PSYCHOLOGICAL FEATURES OF STRESSES IN MANAGERIAL ACTIVITY PSYCHOLOGICAL: THE CONTEXT OF PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Abstract

The article shows that workplace stress is estimated as constantly high factor having harmful consequences for both employees and organizations, particularly low levels of job satisfaction, high emotional exhaustion, worse functioning of cardiovascular system and general decline of productivity. Managers, in accordance with their role requirements, are in the zone of special risk and often work in conditions of high stress for quite long periods of time. Leaning on transactional model of stress and implicit leadership theory, we assume that extent of how much managerial stress results in sharing credits / sharing knowledge depends on managers’ internal attributions, or prototypes, of his/her followers. These prototypes arise out of managers’ suppositions about personality traits and behavior of their subordinates, and generally are about how managers in their leadership roles react to their co-workers. Taking into account follower prototypes within context of managerial stress admits that coping reactions of managers highly likely depend on their mutual relations with meaningful others. Implicit leadership theory focuses on two types of follower prototypes: the first is goal-derived, describing what followers must be, and second leans on realistic estimation of followers by their leaders, or what followers actually are. The managers’ implicit prototypes of their followers influence how the latter demonstrate prosocial coping reactions to stress. Our research shows that different types of prosocial coping behavior are beneficial for both managers and their subordinates on individual and group levels. It aligns with transactional model which states that managers’ estimations of stress can work as triggers of prosocial coping behavior. More specifically, our work demonstrates, that managers can benefit from such prosocial behavior by better working efficiency and respectively lower coworkers’ turnover and intentions to change work, and employees also benefit from elevated productivity.