Leadership Research Summary:
- In this study, researchers draw upon the notion that employees’ work characteristics are an important pathway through which leaders influence employee well-being and propose a theoretical framework that integrates perspectives on leadership, occupational stress, and job design. Based on this integrative approach, we developed the health- and development-promoting leadership behavior questionnaire (HDLBQ) for assessing job demands emanating from and job resources provided through the leader. Validation of the measure in German, French, and English using an overall sample of 2,934 employees demonstrated adequate psychometric properties.
- An examination of the factorial structure revealed three higher-order factors: demanding, development-oriented, and support-oriented leadership. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis indicated structural equivalence across the three language versions of the HDLBQ. Correlations with employee well-being were moderate, and the HDLBQ explained unique variance in employee well-being beyond that explained by transformational leadership.
Leadership Research Implications and Findings:
- This study contributes to the literature in two important ways. First, researchers emphasize that integrating perspectives on leadership, occupational stress, and job design contributes to the development of a unifying model that enables more rigorous research on the link between leadership and employee well-being. A considerable body of research indicates that (transformational) leadership influences employee well-being indirectly through employees’ levels of job demands and job resources (Arnold et al., 2007; Nielsen et al., 2008; Vincent-Höper et al., 2017a). However, this important leverage to enhance employee well-being has not yet been expanded into leadership approaches.
- Researchers argue that it may not be sufficient to examine employees’ work characteristics as an underlying mechanism explaining why leaders affect employee well-being. Rather, the design of employees’ work characteristics should be considered a key task for leaders to enhance employee well-being. Explicitly recognizing the leader’s role in designing employees’ work characteristics brings leadership and employee well-being closer together and advances the understanding of how exactly leaders may affect employee well-being (cf. Gilbert et al., 2017).
- Second, the study provides a theory-based and valid tool for assessing leaders’ direct influence on employees’ work characteristics. Investigating leadership behavior that specifically taps employees’ job demands and job resources may be a useful approach to obtain an in-depth understanding of the specific behaviors through which leaders influence employee well-being.
- It is widely regarded that leadership development may be effective in occupational health intervention (Kelloway and Barling, 2010). The theoretical framework of health- and development-promoting leadership behavior suggests that qualifying leaders to enable them to reduce employees’ demands and enhance their resources may be a promising approach for organizations to achieve and maintain their employees’ well-being. In contrast to transformational leadership, the HDLBQ allows for the definition of specific and observable leadership behaviors that contribute to employee well-being. The focus of leadership interventions aiming at enhancing employee well-being should provide leaders with practical strategies and tools for shaping employees’ work characteristics.
- The HDLBQ may be used to (a) increase leaders’ awareness for their role as (co-)designers of employees’ work characteristics, (b) reveal work characteristics that leaders may enhance, (c) identify practical approaches to enhancing employees’ work characteristics, and (d) evaluate the effectiveness of interventions that aim to establish health-promoting leadership.