The interplay between servant leadership, psychological safety, trust in a leader and burnout: assessing causal relationships through a three-wave longitudinal study.

COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented psychological challenges for frontline healthcare workers, especially nurses, causing anxiety and depression leading to burnout. The responsibility of healthcare leaders has increased manyfold to deal with such challenges. This study attempts to employ the conservation of resources theory to examine the relationship between servant leadership and nurses' burnout, with the mediating role of psychological safety and the moderating effect of trust in leader. A three-wave longitudinal design was employed for data collection from 1204 nurses from 27 hospitals in China. The partial least squares structural equation modeling technique was used for data analyses with SmartPLS version 3.2.8. The findings endorse that servant leadership at time 1 significantly reduces nurses' burnout measured at time 3 through the mediating role of psychological safety measured at time 2, and that a higher level of trust in the leader enhances the impact of servant leadership in reducing nurses' burnout.

Exploring Green Creativity: The Effects of Green Transformational Leadership, Green Innovation Climate, and Green Autonomy.

None of the studies published in the extant literature has discussed the role of green innovation climate and green autonomy concerning green creativity and this study aims to offer these two novel constructs. By introducing the componential theory of creativity, this study explores green transformational leadership (GTL), green innovation climate, and green autonomy as antecedents of green creativity. The authors employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze survey-based data collected from automotive firms in China. Data were collected from employee-supervisor working in the automotive industry located in Liaoning province, China. The findings reveal that GTL directly and indirectly via green innovation climate partially mediates the green creativity of employees in China. Moreover, green autonomy moderates the relationship between green innovation climate and green creativity. This pivotal contribution suggests that automotive business enterprises should develop GTL to nurture a green innovation climate and offer green autonomy for the green creativity of employees. The above antecedents of green creativity may enable business firms to gain a competitive advantage by innovating green products and practices.

Environmentally Specific Servant Leadership and Employees' Pro-Environmental Behavior: Mediating Role of Green Self Efficacy.

INTRODUCTION: Employees' pro-environmental behavior is crucial for accomplishing organizations' green initiatives. There is a dearth of empirical research that explored the underlying mechanism of environmentally specific servant leadership (ESL) influencing employees' pro-environmental behavior (EPB). The theoretical lens of self-efficacy theory is employed to explore the influence of ESL in predicting EPB. Employees' green self-efficacy was introduced as the mediator through which ESL influences EPB. METHODOLOGY: Time-lagged data from 381 dyads of employee-supervisor from Pakistan's energy sector were collected during the months of June and July 2021 through systematic random sampling. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed to analyze data and assess hypothesized relationships. RESULTS: The results show that all hypotheses are supported. Findings indicate that environmentally specific servant leadership has a significant direct impact on employees' pro-environmental behavior and employees' green self-efficacy partially mediates the positive influence of ESL on EPB. DISCUSSION: The study's managerial and theoretical implications are presented along with future research directions.

Curbing nurses' burnout during COVID-19: The roles of servant leadership and psychological safety.

AIMS: This study examines the role of servant leadership through the mechanism of psychological safety in curbing nurses' burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, studies have shown an increased level of stress and burnout among health care workers, especially nurses. This study responds to the call for research to explore the mechanisms of servant leadership in predicting nurses' burnout by employing the perspective of conservation of resources theory. METHODS: Through a cross-sectional quantitative research design, data were collected in three waves from 443 nurses working in Pakistan's five public sector hospitals. Data were analysed by employing the partial least squares path modelling (PLS-PM) technique. RESULTS: Servant leadership (ß = -0.318; 95% CI = 0.225, 0.416) and psychological safety (ß = -0.342; CI = 0.143, 0.350) have an inverse relationship with nurses' burnout and explain 63.1% variance. CONCLUSIONS: Servant leadership significantly reduces nurses' burnout, and psychological safety mediates this relationship. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Human resource management policies in health care must emphasize training nursing leaders in servant leadership behaviour.

How inclusive leadership paves way for psychological well-being of employees during trauma and crisis: A three-wave longitudinal mediation study.

AIMS: Nurses are at the forefront of public health emergencies facing psychological pressures ensuing from the loss of patients and potential risk of infection while treating the infected. This study examines whether inclusive leadership has a causal relationship with psychological distress and to assess the mediation effect of psychological safety on this relationship in the long run. The hypotheses are developed and interpreted with the help of theoretical underpinnings from job demands resources theory and the theory of shattered assumptions. DESIGN: Three-wave longitudinal study. METHODS: Questionnaire was used to carry out three waves of data collection from 405 nurses employed at five hospitals in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak between the months of January-April 2020. Partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data while controlling for age, gender, education, experience, and working hours. RESULTS: Results supported the hypothesized relationships where inclusive leadership indicated significant inverse causal relationship with psychological distress and a positive causal relationship with psychological safety. Mediation effect of psychological safety was found significant, while the model explained 73.9% variance in psychological distress. CONCLUSION: Inclusive leadership, through its positive and supportive characteristics, can pave way for such mechanisms that improve the psychological safety of employees in the long run and curbs psychological distress. IMPACT: This is the first longitudinal study to examine the relationship between inclusive leadership and psychological distress in health care and also examines the mediating mechanism of psychology safety. There is scarcity of empirical research on factors that determine and affect behavioural mechanism of healthcare workers during traumatic events and crisis. Clinical leaders and healthcare policy makers must invest in and promote inclusive and supportive environment characterized with open and accessible leaders at workplace to improve psychological safety; it helps reduce levels of psychological distress.

