Servant Leadership

Numerous researches have highlighted the important link between leadership behavior and trust within organizations. While the relationship between servant leadership and trust has attracted scholarly interests for many years, the underlying process of how trust in the leader-follower relationships is developed remains unknown. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by empirically testing the linkages between servant leadership behavior and follower's trust in their leaders. (Amold et al.,2001;Brower et al.,2000;Butler,1991;Butler et al.,1999;Dirks and Ferrin, 2002; Gillespie and Mann, 2004; Gomez and Rosen, 2001; Jones and George, 1998; Joseph and Winston,2005; Jung and Avolio, 2000; Mayer and Davis, 1999; Mayer et al., 1995; Podsakoff et al.,1990, 1996; Whitener et al., 1998). Trust in leader is typically defined as the willingness of a subordinate to be vulnerable to the behaviors and actions of his or her leader which are beyond the subordinate's control (Mayer et al., 1995), whereas trust in organization is the general perception of employees on the organization's trustworthiness (Gambetta, 1988).

Servant leadership is a significant predictor of trust with covenantal relationship, responsible morality and transforming influence as the key servant leadership behaviors significantly contributing to followers' trust in their leaders. Relationships built on trust and service is the basis for the influence of servant leadership (Sarkus, 1996; Tatum, 1995). Trust was central to servant leadership since leadership legitimacy begins with trust Greenleaf (1977). While the notion of trust is not exclusively attached to servant leadership and may considered a key element in all leadership models, servant leadership has been particularly considered as strongly associated with trust (De Pree, 1997; Joseph and Winston, 2005; Melrose, 1995; Russell, 2001), that is through servant leader exhibit and translate "their personal integrity into organizational fidelity" (De Pree, 1997).

The subject of trust has been growing in stature and of increasing interest for contemporary organizations as evident in its burgeoning literature (Burke et al., 2007;Dirks and Ferrin, 2002; McEvily et al., 2003a; Sheppard and Tuchinsky, 1996).

Despite the theoretical progress in the area of trust, there is still a dearth of empirical evidence to support the numerous theories that have emerged (McEvily et al., 2003). The visible manifestation of servant leaders' trust on others is akin to the latter by virtue of the leader's willingness to delegate responsibilities and share authority with them (Wilkes,1998).