Research purpose: The aim of the study was to empirically validate a theoretical model explicating the structural relationships between servant leadership, affective team commitment and team effectiveness.

Motivation for the study: The increased reliance on teams for production calls for an analysis of the role of follower-focused leadership practices in enhancing team effectiveness.

Research design, approach and method: A non-probability and multicultural sample consisting of 202 primary and secondary school teachers was drawn from 32 schools in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

Main findings: High levels of reliability were found and uni-dimensionality of the subscales was demonstrated through exploratory factor analyses. Good fit with the data was found for the measurement models through confirmatory factor analyses. Structural equation modelling showed a reasonable fit for the structural model. Positive relationships were found amongst servant leadership, team effectiveness and affective team commitment. Standard multiple regression analysis showed that affective team commitment moderated the relationship between servant leadership and team effectiveness.

Practical/managerial implications: The findings emphasise the central role played by servant leadership and affective team commitment in team performance. Servant leadership fosters team effectiveness if employees feel committed to their work team.

Contribution/value-add: The servant leadership style alone may not be a sufficient condition for team effectiveness; other variables, such as affective team commitment, also play a role. The study suggested specific variables that may also combine with leadership to positively influence team effectiveness.

Servant leadership comprises an understanding and practice of leadership that places the good of those who are led above the self-interest of the leader. A servant leader has true commitment to his or her followers and predominantly serves the needs of followers, hence providing vision and empowerment, with service being the main activity of the servant leader (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002; Spears, 2010). Servant leadership therefore has some important implications for team commitment (Dannhauser, 2007).

Whilst influence is generally ‘considered the key element of leadership, servant leadership changes the focus of this influence by emphasizing the ideal of service in the leader-follower relationship’ (Van Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1229). As ‘servant leadership is demonstrated by empowering and developing people; by expressing humility, authenticity, interpersonal acceptance and stewardship; and by providing direction’, followers are likely to feel empowered (Van Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1254). Prior research has demonstrated that followers who are empowered display more commitment; when employees are empowered, they portray a greater level of self-confidence and have a greater sense of being able to influence their work environment in a positive way (Zhu, May & Avolio, 2004).

Whilst the literature on servant leadership and teams is increasing, paucity in research exists in South Africa on the relationships between servant leadership, affective team commitment and team effectiveness. It is also important to note that most of the studies on team effectiveness were carried out in business or revenue generating settings (Afolabi et al., 2009; Dannhauser, 2007), whilst a few studies were undertaken in service-oriented contexts such as educational settings (Bowman, 2005; DuFour, 2001). It is essential to understand team effectiveness in educational settings as it helps to shed some light on the nature of the school as a workplace, as well as on how the quality of interactions in schools affect teachers’ performance. In a school workplace where there is interaction of a high quality amongst members, teachers will commit themselves to work harder and make their work experience more meaningful (Turan, 2002). According to DuFour (2001), principals who are inspired by the servant leadership role focus on developing a school climate and culture in which teachers share a common vision and a collective commitment to the team or school. School principals identified as servant leaders were rated highly by their teachers, compared to other school principals who use other leadership styles (Taylor, Martin, Hutchinson & Jinks, 2007). When the school principal (servant leader) has served the teachers’ (followers’) needs through the provision of a clear vision and guidance, teachers, in turn, are likely to act as servant leaders or trail blazers for students by removing obstacles that stand in students’ paths (Bowman, 2005).

Owing to the complex nature of human behaviour, which is a fundamental part of teamwork, researchers have experienced multiple problems in defining the boundaries of team effectiveness and operationalising this construct (Pina et al., 2008). According to the literature, one can distinguish between two types of models regarding team effectiveness. The first is a uni-dimensional model that uses objective measures of team performance, or the degree of real productivity. The second type is multidimensional and is based on the assumption that team effectiveness depends on several other variables apart from performance or productivity (Pina et al., 2008).

Ross et al. (2008) defined team effectiveness by evaluating five broad principles contributing to team effectiveness. These principle variables used to evaluate team effectiveness were: performance, behaviour, attitude, team member style and corporate culture. Performance comprises the extent to which the output conforms to the customer’s standard of quality, quantity, and timeliness. To ensure and increase team performance, there should be a compelling direction for the team’s work. Compelling direction refers to whether the team has clear, challenging and consequential goals that focus on the outcomes to be accomplished (Hackman, 2002).

