In the present focused and complex business conditions, managerial settings have turned out to be more unique and unpredictable than any time in recent years (Chughtai, 2016). Solid supervision and direction are basic to guaranteeing institutions’ performance, and workers’ commitment and trust (Ding et al., 2012). A vital key variable of any work performance and loyalty is a decent administration. Indeed, even the best committed workers benefit from help, direction, consolation and course. At the point when good administration is missing the capability of each organization performance and worker included is hindered (Dennis & Bocarnea, 2005; Shelly & Gilson, 2004). A leader’s behavior is considered a father figure in building trust, performance and loyalty of workers in organization (Luu, 2016).

Studies have shown that servant leaders’ behavior impacted the organizational performance, workers loyalty and trust. As in the study of Chughtai (2016), mentioned that supportive leadership model enhances institution performance, employees’ commitment and trust. Gong et. al. (2009), also mentioned that transactional and transformational leadership model impacts performance and commitment at work. Ding et al. (2012), indicated that servant leadership was positively related with workers loyalty and commitment which in turn increases institute performance.

Notwithstanding, this study tries to give a novel attitude toward the administration servant behavior relationship by exploring its impact on organizational performance. There are key grounds to anticipate that servant behavior model to enhance performance, employees’ loyalty and commitment (Van & Rook, 2010). In spite of having the capacity to enhance organizational performance, no study to date has explored the impacts of servant leader’s behavior on organizational performance, employees’ commitment and trust. Consequently, the point of this study was to test the servant leadership model that joins servant behaviors to business performance.

This research is novel in the sense that it for the first time has used SLQ model of Barbuto and Wheeler (2006), in different universities of Peshawar, to know the perception of teaching staff regarding the department heads, principals and coordinators servant leader behaviors.

Servant leadership

This philosophy has defined as quality-leadership which improves the personal growth of workers and subordinates to enable them to take decisions at their own discretions and to put their interest as top priority (Rimes, 2011). Servant leadership behaviors trigger team work, coordination, team

spirit, trust, accountability and responsibility at work (Jaramillo et al., 2015; Van & Rook, 2010). Three dimensions of this model are significant, namely; wisdom, emotional healing and persuasiveness (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). Wisdom is the ability of rational decision-making power by the servant leader to study the general and task environment of the work place (Ding et al., 2012; McCann et al., 2014). Emotional healing is that facet of servant model which support the workers morally and ethically by reducing stress level and mental shocks (Searle & Barbuto, 2010). The persuasive ability of the servant leaders encourages employees to motivate and do to work willingly and enthusiastically (McCann et al., 2014; Luu, 2016). Servant leader model is a unique because it stresses to improve performance, individual and group commitment and trust and to enable them to remain committed with organization (Rimes, 2011). Servant leader model behaviors play dominant role in enhancing workers commitment and reciprocally performance of the organization (Carter, 2012).

Organizational Performance

Performance can be defined as it is a full-time commitment and trust from the side of workers to achieve the desired goals of the organization. It is attempt by the administration to accomplish organization goals as given in the policies and mission (Anderson, 2005). The researchers trust that it is assume a predominant job in organization advancement and keep up its supportability. (Liden et al., 2008). As mentioned by researchers that performance can be formed form motivation, development, dedication, quality, efficiency, innovation, empowerment and recognition (Amen et al., 2014). Performance is the result of loyalty of employees’ and always results as advocacy (Ding et al., 2012). A large portion of the western researchers have begun work on servant leadership model, business performance and employees’ devotion connection (Luu, 2016). Servant behavior with extraordinary contributes positive association with worker and this upgrades their dedication institute performance. (Bettencourt et al., 2001).

Servant leader behaviors and organizational performance

Workers loyalty has a significant connection with customer loyalty as both are the results of good and sound administration and which reciprocally increases organizational performance (Wang et al., 2009). Performance is the composition of workers motivation, commitment, quality, trust, development, efficiency and care regarding employees (Jaramillo et al., 2009). There is positive impact of servant model behavior with organizational performance and employee’s commitment as mentioned by Liden et al. (2008), in their study. Care of workers by providing secure environment, stress free work place, recognition, building good relations with employees, giving them priorities in decision making not only enhance workers trust on organization but also increase effectiveness and performance of the organization (Hat & Thompson, 2007; Wang et al., 2009). Anderson (2005), have also identified that servant leadership behaviors not only create sense of responsibility but also increase performance and employees’ commitment and advocacy.

