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Servant leadership and employee creativity: The roles of psychological

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Article in Current Psychology · December 2019

DOI: 10.1007/s12144-019-0161-3

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Current Psychology
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-0161-3

Servant leadership and employee creativity: The roles of psychological

empowerment and work–family conflict
Jin Yang 1 & Jibao Gu 2 & Hefu Liu 2

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
This study builds on self-determination theory to examine the factors that impact the effects that servant leadership has on
employee creativity. An observation of 460 employees from 11 banks in China revealed that (1) servant leadership is positively
related to employee creativity, (2) follower psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between servant
leadership and employee creativity, and (3) work-to-family conflict moderates the relationship between servant leadership and
follower psychological empowerment, the relationship was more positive when work-to-family conflict was high, rather than
low. Family-to-work conflict did not significantly affect this relationship. The findings provide a significant contribution to the
psychological empowerment literature through its identification of psychological empowerment as an important psychological
mediating mechanism that helps to enrich the psychological mechanism of servant leadership’s effect on employees.
Additionally, the results provide a deeper understanding of boundary conditions (e.g. work-to-family conflict) for the impacts
of servant leadership on employees’ individual outcomes. Furthermore, the findings enrich the work–family conflict literature by
providing support for distinguishing work-to-family conflict from family-to-work conflict.

Keywords Servant leadership . Employee creativity . Psychological empowerment . Work-to-family conflict . Family-to-work
conflict

Introduction empowering employees, prioritizing the fulfillment of em-

The relationship between servant leadership and employee cre-
ativity has received increased attention during the past decade
(Neubert et al. 2008; Yoshida et al. 2014; Neubert et al. 2016;
Newman et al. 2017b). Servant leadership refers to leadership
that focuses on promoting integrity, helping others, and striving
to bring out the full potential of employees (Yang et al. 2017;
Huang et al. 2017; Hoch et al. 2018). Servant leaders may
provide encouragement and support for their followers by
* Hefu Liu
liuhf@ustc.edu.cn
Jin Yang
yjj0925@ustc.edu.cn
Jibao Gu
jibao@ustc.edu.cn
1 with employee creativity.
School of Economics and Management, Southwest University of
Science and Technology, 59 Qinglong Road, Mianyang, Sichuan,
People’s Republic of China
2
School of Management, University of Science and Technology of
China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China
ployees’ needs, and stimulating employees’ full potential.
They are able to contribute to the improvement of employees’
intrinsic motivation and engagement in creative behaviors (van
Dierendonck 2011; Chan and Mak 2014; Neubert et al. 2016).
Servant leadership is contended to be positively associated
with employee creativity (e.g., Neubert et al. 2008; Yoshida
et al. 2014). But in fact, recent empirical studies have shown
ambiguous results (Vessey et al. 2014). Although the empiri-
cal studies described above have verified the positive relation-
ship between servant leadership and employee creativity, oth-
er research has found this relationship was not significant
(Newman et al. 2017b). These inconclusive findings draw
researchers’ attention to question the simplistic servant
leadership-employee creativity relationship (Neubert et al.
2016; Newman et al. 2017b). Therefore, it is necessary to
explore through what explanatory mechanisms and under
what boundary conditions servant leadership is associated
Psychological mechanisms may act as important mediators
in the relationship between leadership and individual outcomes
(e.g., Chiniara and Bentein 2016). For example, Walumbwa
et al. (2010) argued that psychological empowerment may

