HRM practice on employee outcomes. Public Management Review, 7, 1-24.
36.
GreenleafR. K. (1977). Servant leadership. New York, NY: Paulist Press.
37.
HaleJ. R.FieldsD. L. (2007). Exploring servant leadership across cultures: A study of followers in Ghana and the USA. Leadership, 3, 397-417.
38.
HarterS. (2002). Authenticity. In SnyderC. R.LopezS. J. (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 382-394). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
39.
HeskettJ. L.JonesT. O.LovemanG. W.SasserW. E.Jr.SchlesingerL. A. (1994). Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review, 72, 164-174.
40.
HofmannD. A. (1997). An overview of the logic and rationale of hierarchical linear models. Journal of Management, 23, 723-744.
41.
HofmannD. A.GavinM. B. (1998). Centering decisions in hierarchical linear models: Implications for research in organizations. Journal of Management, 24, 623-641.
42.
HofstedeG. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
43.
HumphreysJ. H. (2005). Contextual implications for transformational and servant leadership: A historical investigation. Management Decision, 43, 1410-1431.
44.
IliesR.MorgesonF. P.NahrgangJ. D. (2005). Authentic leadership and eudaemonic well-being: Understanding leader-follower outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 371-394.
45.
JacquesP. H.GargerJ.LeeK.KoJ. Y. (2015). Authentic leadership on the frontline and its effects on Korean restaurant employees. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 18, 389-403.
46.
JamesL. R.DemareeR. G.WolfG. (1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 85-98.
47.
JamesL. R.DemareeR. G.WolfG. (1993). Rwg: An assessment of within-group interrater agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 306-309.
48.
JaramilloF.GrisaffeD. B.ChonkoL. B.RobertsJ. A. (2009). Examining the impact of servant leadership on sales force performance. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 29, 257-275.
49.
JensenS. M.LuthansF. (2006). Entrepreneurs as authentic leaders: Impact on employees’ attitudes. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 27, 646-666.
50.
JooB.-K. (B.)NimonK. (2014). Two of a kind? A canonical correlational study of transformational leadership and authentic leadership. European Journal of Training and Development, 38, 570-587.
51.
JordanP. J.TrothA. (2011). Emotional intelligence and leader member exchange: The relationship with employee turnover intentions and job satisfaction. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 32, 260-280.
52.
JosephE. E.WinstonB. E. (2005). A correlation of servant leadership, leader trust, and organizational trust. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 26, 6-22.
53.
JungD. I.SosikJ. J. (2002). Transformational leadership in work groups: The role of empowerment, cohesiveness, and collective-efficacy on perceived group performance. Small Group Research, 33, 313-336.
54.
KarkR.ShamirB.ChenG. (2003). The two faces of transformational leadership: Empowerment and dependency. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 246-255.
55.
KennyD. A.KashyD. A.BolgerN. (1998). Data analysis in social psychology. In GilbertD. T.FiskeS. T.LindzeyG. (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (pp. 233-265). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
56.
KierschC. E.ByrneZ. S. (2015). Is being authentic being fair? Multilevel examination of authentic leadership, justice, and employee outcomes. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 22, 292-303.
57.
KopelmanR. E.BriefA. P.GuzzoR. A. (1990). The role of climate and culture in productivity. In SchneiderB. (Ed.), Organizational climate and culture (pp. 282-318). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
58.
KusluvanS.KusluvanZ.IlhamI.BuyrukL. (2010). The human dimension: A review of human resources management issues in the tourism and hospitality industry. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 51, 171-214.
59.
LeroyH.PalanskiM. E.SimonsT. (2012). Authentic leadership and behavioral integrity as drivers of follower commitment and performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 107, 255-264.
60.
LiF.YuK. F.YangJ.QiZ.FuJ. H.-Y. (2014). Authentic leadership, traditionality, and international justice in the Chinese Context. Management and Organization Review, 10, 249-273.
61.
