Leadership and PsyCap : influence of servant-leadership on followers’ PsyCap.

• Main Author: Chua, Hwee Chin.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46494
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is a positive resource which comprises of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency. PsyCap has been a popular concept as it is able to generate positive individual and organizational outcomes. Given that leaders play a crucial role in influencing their followers, it led us to explore how behaviours of leaders, specifically behaviours of servant-leaders, affect followers’ PsyCap. A total of 77 participants engaged in a 10-minute brainstorming task facilitated by a confederate leader. Participants were tested in groups of 3 to 5 and randomly assigned to the conditions: servant-leadership or laissez-faire leadership. The confederate leader displayed either servant-leadership behaviours or laissez-faire leadership behaviours during the brainstorming session. Following the interaction with the confederate leader, participants filled out the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ) to measure their individual PsyCap scores. One-tailed independent-samples t-test revealed that there was significant difference in PsyCap scores between the conditions (p = .034). As hypothesized, participants under the servant-leadership condition had higher PsyCap than participants under the laissez-faire leadership condition. This is the first empirical study to explore the relationship between servant-leadership and followers’ PsyCap. Limitations of the study, implications of the results, and suggestions for future research are discussed.