Leadership is an absolute necessity for the university. Leadership is needed to promote
the effectiveness of the Higher Education Institution (HEI). One of the leadership
approaches in this regard is Servant leadership which has a huge relevance in Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs). It has the power of followers’ development in ethical,
rational, emotional, relational, and spiritual dimensions. Servant Leadership is also
considered as the source of developing the competitive advantage construct i.e.,
Psychological Capital with its individual components; the HERO: Hope, Efficacy,
Resilience and Optimism. Servant Leadership is connected with Psychological Capital
rationally, conceptually, empirically and theoretically.
This study was conducted to find out the influence of the Servant Leadership of the
Department Heads on the Psychological Capital of the faculty members in a public
sector University, KP, Pakistan. In order to accomplish the main objective of this
research endeavor in a smooth and timely manner, it was further divided into sub-
objectives with respective sub research questions and sub research hypotheses. The
mixed-method convergent parallel design was utilized having descriptive design with
survey strategy and case study for quantitative and qualitative part of the study
respectively. All the faculty members (N=300) were selected as a census study for
quantitative part of the study. The sample for the qualitative part of the study was
subjected to saturation point which was reached at n=30.
The adopted questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data while interview
protocol developed from the adopted questionnaires was used to collect qualitative
data. The analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic
analysis for quantitative and qualitative data respectively. After separate analysis, the
results from two data strands were integrated using joint display to reveal the
convergence and divergence for better interpretation of the phenomenon.
The Servant Leadership was found to be exercised more by the department’s heads in
its four dimensions; Behaving Ethically, Development, Relation Building and Wisdom.
The Psychological Capital level of the faculty members was high. The level of the
dimensions of Psychological Capital; Self-Efficacy, Resilience and Optimism was high
while hope was moderate. The Servant Leadership was found to be exercised less by
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the heads of the department in its three dimensions; Emotional Healing, Empowerment
and Pioneers. The Servant Leadership was found to be positively and significantly
correlated with Psychological Capital. The dimensions of the Servant Leadership were
also found to be positively and significantly correlated with dimensions of
Psychological Capital. Emotional Healing and Self-efficacy were found to have
insignificant correlation. This was in divergence with qualitative findings which
revealed that Emotional Healing and Self-efficacy are positively related.
The Servant Leadership of the department heads was found to have significant and
positive influence on the Psychological Capital of the faculty members. The dimensions
of the Servant Leadership were also found to have significant and positive influence on
the Psychological Capital except Relation Building which was found to have significant
but negative influence. While Emotional Healing was found to have insignificant
influence on the Psychological Capital. This was in divergence with qualitative findings
which revealed that Emotional Healing and Relation Building have a positive influence
on the Psychological Capital of the faculty members.
Increase in Servant Leadership style of the department heads leads to increase in
Psychological Capital of the faculty-members. Surprisingly, the quantitative findings
revealed that Emotional Healing and Self-efficacy were not related but Qualitative
findings revealed the depth from respondents and the two sub-dimensions were actually
related. Unexpectedly, the Emotional Healing and Relation Building predicted the
Psychological Capital significantly but negatively. The qualitative findings further
explains that these two dimensions actually had a positive influence on the
Psychological Capital.
Overall, it was revealed that Servant Leadership is relevant and desirable at higher
education as perceived by the faculty members. Leaders play a vital role in
enhancement and development of the Psychological Capital of the followers. Three
factors namely University related factors, Leadership related factors and Personal
factors also influence the Psychological Capital of the faculty members. The theoretical
and practical implications of the study were presented accordingly along with the
suggestions for future research.