Every light has its shadow: a longitudinal study of transformational leadership and leaders’ emotional exhaustion

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of transformational and laissez-faire leadership on leaders' own emotional exhaustion over time. Participants were 2,324 subordinates and 76 supervisors of a services company in Germany. Regression analysis revealed direct longitudinal health-hampering effects of transformational and laissez-faire leadership on leaders' emotional exhaustion. Building on Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources theory (1989), our results showed that the longitudinal health-hampering effects of transformational leadership would be particularly pronounced for leaders with high levels of organization-based self-esteem. Our findings extend the research on potential dark sides of transformational and laissez-faire leadership as well as organization-based self-esteem by focusing on leader-centered outcomes. Theoretical backgroundThe role of transformational and laissez-faire leadership on health and well-being Over the last decades, there has been growing interest in the effects of leadership behaviors on subordinates' health and

Out of mind, out of sight? Leading distributed workers to ensure health and safety

“…Our factor analyses showed that they form one dimension of "good" leadership. This result is in line with other research findings that leadership behaviours are highly correlated (Gregersen et al, 2014;Zwingmann et al, 2016). We therefore conclude that health-and-safety-specific leadership is unidimensional.…”

“…It has been argued that leadership can be seen as a resource (Tims et al, 2011) and may thus enable distributed workers preserve their health and safety. Dominant leadership frameworks have been developed with a view to enhancing organizational outcomes including follower performance, innovation and creativity (Gregersen, Vincent-Höper, & Nienhaus, 2014) but it has been argued that these leadership behaviours may not be effective in ensuring employee health and safety (Barling, Loughlin & Kelloway, 2002;Zwingmann, Wolf, & Richter, 2016;Nielsen & Daniels, 2016). The rationale for developing healthand-safety-specific leadership frameworks arises from the fact that leaders play an important role in directing followers' attention to specific aspects of their work (Bass & Riggio, 2006).…”

Linking customer participation to service employees’ work‐to‐family enrichment: The role of job crafting and OBSE

“…We predict that, comparing with low‐OBSE employees, high‐OBSE employees would initiate more job crafting in response to perceived customer participation. Existing literature generally refers OBSE as a personal resource which determines the way people comprehend and react to the environment (Zwingmann et al ., ). OBSE provides individuals energy that are malleable and related to a sense of control over the environment (van den Heuvel, Demerouti, & Bakker, ).…”

“…OBSE is relevant to studying job crafting since recent literature has recognized it as a significant resource for contributing to employee self‐improvement (Hahn & Mathews, ). Among various personal resources, it is the best predictor of work engagement (Costantini, Ceschi, Viragos, De Paola, & Sartori, ), and past research has conceptualized OBSE as the personal resource that equips employees to successfully comprehend and control their working environment (Kim & Beehr, ; Kim & Hyun, ; Zwingmann, Wolf, & Richter, ). In this study, we expect that employees having high OBSE are more likely to optimally utilize their possessed resources to cope with job changes since they feel they are competent to do so (Pierce & Gardner, ).…”

Prolonged Dysfunction of Ex-Trusting Transformational Leaders and Its Amoral Camouflage by Charismatic Postures

“…Biblical prophets criticized leaders for corrupting by their successes, as pointed out by Lord Acton. Michels (1959Michels ( [1915) analyzed how radical leaders became conservative self-perpetuators with success, tenure, and parties' growth, while in Leadership Life Cycle Theory (LLCT for short) tenured leaders sooner or later reach final dysfunction phases (Boling et al, 2015;Hambrick & Fukutomi, 1991;Wulf et al, 2011), as found also by leaders' emotional exhaustion research (Zwingmann et al, 2016).…”