serve as additional variables that potentially intervene and
could explain the influence of servant leadership on employee
outcomes. According to self-determination theory (SDT)
(Gagné and Deci 2005), psychological empowerment repre-
sents a powerful psychological mechanism that may improve
employee creativity (Yoshida et al. 2014). Although psycho-
logical empowerment may play a significant role in affecting
employee creativity (Spreitzer 1995; Zhang and Bartol 2010;
Sun et al. 2012), there has been a dearth of empirical work
investigates whether and how this empowerment mediates the
relationship between leadership and creativity (Newman et al.
2017a). This study builds on SDT to explain how psycholog-
ical empowerment mediates the relationship between servant
leadership and employee creativity.
The extent to which servant leaders influence follower
psychological empowerment may be dependent on the
context of work–family conflict that an individual em-
ployee experiences. Work–family conflict is a condition
that requires employees to balance the competing de-
mands of work and family, and likely consumes em-
ployees’ psychological resources (Byron 2005; Carlson
et al. 2012; Tang et al. 2016). Servant leaders may em-
power followers to schedule work hours freely and pro-
vide support to them for their family responsibilities,
thereby helping followers better balance the relationship
between work and family (Hammer et al. 2011; Zhang
et al. 2012; Liden et al. 2015; Tang et al. 2016).
However, servant leadership behaviors may be particular-
ly effective for specific individuals who manifest a need
for leaders’ support. Consequently, the extent to which
servant leaders influence a follower’s psychological em-
powerment may depend upon the latter’s level of work–
family conflict. Therefore, this study aims to clarify the
conditions under which servant leadership is likely to be
more effective. Moreover, work–family conflict could be
divided into two types: work-to-family conflict (WFC)
and family-to-work conflict (FWC) (Michel et al.
2011). Thus, we propose that the extent to which servant
leadership influences employee psychological empower-
ment may be contingent on the differential impacts of
WFC and FWC.
Given the concerns outlined above, the present study ad-
dresses the mechanisms that shape the impact of servant lead-
ership on employee creativity. Specifically, this study aims to
put forth a model that accounts for the effect of servant lead-
ership on employees’ reactions to leaders (i.e. psychological
empowerment) from a self-determination perspective.
Accordingly, we propose that psychological empowerment
may mediate the effectiveness of servant leadership on em-
ployee creativity. We also intend to investigate the moderating
influences of WFC and FWC on the effectiveness of servant
leadership on followers’ psychological empowerment. The
model is illustrated in Fig. 1.
Curr Psychol
Servant Leadership and Employee Creativity
Servant leadership theory has gained interest in recent years,
which indicates that leaders must serve their followers first
(Hoch et al. 2018). Empirical studies have suggested that ser-
vant leadership would be positively associated with individual
outcomes, such as job attitudes (van Dierendonck 2011; Chan
and Mak 2014), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
(Ehrhart 2004; Walumbwa et al. 2010; Newman et al.
2017a), and performance (Hunter et al. 2013; Chiniara and
Bentein 2016). Although scholars have focused on the possi-
ble association between servant leadership and employee cre-
ativity, they have yet to reach a consensus about the nature of
the relationship between them (Newman et al. 2017b).
In this study, we argue that servant leadership positively
impacts employee creativity. First, servant leaders may pro-
vide encouragement and support for their followers by
empowering them, prioritizing the fulfillment of their needs,
and stimulating their full potential. They thereby contribute to
the improvement of employees’ intrinsic motivation and en-
gagement in creative behaviors (Liden et al. 2015; Neubert
et al. 2016). Second, servant leaders demonstrate genuine con-
cern for their followers’ interests and needs rather than their
own. Consequently, they promote a sense of psychological
safety and trust in the workplace (Hu and Liden 2011;
Yoshida et al. 2014; Liden et al. 2015).
Finally, when leaders exhibit servant leadership behaviors,
employees are more inclined to engage in mutual support
exchange and caring for others, which would improve their
own psychological safety (Liden et al. 2015). Consequently,
the risks associated with seeking creative methods to solve
problems would be reduced, which is beneficial to promote
followers’ creativity (Liden et al. 2014; Yoshida et al. 2014).
Therefore, servant leadership is contended to be positively
associated with follower creativity.
However, servant leadership may indirectly affect employ-
ee creativity. For example, Neubert et al. (2008) argued that
servant leadership was closely connected with promotion fo-
cus, which further improved employee creativity. Liden et al.
(2014) suggested that servant leadership was positively asso-
ciated with serving culture and employee identification, which
would lead to enhanced employee creativity. These studies
have revealed the importance of a focus on the mediating
variables in the relationship between servant leadership and
employee creativity.
Mediating Role of Psychological
Empowerment
Building on the work of Conger and Kanungo (1988),
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) defined psychological empow-
erment as a set of four cognitions that reflect an individual’s
Curr Psychol
Fig. 1 Hypothesized model of
relationships
Servant
Leadership
orientation to his or her work role: meaning, competence, self-
determination and impact. Spreitzer (1995) has further dem-
onstrated these four distinct cognitions constituted a higher-
order psychological empowerment construct. According to
self-determination theory (Gagné and Deci 2005), the defini-
tion of psychological empowerment is similar to the definition
of motivation. Specifically, psychological empowerment orig-
inates from an individual’s perception of their job as meaning-
ful, a capability to perform their job well, an ability to regulate
actions, and the impact they have on the work environment
(Spreitzer 1995; Pieterse et al. 2010).
According to the SDT (Gagné and Deci 2005), autonomy-
supportive leaders have the potential to improve employees’
motivation. Indeed, servant leaders may have significant influ-
ence on a follower’s psychological empowerment. Through
stimulating subordinate’s potential and building trust by self-
lessly serving others first, servant leaders are likely to allow
their followers to experience an enhanced feeling of meaning
in their jobs (Newman et al. 2017a). Servant leaders enjoy the
ability to provide developmental support and encouragement to
their followers to develop new skills and to attain creative
goals. Therefore, servant leaders may promote followers’ en-
hanced feelings of competence to successfully perform creative
tasks (Walumbwa et al. 2010; Newman et al. 2017a; Yang et al.
2017). Servant leaders also may empower followers with more
autonomy and foster feelings of greater freedom at work, which
in turn serve to improve an employee’s feeling of self-
determination (Greenleaf 1977; van Dierendonck 2011;
Newman et al. 2017a). Furthermore, servant leaders are more
likely to promote followers’ recognition of the important im-
pact they have on their work units by encouraging them to
participate in the decision-making process (Newman et al.
2017a). Thus, servant leadership is positively associated with
followers’ psychological empowerment.
In addition to improving psychological empowerment, ser-
vant leadership would also promote employee creativity
through psychological empowerment because psychological-
ly empowered employees are more likely to be motivated to
seek diverse creative alternatives and produce novel solutions,
hence tending to be more creative (Amabile 1996; Zhang and
Bartol 2010). Specifically, psychologically empowered
H1 +
Work-to-Family
Conflict
+ H3
+ Psychological + Employee
Empowerment Creativity
- H4 H2
Family-to-Work
Conflict
employees perceive the meaning of their work and thus are
more inclined to spend time to understand a problem from
various perspectives, seek diverse solutions by using multiple
sources of information, and produce creative alternatives
(Gilson and Shalley 2004). Moreover, psychologically
empowered employees feel more confident about their ability
to perform tasks successfully. Consequently, they prove more
willing to take risks and explore new cognitive pathways
(Zhang and Bartol 2010; Liu et al. 2017). Furthermore, psy-
chologically empowered employees would believe that they
have self-determination with regard to work execution and the
impact of their work. Therefore, they would feel less re-
strained by routines and more willing to pursue creative pro-
cesses (Sun et al. 2012; Liu et al. 2017). Empirically, recent
studies have emphasized the positive connection between psy-
chological empowerment and employee creativity (Seibert
et al. 2011; Sun et al. 2012; Liu et al. 2017). We anticipated
that psychological empowerment would mediate the relation-
ship between servant leadership and employee creativity.
Work–Family Conflict
Most employees have found it increasingly difficult to
balance the competing demands of work and family
(Byron 2005). A growing body of literature on the rela-
tionship between work and family also has increased
steadily over the past couple of decades (Eby et al.
2005; Michel et al. 2011; Tang et al. 2016), especially
with regard to work–family conflict. Work–family con-
flict, defined as Ba form of inter-role conflict in which
the role pressures from the work and family domains are
mutually non-compatible in some respect^ (Greenhaus
and Beutell 1985, p. 77). Additionally, the pressure to
play different roles has been proven to be directional in
character, the role played in one domain could negatively
impact the one played in another (Frone et al. 1992;
Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005). Thus, work–
family conflict is consisted of two distinct concepts:
work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work con-
flict (FWC) (Michel et al. 2011).

