Abstract
Leaders’ self-directed health behavior (i.e., SelfCare behavior) plays an important role in the health and well-being of both leaders and employees but has been neglected in research so far. This study was aimed at investigating the antecedents of SelfCare behavior in terms of the personal characteristics of the leaders. In a sample of 150 (98 male, 52 female) German leaders from a wide range of organizations, we examined the direct and indirect effects of core self-evaluations (i.e., CSEs) on leaders’ SelfCare behavior. We predicted that CSEs would be positively related to SelfCare behavior with reduced exhaustion as a mediator, and organizational health climate (i.e., OHC) as a moderator of this relationship. Results showed that CSEs were positively related to SelfCare behavior and that the reduced exhaustion mediated this relationship. There was no evidence that OHC moderated the positive relationship between CSEs and SelfCare behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.
Highlights
Leadership positions are characterized by high job demands
CSEs were positively related to SelfCare behavior (r = 0.36, p < 0.001) and, similar to previous research (e.g., Alarcon et al, 2009), they were negatively related to exhaustion (r = −0.62, p < 0.001)
Our results showed that CSEs were positively related to SelfCare behavior and that reduced exhaustion mediated this positive relationship, providing support for Hypotheses 1 and 3
Summary
Leadership positions are characterized by high job demands. For example, leaders often have to deal with a large workload, time pressure, or role conflicts (Ohm and Strohm, 2001; Zimber et al, 2015). Leaders who suffer from impaired health are less able to care for their employees In this vein, Harms et al (2017) showed that leaders engage less in high-quality leadership, such as transformational leadership (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985), when they feel exhausted and stressed. This potential lack of transformational leadership is consequential for their work environment because the leadership style has been found to have a positive influence on employees’ work-related well-being (for a review, see Skakon et al, 2010)
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