The Role of Servant Leadership and Resilience in Predicting Work Engagement

Abstract

Improving work engagement among Indonesian banking employees become crucial in today’s economic situation due to the pandemic. This study aimed to examine the predicting effect of individual workplace resilience and perceived supervisor’s servant leadership on work engagement. This research used quantitative cross-sectional approach. Research data were collected using the snowball sampling method that was implemented in an online survey that targeted 87 employees of various banks in Indonesia. The measures used in this study were the 9-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, 6-item short form Servant Leadership Behaviour Scale, and 21-item Resilience at Work Scale. Multiple linier regression analysis showed that servant leadership and resilience simultaneously had a significant influence on bank employees’ work engagement (F = 14.762; p<0.005) with contribution of 26% (R2 = 0.260). When given separately, resilience contributed 8.9% (R2 = 0.089) whereas servant leadership contributed 25.8% (R2 = 0.258) to work engagement. This study concluded that supervisor’s servant leadership is an important factor to complement employees’ resilience in gaining work engagement.