WFC is defined as the degree to which participation in the
family role is made more difficult by virtue of participation in
the work role, whereas FWC is defined as the degree to which
participation in the work role is made more difficult by virtue
of participation in the family role (Michel et al. 2011). Several
recent meta-analytic studies provide strong support for
distinguishing these two conflicts. For example, Mesmer-
Magnus and Viswesvaran (2005) suggested that Bthe two
types of conflict are distinct^ (p. 216), the former is more
likely to be affected by work-related variables, whereas the
latter is more likely influenced by family-related variables
(e.g. Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005; Byron 2005;
Michel et al. 2011). Therefore, we propose that the extent to
which servant leadership influences employee psychological
empowerment may depend on the differential impacts of
WFC and FWC.
Moderating Roles of WFC and FWC
Although the empirical studies described above have verified
the positive relationship between servant leadership and em-
ployee creativity, other studies have found the relationship
between servant leadership and follower creativity was not
significant (Newman et al. 2017b). Therefore, servant leader-
ship is not necessarily associated with employee creativity
under all circumstances. It would prove imperative to more
fully explore the boundary conditions that moderate the rela-
tionship between servant leadership and employee creativity
(Neubert et al. 2016). We respond to that call through an
examination of WFC and FWC as potential moderators.
WFC is a situation where the demands of the work role
deplete psychological resources (e.g. energy) required to ful-
fill the family role (Lapierre and Allen 2006; Kossek et al.
2011; Carlson et al. 2012). This situation may cause relation-
ship problems at home. For example, changing plans for fam-
ily activities or events to accommodate work demands could
provoke dissatisfaction within the family (Carlson et al. 2012;
Li et al. 2015). Servant leadership in particular, represents a
leadership style characterized by such support and encourage-
ment for followers by empowering employees, prioritizing the
fulfillment of their needs, and encouraging subordinates to
realize their full potential (Liden et al. 2015; Neubert et al.
2016). Employees with high WFC benefitted from a support-
ive and caring leader (e.g., Hammer et al. 2011). Therefore,
employees with high WFC were more likely to benefit from
exposure to their servant leaders, which would strengthen the
positive effect of servant leadership. Consequently, this would
enhance the positive impact of servant leadership on fol-
lowers’ psychological empowerment.
Additionally, employees with high WFC were more likely to
seek support from their leaders (Frone et al. 1992; Hammer et al.
2011), which would help strengthen servant leadership-
Curr Psychol
followers’ psychological empowerment relationship.
Specifically, servant leaders contributed to employees’ psycho-
logical empowerment through their ability to provide develop-
mental support to their followers, permit greater autonomy for
their subordinates, and foster feelings of greater freedom at work.
Under servant leadership, employees with high WFC demon-
strated a greater reliance on their leaders, which is beneficial to
promote the positive impact of servant leadership on followers’
psychological empowerment. In fact, previous research has sug-
gested that servant leadership behaviors proved particularly ef-
fective for specific individuals who need such support from their
leaders (Hammer et al. 2011). Therefore, servant leaders were
more effective for employees who have high WFC compared
with those who have low WFC (Hammer et al. 2011). In partic-
ular, servant leaders could contribute to their subordinates’ im-
proved perceptions of meaning, competence, self-determination
and impact. These efforts would boost employees’ psychological
empowerment. Therefore, the beneficial effects of servant lead-
ership on employees’ psychological empowerment would be
enhanced.
FWC is a situation where the demands of the family role
deplete the psychological resources required to participate in
the work role (Lapierre and Allen 2006; Kossek et al. 2011;
Carlson et al. 2012). When employees dedicate more energy
to their family, they had less energy to accomplish daily work
tasks and perform job-related duties (Hochschild 1997; Bolino
and Turnley 2005). Resources devoted to responsibilities at
home decreases the amount available for work. This could
result in increased problems at work, such as the need to
postpone work tasks or an inability to focus on the work task
at hand (Carlson et al. 2012). Employees with high FWC
tended to put their family lives first. In this situation, such
employees were more likely to ignore their work leaders,
which would weaken the positive effect of servant leadership.
Consequently, the positive role of servant leaders’ in employ-
ee psychological empowerment also was reduced. By con-
trast, employees with low FWC were more sensitive and re-
sponsive to support provided by servant leaders. In such cases,
it would prove beneficial for servant leaders to enhance em-
ployees’ perceptions of meaning, competence, self-
determination and impact, thereby contributing to the im-
provement of employees’ psychological empowerment.
In this study, we predicted the following:
Hypothesis 1. Servant leadership is positively related to em-
ployee creativity.
Hypothesis 2. Psychological empowerment mediates the re-
lationship between servant leadership and
employee creativity.
Hypothesis 3. WFC moderates the relationship between ser-
vant leadership and employees’ psychological
empowerment and the relationship is stronger
when WFC is high.
Curr Psychol