Behaviour refers to the way in which team members act and react to one another and circumstances, as well as perceived behavioural control (Ross et al., 2008). Attitude concerns team members’ feelings of psychological safety, willingness to cooperate, reception and giving of feedback, and accepting responsibility. Team members’ individual characteristics (e.g. assertiveness and responsiveness) also affect the effectiveness of the team as a whole. Lastly, corporate culture refers to the business climate in which the team operates, which has a significant influence that can either enhance or diminish team effectiveness (Ross et al., 2008). A supporting organisational culture refers to whether the team receives adequate resources, rewards, information, training, intergroup cooperation and support needed by team members (Hackman, 2002).

Team effectiveness is defined broadly as group-produced outputs and in terms of the consequences that the team has for its members (Piccoli et al., 2004). Irving and Longbotham (2007) have defined team effectiveness as the attainment of common objectives or goals through the coordination of team members’ activities. Piccoli et al. (2004) further explained that for teams to be classified as effective, they need to produce high quality and levels of outputs in the form of goods and services. Team members should also find the working experience satisfactory. Thus, team effectiveness should measure the output of teams, the state of the group as a performing unit, as well as the impact of the group on its individual members.

Servant leadership is virtuous, highly ethical and based on the premise that service to followers is at the heart of leadership (Sendjaya, Sarros & Santora, 2008). Servant leaders also demonstrate the qualities of vision, caring for other people, altruism, humility, hope, integrity, trustworthiness and interpersonal acceptance (Van Dierendonck, 2011). It can be deduced from the different conceptualisations of servant leadership that service to followers and valuing followers are the basic tenets of a servant leader. If team members perceive that their leader really cares about their wellness, they will become more committed to their teams.

Servant leadership distinctively specifies the combined motivation to be a leader with the need to serve as the foundation of a leader’s behaviour. A team leader needs to be goal-directed, be able to handle different personality types within the team, create commitment, give recognition and enhance cohesiveness amongst team members. All of these aspects are incorporated in servant leadership (Van Dierendonck, 2011). Servant leadership is concerned about followers and creates conditions that enhance followers’ well-being, thereby facilitating a shared vision (Van Dierendonck, 2011). Servant leadership adds the component of social responsibility to serve other people to leadership behaviour, as well as dedication to followers’ needs and interests as opposed to their own (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002). Servant leaders focus on follower outcomes in terms of personal growth and development (Van Dierendonck, 2011). All these qualities would further contribute to a positive team climate.

The inspirational and moral component of servant leadership is important for the development of teams. Team members are more likely to work collaboratively in the achievement of organisational goals if they have inspirational and moral confidence in their leader (Van Dierendonck, 2011). Although numerous studies on the importance of leadership in team performance are available (Gupta, Huang & Niranjan, 2010; Kuo, 2004; Morgeson et al., 2010), the role that servant leadership plays in the effective functioning of teams has not been studied extensively. In this regard, Dannhauser (2007) could not identify a significant relationship between servant leadership and team effectiveness in the South African automobile industry. Irving and Longbotham (2007) examined the relationship between servant leadership and team effectiveness in the US division of an international non-profit organisation, reporting a significant positive relationship between the two constructs. A study conducted by Hu and Liden (2011) also provided support for the existence of a positive relationship between servant leadership and team effectiveness. These findings were further confirmed by Transcritti (2010) in a recent study of church pastors in the US state of Ohio. On the basis of the above theoretical arguments and empirical findings, it was postulated that servant leadership has a positive effect on team effectiveness.

Little is known about the relationship between servant leadership and team commitment. Servant leadership can help organisations discover how to maximise their team performance by increasing resilience and productive time, whilst, at the same time, minimising negative factors such as exhaustion and absenteeism. When individuals feel cared for they will respond with greater loyalty towards their leader, feel compelled to generate solutions and commit to team and organisational goals (Ostrem, 2006).

In investigating the respective relationships between servant leadership, follower trust and team commitment within the South African context, Dannhauser (2007) revealed a significant positive relationship between servant leadership and team commitment. This result concurs with findings at the individual level of analysis, in which the perceived support of the leader has been documented to correlate positively with employees’ commitment to the organisation (Bagraim, 2003; Boshoff, Van Wyk, Hoole & Owen, 2002). As affective commitment appears to be the most widely used component of commitment for predictive purposes, it can therefore be inferred that fostering affective team commitment through servant leadership is likely to contribute to team effectiveness. Based on the above arguments and findings, it was postulated that servant leadership has a positive impact on affective team commitment.