Conceptual Model

H1. There is positive impact of servant leadership on performance

H2. Wisdom has positive impact on performance

H3. There is positive link between emotional healing and performance

H4. Persuasive mapping has positive impact on performance

Population

Population is that area of the study form where the researcher wants to develop the sample size and to further examine that sample. Four universities of Peshawar are the population of this study. The total number of faculty member in these four universities was 800 approx. There are 16 universities in the district Peshawar, 7 public sectors and 8 private sectors. The total numbers of teaching staff in these institutes are 2300 approximately.

Respondents

The objective of this study was to explore the association between servant leadership behavior model with institution performance, workers loyalty and commitment. For this purpose, teaching faculty four universities in the district of Peshawar was the population. As mentioned before the total numbers of teaching staff in four universities are 800. For this study sample size was taken 120 teaching staff. To know the perception of teaching staff regarding servant leadership behaviors a pre-established questionnaire was distributed among the teaching members. Simple random sampling technique was used to collect data from the respondents. The sample size was determined with the help of sample size formula given by Krejcie and Morgan (1970), and also mentioned by Sekeran (2010). Reliability is an important part of any instrument, so it was assessed with the help of Alpha measurement. All the instruments reliability was good and acceptable range.

Measurement

Measurement plays a vital role in social sciences research. It is important to study the perception of the respondents and to get rational responses. For this study SLQ by Barbuto and Wheeler (2006), was applied for servant leadership behavior, which consists of 23 items with acceptable reliability of .72 to .83, while for organizational performance Katou and Budhwar (2010), questionnaire was used to assess dimensions of perceived performance. It consisted 11 items with reliability score between 0.71 to 0.78. It was also important to check for questionnaire face and content validity, and therefore all the questionnaires were developed by taking expert opinions from the field experts prior its distribution between teaching staff of the concerned institutes.

Table 1. Questionnaire Details

Respondents’ summary

The average ages of the teaching staff between 30 to 45 years. All teaching staff was highly qualified: Master 5, M Phil/MS 70, and Doctorate 20. Teaching staff title: lecturers 25, assistant professors 40, associate professors 20 and professors 10. Male staff was 72 and female staff 23.

Validity of the instruments

All the items’ reliability was good. It was for SLQ .72 to .83, and for OP .71 to .78. Convergent validity was also assessed with the help of factor loading through SPSS 23. The results achieved showed that the instruments were also convergent valid. It was .62 and greater from the standard value of .50, this value showed that the instrument was convergent valid. For discriminant validity the values also extracted and showed the instrument was also discriminant reliable.

Hypotheses Test

The hypotheses developed were tested with the help of multiple regressions using SPSS 23. To achieve best results analysis of variance, t test and beta value was assessed. The main objective of this study was to find out the relationship between servant leadership behavior model with organizational performance. R square was also found to know the exact relation between the variables. To know the model fit f test also calculated with the help of model fit summary in analysis. The value of R square was 0.71 which showed a strong relation between the variables. Similarly, the f test showed 132.21 with 0.000 significant. It showed that the model of the study which was proposed is good fit to the data.

a. Dependent Variable: Organization Performance (OP)

a. Dependent Variable: OP

a. Dependent Variable: OP

a. Dependent Variable: OP

Table 2 presents the results of the first hypothesis. As it was supposed that there is positive impact of servant leadership behavior model with performance in hypothesis 1. The results of hypothesis 1 shows positive relationship between two variables with significant value of t and p < 0.05, therefore this hypothesis accepted. The beta value of SL with OP is strong (.71). It was also assumed that there is positive relationship between wisdom and performance in hypothesis 2. As shown in table 3 that all the values of beta, t value and significance and are in acceptable range and the data supported hypothesis 2, that there is positive relationship between the variables, because all the values (beta = .561 with t =11.71 and p< 0.05) are all acceptable. It was also proposed that emotional healing has positive impact on performance. As the results show in table 4 above, that emotional healing beta is .540 with t value is 9.01 and p< 0.05 these shows that this hypothesis also acceptable and all values are in their acceptable range. Hence hypothesis 3 is supported by the data. It was also hypothesized that persuasive mapping has positive impact on performance. The data shows in table 5, beta value is .492, with t value 11.32 and p< 0.05 and therefore, this hypothesis also accepted. From the above results it is cleared that all the elements of servant leader behaviors have positive impact on organizational performance.

