ABSTRACT
Individuals in high-risk occupations (e.g., military service) often report physical, psychological, and organizational problems. Although leaders can partially buffer their subordinates against these problems, the impact of established leadership skills appears limited, especially in high-risk occupations.
Thus, building on recent theories of domain-specific leadership, we examined whether leadership focused on the specific domain of sleep might be negatively associated with some specific problems facing individuals in high-risk occupations, beyond their relationship with general leadership. Studying military personnel on peacekeeping and combat deployments, we predicted that “sleep leadership” would be negatively associated with sleep problems (physical), depressive symptoms (psychological), and negative climate (organizational), and that sleep would mediate the relationship between sleep leadership and the psychological and organizational problems.
Results were generally supportive, contributing to theories of domain-specific leadership by showing that sleep-focused leader behaviors may go beyond general leadership behaviors, relating directly to the problems facing individuals in high-risk occupations.
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From the full-text paper:
- The effects of sleep leadership were found to account for variance in measures of sleep and unit climate “over and above their relationships with general leadership”;
- “these results suggest that sleep leadership is directly or indirectly associated with a wide array of physical, psychological, and organizational strains, accounting for variance in the wellbeing of individuals in hig-hrisk settings.” (pg. 11);
- Additionally, “sleep measures mediated the relationships between sleep leadership and the climate measures, and also created an indirect path between sleep leadership and depressive symptoms”;
- These findings suggest that “leadership behaviors relate to subordinate wellbeing when they “fit” the behavior targeted for change. The fact that sleep leadership was associated with subordinate sleep over and above sleep’s association with general leadership suggests that sleep leadership fit the targeted behavior.” (pg. 11);
- “Sleep leadership had a direct and unique relationship with sleep that more general leadership behaviors on their own did not. Though consistent with theories of contingent leadership (e.g., Hersey & Blanchard,1969), the findings extend these theories by suggesting that the most effective leadership may need to fit not only the situation, but the targeted subordinate behavior.” (pg. 11);
- The authors believe that practically, these findings suggest “that sleep leadership may deserve attention as a potential addition to the leadership toolkit”;
- “By suggesting that a supervisor’s support is related to potentially severe strains, the findings suggest that social support may deserve additional research attention in a variety of organizational settings. If supervisors’ behavior is associated with subordinate sleep, what other extra-work behaviors might relate to supervisors’ behavior?”
Authors: Gunia, B. C., Sipos, M. L., LoPresti, M., & Adler, A. B. (2015). Military Psychology. Advance online publication.
Study link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/mil0000078
Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sleep-leadership-high-risk-occupations-investigation-ben-hutchinson
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