Servant Leadership Style and Job Satisfaction in Dubai Hotel Industry: Trust in Leader as Mediator

Regarding the huge growth in economics for UAE and especially Dubai in the past few decades require a high level of leadership and management. The tourism and hotel industry of Dubai has reached to limits that even few years ago was thought as farfetched ideas. The vision about future is even more phenomenon. Leaders who act as a mere management representative and are not able to perform in various styles cannot be effective in this rapidly growing industry. For a leader, to show ineffectiveness means distrust, which lowers the satisfaction of a population in different aspects. Hence, leadership and trust are topics that require further examination. This study tries to determine the interaction among servant leadership and job satisfaction while utilizing the trust degree in leader as a mediator factor between leadership approach and level of satisfaction in job. The research was conducted on 260 employees in four different hotels in Dubai (Jood Plaza, Sadaf Delmon, Ibis international and Address hotel). Correlation analyses have shown a positive and significant relationship between servant leadership, job satisfaction and trust. There is a large gap in the literature when it comes to the direct relationship of servant leadership and job satisfaction in general including hotel industry. This research hopes to fill the gap in the literature and enhance the achievement process for managerial level. Keywords: servant leadership; trust in leader; job satisfaction; Dubai; Hotel industry