The influence of servant leadership, trust in leader and thriving on employee creativity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how servant leadership, trust in leader and thriving drive employee creativity. Design/methodology/approach Using a dyadic sample of 48 teams (each team comprising a supervisor and the subordinates under him), the authors investigated the role of servant leadership in predicting employee creativity, the mediating role of trust in leader and interactive role of thriving therein. Findings Findings of the study revealed that servant leaders instilled trust within followers, which acted as a mediator in predicting creativity. Further, thriving was found to act as a moderator that influenced the relationship between trust in leader and employee creativity. Findings also indicated that thriving employees exhibited a greater degree of creative behavior when they trusted their leader. Research limitations/implications Based on these findings, the study draws the attention of managers toward the role of servant leadership, trust in leaders and thriving in promoting employee creativity. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to integrate servant leadership, trust in leader, thriving and creative behavior into a single theoretical model. The study further provides evidence to validate the proposed model in context of predicting employee creativity.