Does Self-Care Make You a Better Leader? A Multisource Study Linking Leader Self-Care to Health-Oriented Leadership, Employee Self-Care, and Health

Leadership plays an important role in employee well-being. In light of a growing research interest in leaders' resources as determinants of healthy leadership, it is not yet clear how leaders' behavior regarding their own health (self-care) may trickle down to employees. Drawing on Conserv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2022-05, Vol.19 (11), p.6733
Main Authors: Klug, Katharina, Felfe, Jörg, Krick, Annika
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activities of daily living
Attitudes
Behavior
Employee benefits
Employees
Health promotion
Humans
Hypotheses
Leadership
Mindfulness
Multilevel Analysis
Occupational health
Resource conservation
Role models
Self Care
Supervisors
Validity
Well being
Wellness programs
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Summary:Leadership plays an important role in employee well-being. In light of a growing research interest in leaders' resources as determinants of healthy leadership, it is not yet clear how leaders' behavior regarding their own health (self-care) may trickle down to employees. Drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory and the model of Health-Oriented Leadership, this study tests two mechanisms through which employees may benefit from self-caring leaders: (a) through staff care, that is, concern for their employees' health (improved leadership hypothesis); and (b) through a direct relationship between leaders' and employees' self-care (role-modeling hypothesis). In turn, both staff care and employee self-care would relate positively to employee health. Multilevel path models based on a sample of 46 supervisors and 437 employees revealed that leader self-care was positively related to leader-rated staff care at Level 2, which was positively related to employee-rated staff care at Level 1. In turn, employee-rated staff care was positively related to employee health. The findings support the improved leadership hypothesis and underline the importance of leader self-care as a determinant of healthy leadership.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph19116733