The effect of servant leadership on job engagement and perceived social support of employees: the mediating role of emotional energy

This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of servant leadership on job engagement and perceived social support of employees, taking into account the mediating role of emotional energy.The current research is a structural equation model in terms of applied purpose and in terms of descriptive-correlation data collection.The statistical population was 17933 non-faculty employees of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.Sampling was done by stratified random method and the final sample size was considered to be 403 according to Cochran's formula.To collect research data, the standard questionnaires of servant leadership, job engagement, perceived social support and emotional energy were used.The validity of the questionnaires was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis and their reliability was obtained using Cronbach's alpha 0/97, 0/95, 0/92 and 0/96 respectively.SPSS and SmartPLS software were used to analyze information.The findings showed that servant leadership has a positive effect on job engagement and perceived social support of employees.Emotional energy plays a mediating role in the relationship between servant leadership and job engagement (t-value=5/19).But the role of emotional energy in the relationship between servant leadership and perceived social support as a mediator was not confirmed (t-value=1/82).Based on the results, servant leadership has a positive effect on job engagement (t-value=6/10), perceived social support (t-value=4/32) and emotional energy (t-value=5/18).Therefore, it is suggested that managers in educational institutions and organizations, due to the special roles and duties they play in serving, educating, and increasing the efficiency of the society, have characteristics of servant leadership such as empathy and understanding needs, active listening, professional development, creating a supportive environment, paying attention to social welfare, encourage cooperationcooperation, transparency and honesty, respond to the needs of society and motivate and use these characteristics as a good model to serve the employees and increase their motivation and performance.