Hypothesis 4. FWC moderates the relationship between ser- Table 1 Demographic profile of participants
vant leadership and employees’ psychologi- Item Category Frequency %
cal empowerment and the relationship is
stronger when FWC is low. Gender Male 190 41.3
Female 270 58.7
Age 20 years or less 1 0.2
21~30 337 73.2
Methods 31~40 95 20.7
41~50 22 4.8
Sample and Procedures 51 years or more 5 1.1
Education level Technical secondary school 48 10.4
A convenience sampling survey was conducted to test the Bachelor’s degree 353 76.8
hypotheses through collaborations with 11 banks in China. Master degree or above 59 12.8
The research team contacted senior managers from these Working time in bank 5 years or more 200 43.5
banks and presented the objectives of the study. All of the
bank managers agreed to proceed with the study and em- N = 460
ployees from 28 branches were invited to participate. Each
branch was composed of three teams with different business
tasks. Specifically, the three teams focus on the companies’ measure was 0.91. This scale of servant leadership was chosen
financial services, personal financial services, and settlement because it has been widely used, validated in previous studies,
business. Researchers distributed questionnaires to 84 teams and shares important theoretical and empirical considerations
in 28 branches. Most of the data were collected through paper- with other measures of servant leadership (Neubert et al. 2008;
based questionnaires that were distributed to employees and Walumbwa et al. 2010; Newman et al. 2017a). Additionally,
completed on-site. The others were distributed and collected Ehrhart’s scale was adopted because it has been applied to
through bank branch managers who required their employees measure servant leadership at the individual level and in the
to complete and submit electronic questionnaires. Participants Chinese context (Newman et al. 2017a).
received information about the scope and aim of the study.
Each questionnaire was coded by a number to assure confi-
dentiality and provide the ability for researchers to match par- Psychological Empowerment
ticipants with their teams for analytic purposes. All informa-
tion collected was kept secure and confidential. A total of 564 Spreitzer’s 12-item scale (1995) was used to measure psycho-
questionnaires were distributed to employees, and 460 usable logical empowerment. The measure included four
questionnaires were received (response rate = 82%). subdimensions: meaning, self-determination, competence,
A little over half (59%) of the participants were women, the and impact. Examples of each are BThe work I do is meaning-
vast majority of them (73%) were between the ages of 21 and 30, ful to me^ (meaning), BI am confident about my ability to do
and 90% possessed a college degree. The average amount of time my job^ (competence), BI have significant autonomy in deter-
the participants had worked at the bank was five years (Table 1). mining how I do my job^ (self-determination), and BMy im-
pact on what happens in my department is large^ (impact). An
Measures average score of the twelve items was calculated to create a
single psychological empowerment score for each individual
In order to ensure validity, the measurements used in the sur- employee. The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure was 0.90.
vey were adapted from the existing literature. The study
employed translation and back-translation to assure consisten-
cy (Brislin 1970). The surveys used five-point Likert scales Work–Family Conflict
(1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).
Netemeyer et al.’s (1996) ten-item scale was used to measure
Servant Leadership work–family conflict, which included two directions: work-
to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC).
Servant leadership was measured with Ehrhart’s (2004) four- Two examples of these questions were the following: BThe
teen items scale. Sample items included BMy team leader demands of my work interfere with my home and family life^
makes me feel like I work with him/her, not for him/her^ and BThe demands of my family or spouse/partner interfere
and BMy team leader is sensitive to employees’ responsibili- with work-related activities^. The Cronbach’s alpha for WFC
ties outside the work place^. The Cronbach’s alpha for this was 0.93 and 0.96 for FWC.
 Curr Psychol