LiaoH.ChuangA. (2007). Transforming service employees and climate: A multilevel, multisource examination of transformational leadership in building long-term service relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1006-1019.
62.
LiaoH.RuppD. E. (2005). The impact of justice climate and justice orientation on work outcomes: A cross-level multifoci framework. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 242-256.
63.
LidenR. C.WayneS. J.ZhaoH.HerdersonD. (2008). Servant leadership: Development of a multidimensional measures and multilevel assessment. The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 161-177.
64.
LinC. (2008). Demystifying the chameleonic nature of Chinese leadership. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 14, 303-321.
65.
LingQ.LinM.WuX. (2016). The trickle-down effect of servant leadership on frontline employee service behaviors and performance: A multilevel study of Chinese hotels. Tourism Management, 52, 341-368.
66.
LuthansF.AvolioB. J. (2003). Authentic leadership development. In CameronK. S.DuttonJ. E.QuinnR. E. (Eds.), Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline (pp. 241-258). San Francisco, CA: Barrett-Koehler.
67.
MathieuJ. E.TaylorS. R. (2006). Clarifying conditions and decision points for mediational type inferences in organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 1031-1056.
68.
MayerD. M.BardesM.PiccoloR. F. (2008). Do servant-leaders help satisfy follower needs? An organizational justice perspective. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology, 17, 180-197.
69.
MayerD. M.KuenziM.GreenbaumR.BardesM.SalvadorR. (2009). How low dose ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, 108, 1-13.
70.
MayerR. C.DavisJ. H.SchoormanF. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20, 709-734.
71.
MiaoQ.NewmanA.SchwarzG.XuL. (2014). Servant leadership, trust, and the organizational commitment of public sector employees in China. Public Administration, 92, 727-743.
72.
MowdayR. T.SteersR. M.PorterL. W. (1979). The measurement of organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14, 224-247.
73.
NgK. Y.DyneL. V. (2005). Antecedents and performance consequences of helping behavior in work groups. Group & Organization Management, 30, 514-540.
74.
NyhanR. C.MarloweH. A.Jr. (1997). Development and psychometric properties of the Organizational Trust Inventory. Evaluation Review, 21, 614-635.
75.
PeusC.WescheJ. S.StreicherB.BraunS.FreyD. (2012). Authentic leadership: An empirical test of its antecedents, consequences, and mediating mechanisms. Journal of Business Ethics, 107, 331-348.
76.
PodsakoffP. M.MacKenzieS. B.PodsakoffN. P.LeeJ.-Y. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879-903.
77.
QianJ.LinX.ChenG. Z.-X. (2012). Authentic leadership and feedback-seeking behavior: An examination of the cultural context of mediating processes in China. Journal of Management & Organization, 18, 286-299.
78.
ReinkeS. J. (2004). Service before self: Towards a theory of servant-leadership. Global Virtue Ethics Review, 5(3), 30-57.
79.
RussellR. F.StoneA. G. (2002). A review of servant leadership attributes: Developing a practical model. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 23, 145-157.
80.
SalamonD. S.RobinsonS. L. (2008). Trust that binds: The impact of collective felt trust on organizational performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 593-601.
81.
SchaufeliW. B.BakkerA. B.SalanovaM. (2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire: A cross-national study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66, 701-716.
82.
SchneiderB.WhiteS. S.PaulM. C. (1998). Linking service climate and customer perceptions of service quality: Test of a causal model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 150-163.
83.
SchynsB.WolframH.-J. (2008). The relationship between leader-member exchange and outcomes as rated by leaders and followers. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 29, 631-646.
84.
SendjayaS.SarrosJ. C. (2002). Servant leadership: Its origin, development, and application in organizations. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9(2), 57-64.
85.
SendjayaS.SarrosJ. C.SantoraJ. C. (2008). Defining and measuring servant leadership behaviour in organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 45, 402-424.
86.