Teams owe part of their success to the strength of bonds linking group members with one another, such as team identification and cohesion, coupled with honest communication, strong team commitment to the shared task and a willingness to put the needs of the team before individual interests (Forsyth, 2010). Members of cohesive teams are committed to their teams, with team commitment being indicated by the degree of attachment to the team, a long-term orientation to the team and intentions to remain within the group (Arriaga & Agnew, 2001; Forsyth, 2010). As team cohesion and team member identification increases, so does team commitment (Johnson & Johnson, 2006). More specifically, leaders develop affective commitment, which represents the extent to which members become identified with, emotionally attached to, and involved with the team and other members. Given that affective commitment has been documented as consistently linked to performance, it is expected that it will foster team effectiveness. Hammond (2008) has confirmed a positive relationship between affective team commitment and team effectiveness on a sample made up of participants from 44 engineering, manufacturing and sustainment teams within one of the largest companies in the USA. Based on the arguments presented above, it was postulated that affective team commitment, in turn, has a positive influence on team effectiveness.

FIGURE 1: The conceptual structural model.

H₀₁: RMSEA < 0.05
H_a1: RMSEA > 0.05

Where RMSEA is the root mean square error of approximation.

In order to test the validity of the proposed relationships in the structural model, the following specific research hypotheses were tested:

• Hypothesis 1: A significant positive relationship exists between servant leadership (ξ₁) and team effectiveness (η₂) (H_02: γ₂₁ = 0; H_a2: γ₂₁ > 0).
• Hypothesis 2: A significant positive relationship exists between servant leadership (ξ₁) and affective team commitment (η₁) (H_03: γ₁₁ = 0; H_a3: γ₁₁ > 0).
• Hypothesis 3: A significant positive relationship exists between affective team commitment (η₁) and team effectiveness (η₂) (H_04: β₂₁ = 0; H_a4: β₂₁ > 0).

The sample consisted of 137 female (68.2%) and 64 male (31.8%) employees. The majority (60.2%) fell in the age category between 30 and 50 years. The ethnic distribution in the sample was: Black respondents (24.9%), Coloured respondents (56.2%) and White respondents (18.9%). The home language of the majority was Afrikaans (73.6%), with a minority speaking their home languages in Xhosa (18.4%) and English (5.0%). Regarding their highest level of qualification, the majority of respondents had a degree or diploma (93.0%).

Servant leadership: Servant leadership was measured using the servant leadership questionnaire (SLQ) (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). The SLQ was formulated in an attempt to develop a scale that captures the 11 characteristics of servant leadership. Barbuto and Wheeler (2006), through factor analysis, found only five factors underlying 23 items. Reliabilities for the self and rater versions of the scale ranged from 0.68 to 0.87 and 0.82 to 0.92, respectively. The rater version of the scale yielded the following coefficient alphas: altruistic calling (α = 0.82), emotional healing (α = 0.91), wisdom (α = 0.92), persuasive mapping (α = 0.83) and organisational stewardship (α = 0.83) (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). Example items included: ‘this person goes above and beyond the call of duty to meet my needs’ (altruistic calling), ‘this person is talented at helping me to heal emotionally’ (emotional healing), ‘this person is good at anticipating the consequences of decisions’ (wisdom), ‘this person is very persuasive’ (persuasive mapping) and ‘this person believes that the organisation needs to play a moral role in society’ (organisational stewardship).

Affective team commitment: Team commitment was assessed using a six-item affective team commitment subscale adapted from the team commitment survey (TCS) developed by Bennet and Durkin (2000). The TCS is a modification of Allen and Meyer’s (1990) organisational commitment scale in which the referent of commitment is changed from the organisation to the team, as suggested by Becker and Billing (1993). A high internal reliability coefficient was found for the affective commitment scale (α = 0.98). Example affective team commitment scale items included: ‘this team has great personal meaning for me’.

Team effectiveness questionnaire: An adapted 11-item team effectiveness questionnaire (TEQ) developed by Larson and LaFasto (2001) was used to measure team effectiveness. The TEQ is a self-reporting scale and is based on Larson and LaFasto’s (2001) earlier grounded theory work that attempted to identify the essential characteristics of effective teams. The Cronbach alpha coefficient for this questionnaire is 0.85, which also was found when Dannhauser (2007) administered the TEQ on a South African sample. Example items included: ‘achieving the team goal is a higher priority than any individual objective’ and ‘the team is given the resources it needs to get the job done’.

Structural equation modelling: Structural equation modelling (SEM) helps to explain the patterns of covariances found amongst the observed variables in terms of the relationships hypothesised by the measurement and structural models. The measurement model describes how each latent variable is operationalised by corresponding manifest indicators, whilst the structural model describes the relationships between the latent variables themselves (Diamantopoulos & Siguaw, 2000).

