This study investigates the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ turnover intention, with a particular focus on the contextual mechanisms through which trust in the leader mediates this relationship, and how employees’ emotional intelligence moderates this effect. Using a cross-sectional, two-wave design, the study examines organizations across different sectors, including education, and small-to-medium-sized enterprises, in a non-Western context. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and path analysis techniques were used to test the hypotheses. The findings reveals that employees’ trust in their leader mediates the relationship between servant leadership and turnover intention, with employees’ emotional intelligence influencing this indirect effect. However, the positive impact of servant leadership on trust in the leader weakens as employees’ emotional intelligence increases. These results suggest that servant leaders is particularly effective among employees with lower emotional intelligence, offering valuable implications for training, development, and retention strategies. Organizations should prioritize recruiting managers with a servant leadership style and focus on assessing and managing emotional intelligence and trust levels among employees. This study contributes to the management literature by enhancing the understanding of how servant leadership influences attitudinal outcomes, and provides important insights into the effectiveness and performance of leadership within a non-Western context.
