How servant leadership influences thriving at work: the roles of university teachers’ voice behavior and organizational error tolerance climate

Purpose This study investigates how servant leadership influences university teachers’ thriving at work. With university teachers’ voice behavior as the mediating variable, it examines whether organizational error tolerance climate moderates the relationship between university teachers’ voice behavior and thriving at work, aiming to offer new insights for promoting thriving at work and improving the work outcomes of university teachers. Methods Drawing on self-determination theory and conservation of resources theory, and using a two-wave survey of 627 university teachers in Hubei Province, China, a moderated mediation model was constructed. SPSS and AMOS were used to conduct moderated mediation analyses, and the relationship between servant leadership and university teachers’ thriving at work was examined through descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, and other empirical tests. Results The results show that servant leadership exerts a significant positive influence on thriving at work and that university teachers’ voice behavior plays a mediating role in this positive relationship. In addition, organizational error tolerance climate significantly moderates the relationship between servant leadership and thriving at work, thereby strengthening the overall mediation mechanism. Discussion This study contributes to the literature concerning the association between servant leadership on thriving at work and provides evidence for leaders in universities to consider more flexible styles of leadership and has important implications for fostering thriving at work.