Testing turnover intentions and organizational justice on servant leadership: a validation of the servant leadership survey scale in sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose - Servant leadership, a form of holistic leadership, has been primarily explored in Western cultures. Consequently, there is a lack of understanding on whether servant leadership style is transferable to other cultures, posing a scientific but also ethical challenge in the leadership literature. The purpose of this study is to validate a servant leadership scale (Van Dierendonck and Nuijten, 2011) in the sub-Saharan region (specifically in Uganda) in the health care context. Furthermore, with the aim of improving quality of patient care, it explores the impact servant leadership has on organizational justice and employees' turnover intentions. Design/methodology/approach - The cross-sectional study gathered data from 13 public Regional Referral Hospitals in Uganda. After ethical approval, self-administered surveys were distributed in the 13 survey locations. The survey used standardized scales to measure servant leadership, organizational justice and employee turnover intentions. A total of 355 respondents completed the survey. Findings - Results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported six of the eight factors of the servant leadership scale. Furthermore, regression analysis showed a significant relation between servant leadership and organizational justice (r = 0.678; p < 0.01) and a negative relation between servant leadership and employee turnover intentions (r = -0.139; p < 0.01). Originality/value - This study brings an important contribution to the functionality of the servant leadership scale in a non-Western context. It also provides insight into the positive impact servant leadership style can have on health workers and patient care.