How and when servant leaders foster employee work meaningfulness

Understanding how and when leaders foster employee work meaningfulness is theoretically and practically important. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of servant leadership and person-environment fit, we propose that servant leaders, with an emphasis on putting followers first, would help employees fit into their job (i.e., person-job fit) and subsequently promote their work meaningfulness. Moreover, we argue that working under servant leaders who possess high rather than low prototypicality would make employees more likely find congruence with their jobs and experience more work meaningfulness as a result. A full-time working sample from China evidenced our hypotheses. Our findings provide important contributions to extant management literature and carry vital practical implications for organizations to develop employee work meaningfulness.