A multilevel study on servant leadership, job boredom and job crafting

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-level effects of team-level servant leadership on job boredom and the mediating role of job crafting. Cross-level moderating effects of team-level servant leadership were also investigated. Design/methodology/approach – This longitudinal study employed a multilevel design in a sample of 237 employees, clustered into 47 teams. Servant leadership was aggregated to the team-level to examine the effects of shared perceptions of leadership at T1 on individual-level outcome, namely job boredom, at T2. In addition, mediation analysis was used to test whether team-level servant leadership at T1 can protect followers from job boredom at T2 by fostering job crafting at T2. Cross-level moderating effects of team-level servant leadership at T1 on the relation between job crafting at T2 and job boredom at T2 were also modeled. Findings – Job crafting at T2 mediated the cross-level effect of team-level servant leadership at T1 on job boredom at T2. Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest that team-level servant leadership predicts less job boredom by boosting job crafting. Originality/value – This study is the first to assess the effects of servant leadership on job boredom and the mediating role of job crafting. This paper examines job boredom in a multilevel design, thus extending knowledge on its contextual components.