Leading by serving: How can servant leadership influence teacher emotional well-being?

Abstract

Owing to the unprecedented challenges brought about by the global pandemic and neoliberal reforms, it is critical for school leaders to help teachers navigate through chaos and stay emotionally healthy. From a sample of 449 primary and secondary school teachers in mainland China, we constructed a multi-mediator model to explore the direct effect of servant leadership on teachers’ emotional well-being, as well as the mediating effects of teacher recognition and emotion regulation. The results reveal that servant leadership is positively related to teachers’ emotional well-being directly and indirectly through reappraisal and recognition of social esteem. The findings also indicate that the mediating effects of suppression and recognition for care are not significant. The implications for the field and future directions are discussed.