Abstract

The present study investigates whether servant leaders inspire a sense of meaningfulness in their followers, and whether deriving meaning from work will then help to reduce emotional exhaustion, the core dimension of burnout. Previous literature has found that meaningfulness will help to reduce burnout in followers, but has not documented the antecedents to this process. Given that leaders play an important role in the wellbeing and behaviours of their teams, it is crucial to look at how they may influence this relationship. We proposed that servant leaders, because of their focus on serving their followers and their community, and for their ability to empower their teams, might be just the types of leaders to inspire a sense of meaning in their employees. Meaningfulness was also proposed as a mediator in the effects of servant leadership on emotional exhaustion at the individual and team level, a relationship that has not yet been looked at in the literature. To collect the data for this study, we administered online questionnaires to employees comprising teams at various companies. Results showed that servant leadership did reduce emotional exhaustion in followers at both levels of analysis. Meaningfulness, however, only mediated the relationship between servant leadership and emotional exhaustion at the individual level. Our findings also add to the current management literature in providing a direct relationship between servant leadership and meaningfulness at both the individual and the team level.