Abdul Ahad Roshan Saeed, PhD Education, 2022, Supervised by Dr. Ijaz Ahmad Tatlah
The influence of servant leadership style of the department heads on the psychological capital of the faculty at university level
/ Abdul Ahad Roshan Saeed
- Lahore : Division of Education, University of Education, 2022,
- 249 p. CD.
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 xxiv 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.