ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1564142
From Leadership Humility to Customer Satisfaction: A Study of Employee Engagement in the Chinese Service Industry
Provisionally accepted
- Dankook University, Yongin, Republic of Korea
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Purpose – The study proposes to integrate Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to study Humble Leadership (HL) impact on Employee engagement, Service Performance and Customer satisfaction in the Chinese service industry. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative approach used purposive sampling, including 485 participants from organizations in the Chinese service industry. The data was further processed and tested through a PLS-SEM procedure to check the hypothesised relationships. Findings – Results of the study prove that leadership humility (LHU; β = 0.224, p < 0.001), relational empowerment (REM; β = 0.186, p < 0.001), and psychological safety (PSA; β = 0.138, p = 0.003) could be identified as critical antecedents of employee engagement (EEN). Additionally, autonomy support (AUS; β = 0.135, p = 0.001), competence development (CDE; β = 0.345, p < 0.001), and relatedness fulfilment (REF; β = 0.126, p < 0.001) significantly influence engagement positively. Moreover, employee engagement (β = 0.757, p < 0.001) has a profound impact on service performance, which in turn dramatically affects customer satisfaction (β = 0.477, p < 0.001). The study confirms employee engagement (β = 0.406, p < 0.001) as a driver of service performance and customer satisfaction within the service industry context. Practical Implications - The study results propose practical suggestions for managers and leaders in the service industry as Organizations should develop humble leadership behaviours, empowering, and creating psychological safety while satisfying employees' needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Originality/value - The study helps in defining humble leadership as it integrates LMX and SDT frameworks in the context of the Chinese service industry. The study thus provides empirical evidence as to how humble leadership and employee engagement jointly work in the direction of better service performance and customer outcomes, consequently contributing to the literature on both leadership and service management.
Keywords: Humble leadership, Employee engagement, service performance, customersatisfaction, Leadership humility
Received: 21 Jan 2025; Accepted: 26 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yim and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sanghyuk Yim, zhangxinyang202409@163.com
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