The Impacts of the Servant Leadership on the Innovative Work Behaviors: Looking at the Role of Public Service Motivation and Employee Engagement

This study examines the effect of servant leadership, public service motivation, and employee engagement on the state civil apparatus's innovative work behavior. The data were collected by distributing a questionnaire to 201 government officials in Indonesia. The results showed that there was no significant and positive effect of servant leadership on innovative work behavior and employee engagement. However, servant leadership significantly and positively affected public service motivation. Public service motivation fully mediates variables in the relationship between servant leadership and innovative work behavior. Meanwhile, employee engagement showed a partial mediating effect between public service motivation and innovative work behavior. It showed that public service and employee engagement directly affect innovative work behavior. The implication of this research shows that innovation behavior can be improved directly by increasing public service motivation and employee engagement. Therefore, public service motivation should be the key decisional factor in the government officials' recruitment process because public service motivation is closely related to employees' mindsets that will affect their characters and work attitudes such as employee engagement.