Abstract
Research has shown that psychological detachment from work during nonwork time is an important recovery experience and is crucial for employee well-being. Integrating research on job-stress recovery with research on leadership and employee mental health and well-being, this study examines how a leader's psychological detachment from work during nonwork time directly relates to subordinate psychological detachment from work and indirectly to employee exhaustion and need for recovery. Based on self-report data from 137 employees and their supervisors, this study revealed that leader psychological detachment was related to subordinate psychological detachment and that leader psychological detachment was indirectly related to low subordinate exhaustion and low subordinate need for recovery, also when controlling for negative affectivity and leader-member-exchange. Overall, this study demonstrates that leaders might have an impact on subordinate strain symptoms not only via leadership behavior at work but also via detachment processes during leisure time. These findings suggest that employee recovery processes might not only be regarded as an individual phenomenon, but could be seen as embedded in the larger organizational context.
Highlights
Research has shown that psychological detachment from work during nonwork time is an important recovery experience and is crucial for employee well-being
We propose that leader psychological detachment from work during nonwork time is related to subordinate exhaustion and need for recovery via subordinate psychological detachment from work during nonwork time
Subordinate psychological detachment from work was negatively related to exhaustion, B = –.202, SE = 0.067, t = –3.009, p < .001, and to need for recovery, B = –.186, SE = 0.051, t = –3.648, p < .001, when controlling for subordinate negative affectivity
Summary
Research has shown that psychological detachment from work during nonwork time is an important recovery experience and is crucial for employee well-being. Integrating research on job-stress recovery with research on leadership and employee mental health and well-being, this study examines how a leader’s psychological detachment from work during nonwork time directly relates to subordinate psychological detachment from work and indirectly to employee exhaustion and need for recovery. This study demonstrates that leaders might have an impact on subordinate strain symptoms via leadership behavior at work and via detachment processes during leisure time These findings suggest that employee recovery processes might be regarded as an individual phenomenon, but could be seen as embedded in the larger organizational context. Building on the stressor-detachment model (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015) that emphasizes the role of psychological detachment from work during nonwork time, we argue that the ways of how leaders experience. By examining leader psychological detachment as a potential predictor of employee psychological detachment, our study will help to better understand the factors that are important for psychological detachment from work as one core predictor of employee well-being
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