Shaping Behaviors Through Institutional Support in British Higher Educational Institutions: Focusing on Employees for Sustainable Technological Change.

Technology permeates all walks of life. It has emerged as a global facilitator to improve learning and training, alleviating the temporal and spatial limitations of traditional learning systems. It is imperative to identify enablers or inhibitors of technology adoption by employees for sustainable change in education management systems. Using the theoretical lens of organizational support theory, this paper studies effect of institutional support on education management information systems (EMIS) use along with two individual traits of self-efficacy and innovative behavior of academic employees in British higher educational institutions. Data for this cross-sectional study were collected through a questionnaire completed by 591 academic employees of 23 universities from 10 cities in the United Kingdom. Partial Least Square structural equation modeling was used to analyze data with smartPLS 3.2.9 software. Results indicate that institutional support promotes self-efficacy and innovative behavior that help develop positive employee perceptions. The model explains a 52.9% variance in intention to use. Post-hoc mediation analysis shows that innovativeness and self-efficacy mediate between institutional support and employee technology adoption behavior. As opposed to student samples in past studies on educational technology, this study adds to the literature by focusing on academic employees.

How and When Does Inclusive Leadership Curb Psychological Distress During a Crisis? Evidence From the COVID-19 Outbreak.

Traumatic events such as a pandemic shatter the assumption of the workplace as a safe place. Nurses face risks of life-threatening infection, which can create psychological distress. Quality of care for infected patients depends on mental well-being of nurses which calls for research on predictors of stress among health care workers. Responding to a call for research on the effects of leadership styles on psychological distress during traumatic events, this paper uses the theoretical lens of social exchange theory and contributes to literature on relationships between inclusive leadership, psychological distress, work engagement, and self-sacrifice. Participants of this cross sectional study included 497 registered nurses from five hospitals in Wuhan. Data were collected with temporal separation through an online questionnaire. Partial least-squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze data. Results show inclusive leadership has a significant negative relationship with psychological distress. Work engagement mediates this relationship, and nurses' self-sacrificial behavior moderates it. Findings indicate inclusive leadership style serves as a sustainable mechanism to reduce psychological distress during pandemics. It can operationalize the delivery of mental health support in real-time in work settings. Results provide empirical support for social exchange theory through high work engagement to help control psychological distress among nurses.

Caring for the caregiver during COVID-19 outbreak: Does inclusive leadership improve psychological safety and curb psychological distress? A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Public health emergencies and epidemics shatter the assumptions of the world as a safe place. Healthcare workers are at the forefront of such pressures resulting from a persistent threat to their safety and well being. It is therefore important to study such mechanisms that can influence and predict the psychological distress of nurses OBJECTIVES: While there is an increasing number of studies on positive outcomes of leadership styles, their influence on curbing unwanted adverse outcomes is scarce. This study aims to observe the influence of an inclusive leadership style on psychological distress while assessing the mediating role of psychological safety. It uses the theoretical lens of job demands-resources theory and the theory of shattered assumptions to develop and test hypotheses. DESIGN: Cross-Sectional Study with Temporal Separation SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: The researchers recruited 451 on-duty registered nurses from 5 hospitals providing patient care during the highly infectious phase of COVID-19 in January 2020 in Wuhan city, the epicentre of the outbreak in China METHODS: After obtaining permission from hospital administration, data were collected through an online questionnaire survey in three stages with temporal separation to avoid common method bias. Partial least square structural equation modelling was used to analyze data. The study controlled for effects of age, gender, experience, working hours and education. RESULTS: Hypothesized relationships proved significant. Inclusive leadership has an inverse relationship with psychological distress with a strong path-coefficient. Psychological safety mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and psychological distress while explaining 28.6% variance. Multi-group analysis results indicate no significant differences between respondents based on these control variables CONCLUSIONS: Recurring or prolonged experiences of stress and anxiety at the workplace, without a mechanism to counter such effects, can culminate into psychological distress. Inclusive leadership style can serve as such a mechanism to curb psychological distress for healthcare workers by creating a psychologically safe environment.

How Does Servant Leadership Foster Employees' Voluntary Green Behavior? A Sequential Mediation Model.

Employees' voluntary green behavior (EVGB) is indispensable in realizing organizations' environmental sustainability objectives. Leaders can act as catalysts to shape the behavior of their employees. On EVGB, noticeably the missing link is investigating the influence of servant leadership and the mechanism through which it operates. Building upon self-determination and psychological empowerment theories, this research examined the impact of servant leadership on EVGB through the simple and sequential mediation of psychological empowerment and autonomous motivation for the environment (AME). Through systematic sampling, dyadic data were collected from 315 pairs of subordinates and supervisors working in the power sector organizations of Pakistan. Results were obtained by employing the partial least squares structural modeling (PLS-SEM) technique with Smart-PLS 3.2.8 software. Findings revealed that psychological empowerment and AME simply and sequentially mediate the influence of servant leadership on EVGB. Implications for theory and organizational practitioners are offered, accompanied by suggestions for future research.