The moderating role of employee socioeconomic status in the relationship between leadership and well-being: A meta-analysis and representative survey.

Abstract

We investigated the moderating role of employee socioeconomic status (SES) in the relationship between leadership and employee well-being. Leadership forms an important predictor of how (un)well employees feel. Conceptualizing leadership effects and employee SES from a job demands-resources perspective, we propose that the relationship between leadership and employee well-being is stronger among employees with lower SES. These workers tend to have fewer resources and can benefit more from constructive leadership, but are burdened more by destructive leadership. We find support for this in two studies: In the first, a comprehensive meta-analysis of 219 studies and 241 independent samples (N = 120.596), we found that two markers of lower employee SES (i.e., lower education and lower occupation status) moderate the relationship of constructive and destructive leader behaviors with well-being. In the second study, we analyzed a large-scale representative employee sample (N = 62.602) and extended these findings by examining nonpermanent work contract as an additional occupation facet, and low income as another marker of lower SES. Additionally, we show that resources (autonomy, self-efficacy) and demands (work pressure, cognitive demands) represent possible mechanisms through which constructive and destructive leadership relate to well-being. Specifically, the indirect relationship of constructive and destructive leadership with well-being, through job demands and resources, was generally stronger among employees with lower SES. In addition, the findings provide support for a stronger role of leadership in the well-being of employees with lower SES, a large group of employees who are oftentimes not the central focus of leadership scholars or organizations.

Correlation between Employee Performance, Well-Being, Job Satisfaction, and Life Satisfaction in Sedentary Jobs in Slovenian Enterprises

“…As in most of Europe, Slovenia is also facing the challenge of sedentary behavior as part of modern work conditions. This is the first time that Slovenian enterprises were researched in terms of sedentary work conditions, concerning job satisfaction, life satisfaction and well-being on work performance, which is the main novelty of the work and presents the possibility of comparing findings with other studies [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ], such as the effect of COVID-19 [ 5 , 47 ], remote job options and cross-country differences [ 53 ] or socio-economics status in the relationship between leadership and well-being [ 54 ]. The main gaps, which are supplemented by our studies, are, in addition to finding the correlations between some factors and work performance in sedentary jobs, encouraging similar further studies with the final goal of determine the factors that correlate most with job performance in sedentary work conditions.…”

“…The findings from this study also led to the conclusion that sedentary jobs in the studied companies require complex human resource management. Therefore, more complex studies are needed in this field, with special monitoring and maybe even with human resource index (HRI) measurements, e.g., [ 43 ], which is the current trend in economics, as well as the new reality in economics [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ] and in society.…”

Facilitating change processes in group-based behaviour change interventions in rural African contexts: practical lessons from Ghana

“…We agree with previous suggestions [ 29 , 31 ] that GBCIs designed for the low-income, vulnerable population groups should essentially adopt a multicomponent approach that include sessions that target the reduction of negative affect, such as anxiety and depression, with others also focusing on promoting positive mental health, building resilience, and optimising positive experiences and strengths, as advocated in the third wave of positive psychology [ 35 , 36 ]. Given recent findings that socioeconomic status and increased vocational productivity improve mental well-being [ 37 , 38 ], we would urge researchers to also include programme components that focus on economic empowerment and life skills training when working to promote the mental health of vulnerable population groups. While much remains to be learned, community-based behaviour change intervention programmes hold much promise in attempts to improve the mental health of adult populations in resource-limited settings.…”

A review on health and well‐being at work: More than stressors and strains

“…With the broader perspective on leadership that emerged during the past decades, also specific aspects of leadership that threaten followers' health and well-being received research attention. indicators (Harms et al, 2017;Montano et al, 2017;Pajic et al, 2021;Zhang & Liao, 2015). Moreover, destructive leadership behaviors are negatively related to leaders' hedonic well-being (Kaluza et al, 2020), which can impact follower well-being downstream.…”