LEADwell - Leadership and Employee Well-being: Causal, Dynamic, and Domain-specific Effects

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Silja Bellingrath; Professorin Dr. Claudia Buengeler; Professorin Dr. Diana Hanke-Boer
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 495209588

People spend a good portion of their day at work, hence workplace conditions strongly affect employee well-being. Leaders’ direct behaviors towards employees are among the most researched and accepted causes of employee well-being. Evidence suggests direct supervisors can increase well-being by showing constructive leader behaviors such as being supportive or charismatic and decrease it by being destructive such as being abusive or passive. However, this strictly uni-directional perception of leadership – well-being associations is overly simplistic and does not account for possible two-way influences between leaders and employees. Despite extensive research into the relationship between leadership and employee well-being, we still know fairly little about the causality, dynamics and universality or specificity. Does leadership only influence employee well-being or does employee well-being also change leader behaviors? How do leadership and well-being influence each other over time? Do constructive or destructive leader behaviors matter more for well-being and are psychological and physical domains of well-being affected equally by leadership? The research project LEADwell sets out to determine causality in the link between leadership and well-being. By means of state-of-the-art laboratory experiments, we examine causal effects of leadership on follower well-being as well as of follower well-being on leader behavior. We further depart from the currently static view of the leadership - well-being relationship. Focusing on dynamics allows understanding when and how positive or negative trajectories for leadership and well-being develop. In a longitudinal field study we therefore examine leadership effects on employee well-being and employee well-being effects on leader behavior simultaneously over time. Last, to determine effects for various leadership and well-being domains and thus finally gain an understanding of the domain specificity of effects, we systematically investigate various constructive and destructive leader behaviors, and various psychological and physical well-being indicators, by combining survey data, innovative physiological measurement, and observation-based behavioral coding across all studies. LEADwell advances the leadership and well-being literature by building comprehensive knowledge around causal effects and processes and the dynamic nature of the effects of leadership on well-being and well-being on leadership. Practically, it contributes to the development of evidence-based strategies and interventions such as organizational stress and health management for both employees and supervisors and leader development interventions. It clarifies the role of both leaders and followers in well-being-supportive leadership and offers starting points for interrupting negative dynamics and strengthening positive ones.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Deanne den Hartog