Employee Creativity factor measurement model (consisting of servant leadership,

The 4-item scale from Baer and Oldham (2006) was used to
measure employee creativity. A sample item was BI often
come up with creative solutions to problems at work^. The
Cronbach’s alpha for this measure was 0.87.
Control Variables
We controlled for demographic variables including gender,
education, and tenure, because these variables potentially
could play an important role in employee creativity (Shalley
and Gilson 2004). Gender was dummy coded 1 = male and
0 = female. Education was assessed using 4-point scale, from
no college education to a master degree or higher.
Results
psychological empowerment, employee creativity, WFC and
FWC) provided an acceptable fit to the data: χ2 (df = 723) =
2796.65, p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.94, and
SRMR = 0.08 (Table 3). All of the observed items had signif-
icant loadings on their respective latent factors. The hypothe-
sized five-factor model was compared to alternative CFA
models. The fit indices of Table 3 demonstrate the convergent
and discriminant validity of the constructs studied, providing
sufficient basis for testing of the proposed five-factor model.
Further, Harman’s one-factor test was utilized to minimize
common method variance (CMV, Podsakoff et al. 2003).
Exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Eight factors with
eigenvalues greater than one accounted for 70.93% of the total
variance, above the 70% threshold. The first factor accounted
for 25.90% of the variance, below the 30% threshold.
Therefore, CMV did not represent a serious problem in the
survey.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlational Analysis Hypotheses Testing

Table 2 displays the means, standard deviations, correlations,
and internal consistency reliabilities of the variables. Servant
leadership was positively correlated with psychological em-
powerment and employee creativity (r = 0.39, p < 0.001 and
r = 0.36, p < 0.001, respectively). Moreover, psychological
empowerment was positively correlated with employee crea-
tivity (r = 0.42, p < 0.001; Table 2).
In order to address multicollinearity, we calculated the var-
iance inflation factors (VIF) for each of the regression equa-
tions. The maximum VIF was only 1.33, well below the 4.00
or 10.00 threshold (O’brien 2007).
Measurement Model
SPSS 19.0 and LISREL 8.7 were used to analyze the data. At
first, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses, to assure that
the model captured distinct constructs. The hypothesized five-
Model 4 in Table 4 showed that servant leadership has a sig-
nificantly positive direct relationship with employee creativity
(β = 0.37, p < 0.001). Hypothesis 1 was supported.
Hypothesis 2 suggested a mediation model. Servant leader-
ship was positively associated with psychological empower-
ment (β = 0.39, p < 0.001, Model 2) and employee creativity
(β = 0.37, p < 0.001, Model 4; Table 4). Moreover, psycholog-
ical empowerment was significantly associated with employee
creativity (β = 0.42, p < 0.001, Model 5). Furthermore, the
direct relationship between servant leadership and employee
creativity was significant (β = 0.25, p < 0.001, Model 6) when
we added psychological empowerment as mediator, indicating
that the relationship between servant leadership and employee
creativity was partially mediated by psychological empower-
ment. Hypothesis 2 was supported.
Additionally, structural equation modeling (LISREL 8.7)
was used to analyze the model. Fig. 2 presents the results of

