Impact of Servant Leadership on Turnover Intentions in Banking Sector of Karachi Vol. 1, No. 1, 2019
RADS Journal of Business Management
22
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Impact of Servant Leadership on Turnover
Intentions in Banking Sector of Karachi
Jennifer Nerrissa Prakasch*, Muhammad Muzammil Ghayas
Iqra University, Karachi, Pakistan
A B S T R A CT
This research aims to study the impact of Servant Leadership (SL) and its dimensions, namely Organizational
Stewardship (OS), Persuasive Mapping (PM), Emotional Healing (EH), Altruistic Calling (AC) and Wisdom
(WIS) on Turnover Intention (TI). For completion of the research, the data were extracted from 201 employees
of the banking sector. Multiple Regression Analysis was used as the statistical technique. The study suggests
the presence of a significant relationship between servant leadership dimensions and turnover intention. Hence,
it is concluded that servant leadership plays significant role in determining the turnover intentions.
Article info.
Received: June 27, 2019
Accepted: August 22, 2019
Cite this article: Prakasch JN, Ghayas MM. Impact of Servant Leadership on Turnover
Intentions in Banking Sector of Karachi. RADS Journal of Business Management. 2019;
1(1): 22–30.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Funding Source: Nil
Conflict of Interest: Nil
*Address of Correspondence:
jennifer.prakasch@gmail.com
1. INTRODUCTION
The concept of leadership has always been considered as an authoritarian concept as the first thing that comes
under one’s mind while thinking about the word leader is the authority. It is because of this reason that leaders
are always thought to be all powerful and being the center of the power. Transactional leadership seems to be
a perfect match with this age old concept of leadership. Yet twenty first century has brought so many changes
to it that clearly defined the concepts of transformational leadership. Even the liaise for leadership is
understandable as being careless is not a big deal at all. However, the term servant leadership is something that
could not have been thought. It has been unimaginable to even to imagine about the term servant leadership
just 30 years back.
A servant leadership concept developed by Robert Greenleaf in thought-provoking essay in year 1977.
Scholars have adapted the concept of Servant Leadership in their research for analysis by taking Greenleaf’s
(1977) ideas for modifying analysis. Though this idea is mysterious, there seems a sensible credibleness that
has reproduced augmented attention to this concept. The word “Servant” and “Leader” are generally used and
taken as opposites, but Greenleaf (1977) gave these words’ meaning together in a noteworthy way.
Term ‘turnover’ implies that employees’ are permanently leaving to satisfy their will or terminating an
employee – relationship with the organization. Researchers suitably characterized this term and used it for
exchange of employees among the market; between the organizations, employments, and professions; amongst
the circumstances of business jobs as well as joblessness (Abbasi & Hollman, 2000). Turnover intention among
employees signifies a disastrous situation for any business organization. It is because of the fact that on one
hand, the turnover intentions among the employees makes it difficult for the business organizations to carry
Impact of Servant Leadership on Turnover Intentions in Banking Sector of Karachi Vol. 1, No. 1, 2019
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RADS Journal of Business Management
forward its day to day operations and on the other hand it increases the recruitment and training costs. Hence
the turnover intentions among the employees are a serious threat to the business organizations. Therefore, the
businesses are in constant search to find out the ways through which the turnover intentions among their
employees can be reduced.
Service leadership influences employees who meet their basic needs and treat their followers in a reasonable
way (Mayer, Bardes, & Piccolo, 2008). Subsequently, from end to end the process of social exchange explains
that the follower of the servant leaders do not intentionally leave their organization.
As per the social exchange theory, followers can see the leader’s responsibility for their needs and prosperity
as a corresponding reaction one deserves (Blau, 1964). The commitment of the followers and the promise to
remain as an individual of the leader’s team instead of quitting can reflect the “give-back” for a social exchange,
i.e. positive in outcomes (Walumbwa et al., 2010a; Liden, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2004). Hence, the research paper
pursues to explain and clarify the association link among the two variables in the sector i.e., of banking in
Karachi.
