Servant leadership and civil servants’ service attitude: The role of basic needs satisfaction

• Mei Sun

  Huazhong University of Science and Technology

• Zhixia Chen

  Huazhong University of Science and Technology

• Qing Yang

  SIPPR Engineering Group, Zhengzhou

We explored the effect of servant leadership on service attitude to understand its mediation mechanism, on the basis of self-determination theory. We used valid, reliable scales to measure servant leadership and basic needs satisfaction, and a self-designed scale to measure service attitude among 160 public servant–citizen paired dyads from the Chinese Government Affairs Center. Results show that servant leadership had a positive influence on service attitude, and that the basic needs of autonomy and competence played mediating roles, but the basic need of relatedness did not. Our results affirm self-determination theory and empirically show the different roles of psychological needs satisfaction. Future research prospects and implications for civil service reforms are discussed.

1. Mei Sun, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
   College of Public Administration
2. Zhixia Chen, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
   College of Public Administration

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