SmithB. N.MontagnoR. V.KuzmenkoT. N. (2004). Transformational and servant leadership: Content and contextual comparisons. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 10(4), 80-91.
87.
SobelM. E. (1982). Asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. In LeinhartS. (Ed.), Sociological methodology (pp. 290-312). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
88.
SpearsL. C. (1995). Reflection on leadership: How Robert K. Greenleaf’s theory of servant-leadership influenced today’s top management thinkers. New York, NY: John Wiley.
89.
StoneA. G.RussellR. F.PattersonK. (2004). Transformational versus servant leadership: A difference in leader focus. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25, 349-361.
90.
TangiralaS.RamanujamR. (2008). Employee silence on critical work issues: The cross level effects of procedural justice climate. Personnel Psychology, 61, 37-68.
91.
TonkinT. (2013). Authentic versus transformational leadership: Assessing their effectiveness on organizational citizenship behavior of followers. International Journal of Business & Public Administration, 10, 40-61.
92.
TriandisH. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
93.
TseH. H. M.DasboroughM. T.AshkanasyN. M. (2008). A multi-level analysis of team climate and interpersonal exchange relationships at work. The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 195-211.
94.
Van DierendonckD. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37, 1228-1261.
95.
Van MierloH.VermuntJ. K.RutteC. G. (2009). Composing group-level constructs from individual-level survey data. Organizational Research Methods, 12, 368-392.
96.
WalkerA. G.SmitherJ. W.WaldmanD. A. (2008). A longitudinal examination of concomitant changes in team leadership and customer satisfaction. Personnel Psychology, 61, 547-577.
97.
WalumbwaF. O.AvolioB. J.GardnerW. L.WernsingT. S.PetersonS. J. (2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory-based measure. Journal of Management, 34, 89-126.
98.
WalumbwaF. O.HartnellC. A.OkeA. (2010). Servant leadership, procedural justice climate, service climate, employee attitudes, and organizational citizenship behavior: A cross-level investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 517-529.
99.
WalumbwaF. O.LawlerJ. J. (2003). Building effective organizations: Transformational leadership, collectivist orientation, work-related attitudes and withdrawal behaviours in three emerging economies. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14, 1083-1101.
100.
WangD.-S.HsiehC.-C. (2013). The effect of authentic leadership on employee trust and employee engagement. Social Behavior and Personality, 41, 613-624.
101.
WangH.LawK. S.HackettR. D.WangD.ChenZ. X. (2005). Leader-member exchange as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and followers’ performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 420-432.
102.
WangH.SuiY.LuthansF.WangD.WuY. (2014). Impact of authentic leadership on performance: Role of followers’ positive psychological capital and relational processes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35, 5-21.
103.
WechB. A. (2002). Trust context: Effect on organizational citizenship behavior, supervisory fairness, and job satisfaction beyond the influence of leader-member exchange. Business & Society, 41, 353-360.
104.
WhettenD. A. (1989). What constitutes a theoretical contribution?Academy of Management Review, 14, 490-495.
105.
WongC. A.CummingsG. G. (2009). The influence of authentic leadership behaviors on trust and work outcomes of health care staff. Journal of Leadership Studies, 3(2), 6-23.
106.
WongC. A.Spence LaschingerH. K.CummingsG. G. (2010). Authentic leadership and nurses’ voice behaviour and perceptions of care quality. Journal of Nursing Management, 18, 889-900.
107.
WuL.-Z.TseE. C.-Y.FuP.KwanH. K.LiuJ. (2013). The impact of servant leadership on hotel employees’ “servant behavior.”Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54, 383-395.
108.
WuX.SturmanM. C.WangC. (2013). The motivational effects of pay fairness: A longitudinal study in Chinese star-level hotels. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54, 185-198.
109.
ZhangH.EverettA. M.ElkinG.ConeM. H. (2012). Authentic leadership theory development: Theorizing on Chinese philosophy. Asia Pacific Business Review, 18, 587-605.
