How leadership behaviors influence the effects of job predictability and perceived employability on employee mental health - a multilevel, prospective study

• Main Authors: Lise Fløvik (Author), Stein Knardahl (Author), Jan Olav Christensen (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Nordic Association of Occupational Safety and Health (NOROSH), 2020-07-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to elucidate the potential moderating effect of fair-, empowering-, and supportive-leadership behaviors on the relationship between job predictability, future employability, and subsequent clinically relevant mental distress. METHOD: The study had a full panel, prospective design, utilizing online, self-administered questionnaire data collected at two time points, two years apart. Fair-, empowering-, and supportive-leadership behaviors, job predictability and future employability were measured by the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work (QPSNordic). Mental health was measured using the 10-item Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-10), with cut-off set to >1.85 to identify clinically relevant cases. As data were nested within work units, a multilevel analytic approach was chosen. RESULTS: Individual-level direct effects: (i) higher levels of job predictability [odds ratio (OR) 0.83, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.70-0.98], (ii) future employability (OR 0.83, 95% CI 0.74-0.93), (iii) fair- (OR 0.78, 95% CI 0.68-0.91), empowering- (OR 0.77, 95% CI 0.67-0.87), and supportive- (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.61-0.81) leadership behavior, and (iv) the combination "quality of leadership" (OR 0.69, 95% CI 0.59-0.81) were significantly associated with a lower risk of reporting subsequent mental distress. Work-unit level direct effects: higher work-unit levels of fair- (OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.34-0.80) and empowering- (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.40-0.94) leadership behaviors and quality of leadership (OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.34-0.87) were significantly associated with a lowered risk of subsequent mental distress. Cross-level interactions: No cross-level interaction effects were shown. CONCLUSIONS: Leadership behaviors did not moderate the effects of job predictability and future employability on mental health. However, employees embedded within work-units characterized by fair, empowering and supportive leadership behaviors had a lower risk of subsequent mental distress.

Item Description

0355-3140
1795-990X
10.5271/sjweh.3880