Leadership, followers’ mental health and job performance in organizations: A comprehensive meta-analysis from an occupational health perspective

This meta-analysis studied the links between leadership and mental health and job performance indices of followers.

[NB. Look out for next week’s compendium on leadership research]

No real surprises with the findings. They note that leadership, of course, “is not a neutral element”, and may influence both positive and negative effects.

Extracts:

· “results reveal that transformational leadership, a high quality of relations-oriented and task-oriented leadership behavior, as well as a high quality of leader– follower interaction are positively associated with mental health”

· “In contrast, destructive leadership is strongly negatively associated with mental health”

· “Our results emphasize the importance of leadership as an occupational health factor”

· “Transformational leadership is negatively associated with negative mental health states (affective symptoms, burnout, stress, and health problems) and positively associated with positive mental health (well-being, psychological functioning)”

· “high quality of relations-oriented leadership behavior may act as a protective factor as it is negatively related with adverse mental health states (affective symptoms, burnout, stress, and health problems) and positively with positive mental health states”

· “destructive leadership behaviors characterized by higher levels of verbal and non-verbal aggressiveness, disrespectfulness, authoritarian, and punitive behaviors are associated with more frequent affective symptoms, burnout, and stress, and lower levels of well-being and psychological functioning”

· The associations for destructive leadership on negative mental health were as strong as the positive effects from transformational leadership

· “the results obtained for LMX confirm that a higher quality of leader–follower relationships is associated with higher levels of well-being and functioning, and decreased affective symptoms”

· “Leaders may thus motivate followers by providing the necessary tools for increasing job self-efficacy and a higher sense of personal accomplishment”

· They recognise that there is almost certainly some effects of reverse causality between mental health and leadership, and common method bias, but are confident the results still largely stand

Ref: Montano, D., Reeske, A., Franke, F., & Hüffmeier, J. (2017). Leadership, followers’ mental health and job performance in organizations: A comprehensive meta‐analysis from an occupational health perspective. Journal of organizational behavior, 38(3), 327-350.