Table 2 Means, standard deviations, and correlations among study variables

NO Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 Gender 0.41 0.49

2 Education 3.02 0.48 0.06
3 Tenure(in years) 4.73 3.11 −0.08 −0.24***
4 Servant Leadership 3.91 0.48 −0.03 0.04 −0.05 (0.91)
5 WFC 3.01 0.89 0.03 −0.04 0.14** −0.21*** (0.93)
6 FWC 2.23 0.83 0.15** 0.01 −0.01 −0.10* 0.44*** (0.96)
7 Psychological Empowerment 3.64 0.52 0.05 0.01 0.02 0.39*** −0.21*** −0.13** (0.90)
8 Employee Creativity 3.65 0.65 0.07 −0.02 0.08 0.36*** −0.05 −0.06 0.42*** (0.87)

N = 460. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001

Alpha coefficients are on the diagonal, in parentheses
Curr Psychol

Table 3 Results of confirmatory factor analyses

Model X2 df CFI RMSEA SRMR

Hypothesized five-factor model 2796.65 723 .94 .08 .08

Four-factor model-1: Servant leadership and psychological empowerment combined 7830.64 734 .85 .15 .11
Four-factor model-2: Servant leadership and WFC combined 7402.43 734 .84 .14 .13
Four-factor model-3: Servant leadership and FWC combined 8765.76 734 .81 .15 .14
Four-factor model-4: WFC and FWC combined 8399.83 734 .82 .15 .11
Two-factor model: Servant leadership, psychological empowerment, WFC and FWC combined 15618.92 739 .70 .21 .16
One-factor model (five factors) 16605.95 740 .68 .22 .17

N = 460
CFI the comparative fit index, RMSEA the root-mean-square error of approximation, and SRMR the standardized root-mean-square residual

the structural equation modeling (SEM). As shown in Fig. 2,
servant leadership was positively related to psychological em-
powerment (β = 0.40, p < 0.001) and employee creativity (β =
0.25, p < 0.001). Psychological empowerment was also posi-
tively related to employee creativity (β = 0.36, p < 0.001). The
results supported Hypothesis 2 because the indirect relation-
ship between servant leadership and employee creativity
through psychological empowerment was significant (indirect
effect = 0.15, p < 0.001).
Further, a bias-corrected bootstrapping procedure was used
to test the mediating effect. The indirect effect of servant lead-
ership on employee creativity through psychological empow-
erment was 0.17 (95% CI = 0.12–0.24), which excluded zero.
Hence, Hypothesis 2 was supported.
Hypothesis 3 and Hypothesis 4 suggested the moderating
effects of WFC and FWC. Hierarchical moderated regression
analysis was utilized to test Hypotheses 3 and 4. The control
variables were entered first, the independent variable (servant
leadership) second and the moderators (WFC and FWC) third.
Finally, the interaction terms were entered. The interaction
effect between servant leadership and WFC was significant
(β = 0.09, p < 0.05, Model 4; Table 5), indicating support for
Hypothesis 3. The interaction effect was plotted using Aiken
and West’s (1991) procedure, the influence of servant leader-
ship on psychological empowerment was significantly affect-
ed by varying WFC (Fig. 3), lending even stronger evidence
for Hypothesis 3. However, the interaction between servant
leadership and FWC was not significant (β = 0.06, p > 0.05,
Model 4). Therefore, Hypothesis 4 was not supported.
Discussion
The first goal of this study was to advance the understanding
of the connection between servant leadership and employee
creativity. We used SDT (Gagné and Deci 2005) to examine
how servant leadership affected employee creativity through
the psychological process of follower psychological empow-
erment. We discovered that follower psychological empower-
ment could partially mediate the relationship between servant
leadership and employee creativity. This finding empirically
supported the argument that other mediating mechanisms
should exist in Bthe relation between servant leadership and
individual outcomes^ (Liden et al. 2014).
Yet, the effectiveness of servant leadership could be depen-
dent on the context of work–family conflict that employees