Evaluating the measurement models: Item and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) were performed to identify any poor items (i.e. factor loadings < 0.30; complex items) of the questionnaires used in the study using SPSS version 20.0 (2011). The application of the eigenvalues-greater-than-unit rule was used to identify the number of factors that underlie the observed correlation matrix for each of the subscales. EFA was also used to test for uni-dimensionality of the scales. After deletion of the poor items, LISREL version 8.80 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 2006) was used to perform confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) on the refined scales. Once a satisfactory fit was achieved, any item with an inadequate completely standardised factor loading (< 0.30) was deleted (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson & Tatham, 2006).

FIGURE 2: The scatter plot of the interaction effect of affective team commitment on servant leadership and team effectiveness.

With regard to the fit of the model, the GFI indices indicate that both the measurement and the structural models produced reasonable fit. The results imply that the items measured the dimensions (latent variables) as postulated, as well as supported the theoretical model underlying the postulated relationships between the latent variables.

Servant leadership was found to have a positive effect on team effectiveness. This finding is consistent with results obtained by Hu and Liden (2011), Irving and Longbotham (2007) and Transcritti (2010), which reported a positive relationship between servant leadership and team effectiveness. However, this finding is not consistent with findings from Dannhauser (2007) on a South African sample. The differences can be explained in terms of the nature of the samples. Dannhauser’s (2007) study was conducted on revenue-generating teams in the automobile industry, whilst the sample used in the present study was in the service-oriented education sector.

A positive relationship was found between servant leadership and affective team commitment. These findings are consistent with the findings reported by Dannhauser (2007). The Dannhauser study used the three-component model of commitment (i.e. affective, normative and continuance), although the construct was collapsed to two factors in response to the exploratory factor analyses output for the team commitment scales used in the study.

According to the findings of the present study, there is no significant relationship between affective team commitment and team effectiveness. This contradicts the previous findings on the positive relationship between the two constructs (Hammond, 2008; Salas, Goodwin & Burke, 2008). Affective team commitment might not have a direct influence on team effectiveness, but rather an indirect effect through moderators such as organisational trust, justice and organisational citizenship behaviour. The question also invariably arises as to the extent to which this result is caused by the inability to successfully operationalise the latent variable of team effectiveness. Although the present study failed to confirm a mediating effect of affective team commitment on the relationship between servant leadership and team effectiveness, affective team commitment has been found to be a significant moderating variable of this relationship. Hence, the ability of a servant leader to purposefully develop positive feelings of nurturance, service and employee empowerment should be powerful enough to appeal to the employees’ feelings of identification with the team through enhanced affective team commitment in order to positively influence team effectiveness. In other words, the servant leader should relate with the employees in a way that enhances employees’ attachment with the team for effective team functioning to occur (Hammond, 2008; Ostren, 2006).

Most of the participants were drawn from the African and Coloured ethnic groups (> 80%) and only a small proportion was White, which reduced the generalisability of the findings. The sample consisted only of teachers and so could be seen as being rather homogenous; therefore, more heterogeneous demographics should be represented in samples used in future studies.

Collecting research data at a single point in time rather than long-term and continued measurement (e.g. longitudinally over a period of time) may have exacerbated same-source or common method biases. Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1994) have posited that a longitudinal design could reduce this potential influence. They stated two further advantages that a longitudinal study would have over cross-sectional studies such as the one reported in this study. These include the following:

• It would permit better assessment of the causal priority of servant leadership, affective team commitment, and team effectiveness.
• It would allow examination of the longer-term effects of servant leadership and affective team commitment on team effectiveness.

Future research should consider the possibility of expanding the theoretical model by formally incorporating additional latent variables, such as cultural experiences, emotional intelligence, organisational justice, trust, empowerment and organisational citizenship behaviour, in an attempt to explain additional variance in team effectiveness. Furthermore, greater psychometric refining of the measuring instruments used in this study is required.

The study was conducted in an educational setting which is usually service oriented, whilst business settings are revenue generating. Future studies should therefore examine whether service-oriented and revenue teams are comparable. The treatment of each school as comprising a team had its own weakness. In larger schools, between 30 and 75 teachers may comprise various phases (foundation phase, intermediate phase and senior phase). The way these sub-teams function may be different from how the broader school team works; foundation phase teachers might work together much more efficiently than those in the intermediate phase. Furthermore, future studies should also consider using larger sample sizes to ensure that the eventual sample size is not smaller than 200, which is the minimum sample size recommended when using SEM for testing hypothesised models.

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