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

Overview

Journal Int J Environ Res Public Health

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Environmental Health
Public Health

Date 2022 Jun 10

PMID 35682319

Authors

Katharina Klug

Jorg Felfe

Annika Krick

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

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.

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