Table 4 Results of the mediating

effect of psychological Psychological Empowerment Employee Creativity
empowerment
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

Gender 0.05 0.06 0.08 0.09* 0.06 0.07

Education 0.01 −0.01 −0.01 −0.02 −0.01 −0.02
Tenure 0.03 0.05 0.08 0.10* 0.07 0.08*
Servant Leadership 0.39*** 0.37*** 0.25***
Psychological Empowerment 0.42*** 0.32***
R2 0.01 0.16 0.01 0.15 0.18 0.24
ΔR2 0.01 0.15 0.01 0.14 0.17 0.22
F 0.43 20.98*** 1.79 19.90*** 25.64*** 27.89***
ΔF 0.43 82.39*** 1.79 73.36*** 96.09*** 66.29***

N = 460. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001

 Curr Psychol

Psychological Theoretical Implications

Empowerment
0.40*** This study made several important theoretical contributions.
Servant First, the findings provided evidence that servant leaders
Leadership 0.36***
could play a vital role in the development of followers’ crea-
tivity. The study reaffirms findings from previous research
0.25***
that maintained a positive association between servant
leadership and individual outcomes. The study by van
Employee
Creativity
Dierendonck (2011) represented a new direction from its ex-
ploration of the impact of servant leadership. This study ex-
Fig. 2 Results of path analysis. N = 460. This is a simplified version of panded upon that work by providing an understanding of how
the actual model the positive effect of servant leadership occurs.
Second, consistent with the findings of Yoshida et al.
may experience. The study tested whether or not WFC and (2014), this study contributed an understanding of the mech-
FWC operated as boundary conditions that could shape the anism by which servant leadership influenced employee cre-
relationship between servant leadership and employees’ psy- ativity. Additionally, this study applied the SDT to provide a
chological empowerment. The evidence indicated that WFC significant contribution to the psychological empowerment
played a moderating role that positively impacted the relation- literature through its identification of psychological empow-
ship between servant leadership and employees’ psychological erment as an important mediating mechanism that helps to
empowerment. This finding extended the scope of previous enrich servant leadership’s effect on employees. More specif-
research on the role of work–family conflict. Additionally, the ically, this study contributed to the literature by demonstrating
study helped respond to the call to further explore the moder- servant leadership can positively impact employee creativity
ating effect of work–family conflict (Hammer et al. 2011). by promoting their followers’ psychological empowerment.
However, the interaction between servant leadership and Furthermore, this study found empirical evidence for the me-
FWC on employees’ psychological empowerment was not sig- diating role of psychological empowerment in the connection
nificant. One possible explanation for this may be that those between servant leadership and subordinate creativity.
employees with low FWC could have viewed the servant Third, this study authenticated the conditions under which
leaders as providing support that specifically favored those with servant leadership may have its greatest effect. The current study
families (Hammer et al. 2011). In this context, work-family has proposed and found that the positive relationship between
backlash would occur. Therefore, the impact of the interaction servant leadership and employees’ psychological empowerment
between servant leadership and FWC on employees’ psycho- appeared to be contingent on the context of work–family conflict.
logical empowerment appeared to be non-significant. The findings serve to deepen understanding of boundary condi-
tions (e.g. work–family conflict) for the impacts of servant lead-
ership on employees’ individual outcomes. This proved notewor-
Table 5 Results of the moderating effects of WFC and FWC
thy for two reasons. First, this study afforded a boundary condi-
tion of work–family conflict and expanded the work–family con-
Psychological Empowerment flict literature to the leadership survey in Chinese contexts.
Second, the study responded to an earlier call made by
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Hammer et al. (2011) to expand upon existing research through
Gender 0.05 0.06 0.08 0.08 an examination of the moderating effect of work–family conflict.
Education 0.01 −0.01 −0.01 0.01 Finally, this study tested the different moderating influences
Tenure 0.03 0.05 0.06 0.06 of WFC and FWC, wherein the consequences demonstrated
Servant Leadership 0.39*** 0.36*** 0.36*** that although WFC moderated the effectiveness of servant lead-
WFC −0.12* −0.13* ership with regard to employees’ psychological empowerment,
FWC −0.05 −0.07 the expected moderating effect of FWC was not found for this
Servant Leadership ×WFC 0.09* relationship. The results reflected the distinction between the
Servant Leadership ×FWC 0.06 two variables and their different effects. Accordingly, the find-
R2 0.01 0.16 0.18 0.19 ings enriched the work–family conflict literature by providing
ΔR2 0.01 0.15 0.02 0.01 support for distinguishing WFC from FWC (Michel et al. 2011;
F 0.43 20.98*** 16.12*** 13.21***
Tang et al. 2016). Although WFC was quite different from
ΔF 0.43 82.39*** 5.57** 3.86*
FWC, the two types of conflicts demonstrated reciprocal and
bidirectional effects. Hence, a focus on both simultaneously
N = 460. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 would prove necessary.
Curr Psychol
Fig. 3 Plot of the interaction
between servant leadership and
WFC on psychological
empowerment
Practical Implications
This research affirmed the need to promote servant leadership
in employment settings. Specific training and development
