Exploring the relationship between managers' leadership and their health

Abstract

Objective: To explore the relationship between managers' leadership and their health, by investigating what psychosocial conditions in the workplace managers experience as being important to their health, and how their health influences their leadership.

Participants and methods: Semi-structured interviews with forty-two managers at different managerial levels in a large Swedish industrial production company.

Results: Most managers felt their health was good, but many perceived their work as stressful. They said it was important to their health that they did a good job and achieved results as expected, that conditions in the workplace enabled this achievement, and that their performance was acknowledged. In comparison to the other managerial levels, the first-line managers' work and health were especially dependent on such enabling conditions. The results also showed that the managers' health influenced their leadership, the quality of their work and the quality of their relationship with subordinates.

Conclusion: Managers' leadership, health and their work conditions are reciprocally related to each other. A productive and healthy workplace is facilitated by focusing on managers' conditions for leadership, their health and their work conditions.