Impact of Servant Leadership on Public Service Motivation of Civil Servants: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam

Servant leadership has been noticeable in the last decade in the leadership literature on account its focus on serving others first. The target of servant leadership is not the organization, but rather the followers and their development and also the ability to motivate others to become servant leaders. Serving leadership has been recognized as a leadership philosophy that addresses ethical concerns, which is linked to ethical leadership. This study aims to investigate the relationship between dimensions of servant leadership and public service motivation of civil servants. Data were collected from civil servants working in public organizations at district level in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam through survey forms. The research hypotheses are tested by factor analysis and regression. The results report that 7 dimensions of servant leadership positively affect public service motivation in the following ascending order: Empowerment, standing back, forgiveness, humility, integrity, accountability, and courage. On the other hand stewardship has an insignificant impact on the role of leading and supervising. Our study contributes to the existing literature on servant leadership as well as public service motivation by throwing light onto a so-far neglected transitional country like Vietnam. Thereby, this study proposes a number of implications for the leaders to improve leadership style to enhance public service motivation of civil servants.