The impact of spiritual and servant leadership on organisational citizenship behviour in a bidimensional trust context

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.