The Leader in the Spotlight: Health-Oriented Leadership and its Antecedents and Outcomes

Abstract

Health-oriented leadership is a relatively new concept in the field of research on leadership. It incorporates health behaviors and attitudes towards the followers (StaffCare) as well as towards oneself (SelfCare). Little is known about antecedents of HoL and about effects on the leaders themselves. Therefore, in the present study we propose a serial mediation model with job resources and demands as antecedents and work engagement and emotional exhaustion as outcomes of SelfCare and StaffCare. Over the course of five working weeks, 234 leaders provided data on a total of 960 weeks that were analyzed with a multilevel structural equation modelling framework. Results showed that SelfCare and StaffCare within the leader are significantly related. Moreover, the relationship of job resources and demands with work engagement was serially mediated via SelfCare and StaffCare. This serial mediation could not be found for emotional exhaustion. The results suggest that work characteristics of the leader play a role in shaping leadership behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.