It is cleared from the above findings that all elements of servant leaders’ behavior have positive impact on institute performance of all four universities in Peshawar. The teaching staff showed their interest in all of the elements of the servant leader behavior model. To have more loyal staff and effectiveness of the organization, the universities teaching staff showed their opinion that the principals of the institutes should possess all the qualities of servant leader.

The ability of wisdom, emotional healing and persuasive mapping are the main predictor of the staff commitment, trust and organization performance. As mentioned before that wisdom is the core competency of the servant leader to have rational thinking and decision power.

Emotional healing not release staff from stress but help them in hardship and mental shocks. Similarly, persuasive mapping motivates workers to remain loyal and committed to the task. The principals and head of the universities should have all these qualities to maintain loyal and committed teaching faculty and to enhance performance of the universities. The results of the study also supported the works of other researchers in different population they are: Anderson (2005), Carter, (2012), Barbuto and Wheeler (2008) Rimes, (2011), McCann et al. (2014), Ding et al. (2012), and Russell and Stone (2002).

If the heads of the institutes want to have loyal and committed teaching staff and to increase the performance, they have not only to develop servant leader behaviors but also to improve those behaviors which are more positively related with performance and loyalty.

The workers loyalty and organizational performance problem can be managed properly in all universities in Peshawar if servant leader behaviors model is properly implemented and promoted. Total four hypotheses were developed. Data was collected from 95 faculty members working in different universities of Peshawar. To test the hypotheses multiple regressions was applied. The results showed positive association between the variables. All the elements of servant leaders’ behavior were the important predictors of increase performance. The data supported all the developed hypotheses.

Hypothesis one, SL impact on OP was strong as showed in table 2 the beta value was .71 with t value in acceptable range and p <0.005 (0.000). Similarly, hypothesis two also supported by data. Wisdom was important predictor of performance with beta value 0.561 with t value greater than 1.97 and p<0.005(0.001). Hypothesis third was also proved and supported as emotional healing was the second strong predictor of institute performance with beta 0.540 with t value greater than acceptable standard and p<0.005 (0.001). the last hypothesis four was also accepted as persuasive mapping was the third good predictor of performance and commitment as the result showed beta value was 0.491 with good t value and p<0.005 (0.000). The model summary for f test showed that the model was good fit to the data as supposed.

As the findings showed that there is positive relationship between wisdom, emotional healing and persuasive mapping with performance and commitment in the teaching staff of four universities in Peshawar. The universities heads, principals, coordinators and other senior teaching staff at administrative level should develop servant leader behaviors to retain teaching staff and become more committed and loyal to the students and colleges, thus it will increase overall performance of the institutes. The heads of the universities should promote servant leadership model by arranging different seminars, conferences, debates and develop special lectures, courses and trainings. Training to teaching staff in this behalf can have good impact on students.

Wisdom ability of the principals and other senior staff can develop a good atmosphere and they can build good image in mind of teaching faculty. The teaching staff can learn and inspire from the wisdom behavior of the principals and senior members. They will be more loyal and will have strong affiliation and trust with universities and increase their performance.

Emotional healing ability of heads and principals can not only reduce the stress level in staff members while make good relations with them and the staff will be more loyal and committed. Persuasive mapping element of servant leader model is also one of the important predictors of teaching staff commitment and organizational performance. If the heads of universities want teaching staff should be more loyal and committed, they should develop such policies which can encourage and persuade the teaching faculty towards their personal benefits as well as towards departments and students benefits.

Further studies should focus on extending sample size by taking more universities and colleges in district such government general colleges of male and female and other private colleges in Peshawar region. The results of this study cannot be generalized as few universities were taken as sample size. To have more generalized effect the study population should be extended, and more behaviors of servant leadership should also be included in the future research.