1.1. Problem Statement
Since turnover intentions are considered as a vital source of stress for the business organizations, therefore
many researches have been conducted on the topic of turnover intention that consist of both circumstances of
intentionally or unintentionally quitting (Cummann et al., 1979, Cotton et al., 1984, Porter et al., 1973). Some
have found supervision in being a predictor of turnover intentions by concluding it well through their study
(Zahra, Iran, Mir, & Chishti, 2013). Moreover, various researches have been conducted on leadership (Cheng
et al., 2004; Silin, 1976; Westwood, 1997) as well. A few researchers (Dirk, 2011; Gregory Stone, Russell, &
Patterson, 2004) and professional scholars have studied the concept of servant leadership in their research, the
majority of them have followed the intriguing concepts of Greenleaf (1977), on the grounds that this was the
first study that developed the term “Servant Leadership”. Some researchers (Jaramillo, Grisaffe, Chonko, &
Roberts, 2009) have earlier studied both servant leadership and turnover intention together. However, no such
research has been found in this predefined sector, i.e., banking sector of Karachi, therefore the study’s aim is
to explain the association between the two variables.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Theoretical Background
As stated in social exchange theory, workforces tend to establish relationships in the workplace. The theory
suggests, social exchange relationships focus on the obligations, connections and identification of workers
with their leaders, previous research proposed using the organization’s commitment to functionalize the social
exchange relationship of employees with their employer (Bishop & Scott, 2000).
Employees who supposed their leaders as exhibiting qualities of a servant leader were more cooperative
towards helping employees with tasks and interpersonal relationship building difficulties. Secondly, servant
leaders can reduce the withdrawal of employees from the organization by implementing a positive social
exchange that encourages employees to remain in the workplace (Liden et al., 2004; Walumbwa et al., 2010).
For middle-level employees, the feeling of being linked to the organization (that is, their commitment)
depresses their interests when looking for another job. While we tend to consider the pressure on those in
leadership roles, this finding seems to go hand in hand with the theory of social exchange. For example, in
comparison with people who have an economic-based relation (for example, workers), people who have social
exchange relationships are more satisfied with the sacrifices made for the benefit of the co-worker. Therefore,
to the extent that the social exchanges between the middle managers and the organization have been reciprocal,
Impact of Servant Leadership on Turnover Intentions in Banking Sector of Karachi Vol. 1, No. 1, 2019
we tend to think that middle managers decide to “give back” by gradually becoming involved in the
organization and as a result of this commitment, intentions to quit the organization have decreased (Mowday
et al., 1982).
2.2. Servant Leadership
The leadership concept had always been considered as an authoritarian concept as the first thing that comes
under one’s mind while thinking about the word leader is the authority. It is because of this reason that leaders
are always thought to be all powerful and being the center of the power. Transactional leadership seems to be
a perfect match with this age old concept of leadership. Yet twenty first century has brought so many changes
to it that we are able to understand the concepts of transformational leadership as well. Even the liaise for
leadership is understandable as being careless is not a big deal at all. However, the term servant leadership is
something that could not have been thought. It has been unimaginable to even to imagine about the term servant
leadership just 30 years back. The servant leadership concept was a thought-provoking impression developed
by Greenleaf (1977) in an essay. Many scholars have adapted the concept of Servant Leadership in their
research for analysis by taking Greenleaf’s ideas for modifying analysis. Though this idea is mysterious, there
seems a sensible credibleness that has reproduced augmented attention to this concept. The words “Servant”
and a “Leader” both are generally used and thought of as being contradictory in nature, but Greenleaf gave
these words’ meaning together in a noteworthy way. Robert Greenleaf consciously created these words in a
very expressive manner and created the term paradoxical leadership of the servant. Robert Greenleaf stated,
“The servant focuses on others rather than on themselves”.
Another definition, describes servant leadership as “moving away from the use of power and position to serve
others, the influence of being in a position where it can be used for change, modify and inspire those who are