programs could help supervisors to improve the skills that
would enable them to better demonstrate typical servant lead-
ership behaviors. Surveys could be administered following
trainings to permit staff to provide feedback about their man-
agers’ servant leadership performance. This feedback would
be useful for further development of management’s
leadership.
The results also provided insight into how servant leader-
ship could be used to enhance follower psychological empow-
erment and thereby contribute to the improvement of em-
ployees’ job performance and engagement in creative behav-
iors. Managers’ understandings of the instrumental role of
servant leadership in fostering an empowerment climate
would prove valuable because it could enhance employee cre-
ativity. Utilizing an empowering strategy, managers should
ensure the development of high levels of mutual trust and
respect from their followers. Managers could also strive to
enhance their followers’ participation and autonomy by pro-
viding them with the necessary encouragement and support to
develop new skills and accomplish creative goals (Walumbwa
et al. 2010; Newman et al. 2017a). Therefore, the effectiveness
of leadership programs designed to improve a climate of em-
powerment could be further advanced through the integration
of training that emphasizes servant leadership skills.
Finally, the findings from this study should help managers
gain a better understanding of the contextual factors (i.e.
WFC) that could make certain approaches more effective than
others as they seek to foster their employees’ sense of psycho-
logical empowerment. Moreover, this study suggested that
servant leaders could be more effective when they target spe-
cific individuals who manifest greater needs (higher WFC).
Therefore, it would be important to ensure that these servant
leaders are tailored to address the needs of employees with
high levels of work–family conflict and that such supervisors
have access to the individuals who could benefit from their
leaders’ support. Relevant human resource management poli-
cies or practices could be implemented within organizations to
further that goal.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
This study had some limitations. First, the cross-sectional de-
sign impeded an ability to identify causal relationships. The
significant relationships reported in this study are associative
and may not be causal. For example, the positive association
between servant leadership and employee creativity could be
challenged due to the contextual factors that might affect these
variables. A longitudinal study could better capture the signif-
icant relationships suggested in this study.
Second, the data was collected from self-report question-
naires, which could have resulted in same source bias, al-
though confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis were
conducted. Multiple factor structure analysis was supported
by the results and served to verify that common method var-
iance did not play an important role. However, future studies
could include additional data sources (e.g. from employees’
supervisors) for comparison to assure greater objectivity and
avoid potential bias.
Third, the analysis of the model only considered the indi-
vidual level. A multi-level model would provide greater in-
sights into how the constructs operate. Moreover, recent re-
search has called for additional studies that would explore the
impact of leaders at multiple levels (Yoshida et al. 2014).
Therefore, future research should further examine the results
by using multi-level methods.
Fourth, most concepts of this study came from the United
States and other western countries, but these concepts are
universal. Scholars have also validated and applied these con-
cepts to Chinese samples (e.g., Chen et al. 2015; Tang et al.
2016). Additionally, we made some adjustments to the

measurement tools to adapt their use to a Chinese setting.
However, because of China’s unique cultural and economic
attributes, researchers should exercise caution in the applica-
tion of these results to subjectsin other countries or regions.
Fifth, the analysis only considered the mediating role of
psychological mechanisms. Additional mediators could be in-
cluded in future studies. Specifically, the findings only support
the partial mediating effects of psychological empowerment.
Therefore, future research should further explore potential me-
diators to improve an understanding of how and why servant
leadership affects employee creativity.
Finally, work–family conflict and work–family enrichment
were not considered simultaneously in the model presented
here. Some scholars have called for future research to contain
both positive and negative work–family variables in a single
model (Tang et al. 2016). Future research could provide a
more comprehensive approach to the relationship between
servant leadership and work–family outcomes with a model
that includes servant leadership, work–family conflict and
work–family enrichment.
Acknowledgements This study was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant number 71702157) and the
Foundation by Southwest University of Science and Technology (Grant
number 17sx7104).
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Ethical Approval All procedures performed in studies involving human
participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institu-
tional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki
declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual
participants included in the study.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdic-
tional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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