What difference does it make? A laboratory experiment on the effectiveness of health-oriented leadership working on-site compared to the digital working context.

BACKGROUND: Health-oriented leadership (HoL) represents an important workplace resource for employees. However, as opportunities to work from home increase, the question arises, whether leadership is more or less effective in digital working contexts compared to working on-site. METHODS: The current research investigates, whether the effectiveness of health-oriented leadership in terms of staff care is influenced by the working context. In a laboratory experiment with a 2 (no staff care vs. staff care) x 2 (working on-site vs. digital) mixed design (N = 60), a moderating effect of the working context on the relationship between staff care and employees' mental exhaustion, heart rate, heart rate variability, engagement and job satisfaction was tested. RESULTS: Results uncovered positive effects of staff care on employees' mental exhaustion and work-related attitudes in both conditions (d = 1.09-1.91). As expected, the results indicate that the effects on employees' engagement (d = 0.65) and job satisfaction (d = 0.72) are weaker when working digital. CONCLUSION: Findings show that the effectiveness of staff care might differ between working on-site and working digital. In order to maintain the effectiveness of staff care, leaders and employees should keep regular face-to-face contact also when mainly working from home. The study ties in with research on digital leadership and leadership effectiveness, and contributes to the deeper understanding of situational contingencies of health-specific leadership during the process of digitization.

Can Mindfulness Buffer Against Negative Effects of Job Demands for Military and Police Personnel?

OBJECTIVE: We examined buffering effects of mindfulness on the relationship between job demands and health (ie, strain, complaints, affect, general health) in high-risk professions with high levels of unavoidable stressors. METHODS: We analyzed cross-sectional and longitudinal data from military ( n = 362) and police personnel ( n = 359). RESULTS: Study 1 showed that mindfulness buffered the effect of job demands at time 1 on strain and negative affect at time 2. Study 2 showed that mindfulness mitigates the relationship between job demands and strain and health complaints. With higher mindfulness, negative effects of job demands were reduced. Additional analyses reveal which facets of mindfulness are mostly important. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide evidence for the buffering effects of mindfulness and showed that mindfulness buffers against job demands in work contexts with high levels of stress and risk and a male-oriented culture.

When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain.

It is widely acknowledged that leadership is crucial for follower health. Under stress, positive leader behaviors such as transformational leadership may decrease and the risk of negative behaviors such as abusive leadership may increase. Followers experience these discrepancies in leadership between routine and stressful periods as inconsistent. While positive and negative leadership is generally associated with follower strain, inconsistency may be stressful by itself, because it entails insecurity and unpredictability in the leader-follower relationship. We suggest that the level of perceived inconsistency and volatility in leaders' behavior across situations is an additional risk factor for follower health. Moreover, we expect perceived inconsistency to be stronger when leaders are strained. This survey study with N = 304 employees examines the relationships between leadership inconsistency and leader as well as follower strain from a followers' perspective. Participants rated their leaders' transformational and abusive leadership separately for routine and stressful conditions, their leaders' strain and their own strain. Employees who experienced stronger discrepancies in leadership between routine and stressful conditions, i.e., more inconsistency, experienced more strain. Moreover, from a followers' perspective, inconsistencies were stronger when leaders were strained. The findings provide evidence that leadership is less stable and consistent than generally assumed and that inconsistency is an additional risk factor. Leader strain may threaten the consistency of leadership and thereby negatively affect follower health.

High-Performance Work Practices and Employee Wellbeing-Does Health-Oriented Leadership Make a Difference?

This paper sheds further light on the contextual boundaries in the relationship between high-performance work practices (HPWPs) and employee wellbeing. In particular, we analyze whether this relationship is moderated by health-oriented leadership behavior (i.e., staff care) which describes the extent to which leaders value, are aware of, and protect their followers' health at work. Our analyses are based on employee data (N = 1,345) from Germany, covering two points in time. Findings show positive associations between HPWPs and happiness-related (i.e., engagement, commitment) and health-related (i.e., general health, physical health complaints, mental health complaints, strain) wellbeing outcomes. The positive relationship between HPWPs and employee wellbeing is weaker the more employees experience leadership behavior in terms of staff care. Thus, our results provide further evidence for a substitutive or compensatory effect between HRM and leadership.

"Should I Further Engage in Staff Care?": Employees' Disclosure, Leaders' Skills and Goal Conflict as Antecedents of Health-Oriented Leadership.

Leaders play a crucial role in employees' health and job satisfaction. When employees show early warning signs that their physical or mental health is at risk, leaders' responsibility gains even more importance. Recent health-specific leadership approaches (health-oriented leadership; HoL) emphasize the importance of leaders ability to perceive employees' warning signals (staff care awareness) to take appropriate action (staff care behavior). However, little is known about the factors facilitating or hindering the transfer from leaders' awareness to concrete behaviors. In an experimental study (N = 91), we examined and manipulated antecedents of staff care behavior: (a) employees' disclosure, (b) leaders' HoL skills, and (c) leaders' goal conflict in a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed factorial design. Employees' disclosure and leaders' skills were positively related to staff care behavior. Leaders' goal conflict was not directly related to staff care behavior but had an indirect effect and diminished the positive relationship between disclosure and staff care behavior. The findings deepen the theoretical understanding of the HoL concept. By studying the influence of employees' disclosure on staff care behavior, our study complements a follower-centered perspective. We provide practical recommendations for workplace health promotion and how leaders' staff care behavior can be fostered.