Abstract:
“May God bless South Africa and protect her people” (Ramaphosa, 2020) was the
inspiration for the research to determine the impact of leadership attributes within a
high distrust and low trust environment, a bidimensional trust context. Evaluation of
impact focuses on comparing servant leadership’s efficacy to spiritual leadership on
follower organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB).
Distrust is critical within the South African context due to the history and cultures
formed through colonialism, apartheid, and the return to democracy (Steenkamp,
2009). This context and the propensity for increased distrust makes the South
African context a relevant differentiator for leadership efficacy research.
Social Exchange Theory (SET) is recognised in understanding leadership efficacy,
bidimensional trust and OCB; and has been demonstrated as an adequate
theoretical framework through the effect on follower behaviour through the frequency
and content of social exchanges. To analyse trust and distrust mediation on
leadership efficacy, structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied using AMOS
27.0.
The study demonstrated that high levels of trust and moderate levels of distrust was
recorded through the self-reported questionnaire. The sample of 216 respondents
was achieved from the South African working population.
Spiritual leadership was found to be more effective establish trust and reducing
distrust. However, it was identified that the elements of spiritual meaning effectively
drove organisational citizenship behaviours independent of bi-dimensional
mediation, where the remaining spiritual leadership attributes confirmed prior
research findings of the mediated relationship through trust.
Servant leadership was more effective in decreasing distrust than building trust but
showed no significant direct or indirect relationship with follower citizenship
behaviour within the South African bi-dimensional trust context.
The sample also presents a limitation through the bias of gender, race and industries
represented. This is seen through the high servant and spiritual leadership attributes
that could indicate a uniform sample. The sample has established sufficient literature
similarities to qualify the findings; however, it remains limited in generalisation.
