🧠 Journal Summary: Servant Leadership and Employee Prosocial Rule-Breaking

🧠 Journal Summary: Servant Leadership and Employee Prosocial Rule-Breaking: The Underlying Effects of Psychological Safety and Compassion at Work

Authors: Naqib Ullah Khan, Muhammad Zada, Christophe Estay

Published In: PLOS ONE

🔍 Study Summary

This study investigated how servant leadership influences “pro-social rule-breaking” (PSRB) among employees. It explored whether psychological safety acts as a go-between (mediator) in this relationship and if compassion at work changes (moderates) the effects of servant leadership on both psychological safety and PSRB. The research also looked at how compassion at work might affect the mediating role of psychological safety. The study gathered responses from 273 frontline public servants in Pakistan.

💡 Key Concepts

• Servant Leadership (SL): A leadership style where the leader prioritizes serving the needs of their followers, focusing on their growth, well-being, and empowerment. It involves characteristics like empathy, listening, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community.
• Pro-social Rule-Breaking (PSRB): Employees intentionally breaking formal organizational rules, policies, or procedures not for personal gain but with positive intentions to benefit the organization or its stakeholders. This might happen when existing rules are seen as outdated or hinder efficiency.
• Psychological Safety: An employee’s belief that their workplace is a safe environment to express ideas, ask questions, voice concerns, and even make mistakes without fear of negative consequences.
• Compassion at Work (CAW): The perception that leaders and co-workers are sensitive to and act to alleviate the sufferings or difficulties of others in the workplace. It involves noticing, feeling, and acting on others’ distress.
• Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT): This theory suggests that individuals interpret cues from their environment to decide how to behave. In this context, employees evaluate the potential risks and rewards from their supervisors before engaging in certain behaviors like PSRB.

📊 Key Insights

• Servant leadership positively influences both pro-social rule-breaking and psychological safety. 
• Psychological safety positively influences pro-social rule-breaking. 
• Psychological safety acts as a significant mediator in the relationship between servant leadership and pro-social rule-breaking, meaning servant leadership fosters psychological safety, which in turn encourages employees to engage in PSRB. 
• Compassion at work significantly strengthens the positive relationship between servant leadership and psychological safety. 
• Compassion at work also significantly strengthens the positive relationship between servant leadership and pro-social rule-breaking. 
• The mediating effect of psychological safety between servant leadership and pro-social rule-breaking is significantly stronger when compassion at work is high. 

📘 Example Application

Imagine a public service agency dealing with an influx of new regulations. An employee identifies that a specific, outdated internal procedure is causing significant delays in assisting citizens, despite new regulations aiming for faster service. Under a servant leader who prioritizes employee well-being and open communication, the employee feels psychologically safe to deviate from the outdated procedure to help citizens more efficiently.

This action, a form of prosocial rule-breaking, is further encouraged if there’s a strong culture of compassion at work, where the employee knows their leader and colleagues understand and support actions taken to alleviate citizen suffering, even if it means bending old rules. The outcome is improved service delivery and a more responsive public agency.

💬 Comment from Dr. Dwi Suryanto

These findings are crucial for leaders, especially those in public service or other rule-bound environments. The study highlights that simply having rules isn’t enough; the leadership style and workplace culture profoundly impact how employees navigate and sometimes strategically break these rules for the greater good.

Understanding the roles of psychological safety and compassion allows leaders to cultivate an environment where employees feel empowered and supported to act in the best interest of the organization and its beneficiaries, even when it requires unconventional approaches. This can lead to more agile and effective organizations.

📌 Takeaway

Servant leadership, by fostering psychological safety and compassion, creates an environment where employees are empowered to break counterproductive rules for the organization’s benefit, ultimately leading to greater efficiency and positive outcomes.