Are Leadership Fairness, Psychological Distress, and Role Stressors Interrelated? A Two-Wave Prospective Study of Forward and Reverse Relationships

The impact of utilizing inclusive leadership among nurses during crises: A multisite comparative study

Nurses' psychological wellness and satisfaction are threatened by exposure to many stressors. Adopting a promising leadership style has beneficial impacts at different levels, especially during crises. This study aimed to examine the impact of inclusive leadership on nurses' satisfaction and psychological distress during crises, focusing on three Arabic countries. A cross-sectional descriptive design was utilized to meet the study goal. Data were collected electronically in the three countries using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10), Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, and Carmel's Inclusive Leadership Scale. Two hundred seventy-four participants fully responded: 90 from Egypt, 82 from Saudi Arabia, and 102 from Jordan. Descriptive statistics, Pearson R, Spearman Rho, Point biserial, and ANOVA tests were used to answer the research questions. There were statistically significant differences between countries in the mean scores of inclusive leadership and psychological distress. In addition, statistically significant relationships between inclusive leadership, psychological distress, and job satisfaction were found. The study focused on the importance of approaching inclusive leadership to increase employee satisfaction, reduce psychological distress, and achieve organizational goals.

How inclusive leadership paves way for psychological well-being of employees during trauma and crisis: A three-wave longitudinal mediation study

AIMS

Nurses are at the forefront of public health emergencies facing psychological pressures ensuing from the loss of patients and potential risk of infection while treating the infected. This study examines whether inclusive leadership has a causal relationship with psychological distress and to assess the mediation effect of psychological safety on this relationship in the long run. The hypotheses are developed and interpreted with the help of theoretical underpinnings from job demands resources theory and the theory of shattered assumptions.

DESIGN

Three-wave longitudinal study.

METHODS

Questionnaire was used to carry out three waves of data collection from 405 nurses employed at five hospitals in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak between the months of January-April 2020. Partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data while controlling for age, gender, education, experience, and working hours.

RESULTS

Results supported the hypothesized relationships where inclusive leadership indicated significant inverse causal relationship with psychological distress and a positive causal relationship with psychological safety. Mediation effect of psychological safety was found significant, while the model explained 73.9% variance in psychological distress.

CONCLUSION

Inclusive leadership, through its positive and supportive characteristics, can pave way for such mechanisms that improve the psychological safety of employees in the long run and curbs psychological distress.

IMPACT

This is the first longitudinal study to examine the relationship between inclusive leadership and psychological distress in health care and also examines the mediating mechanism of psychology safety. There is scarcity of empirical research on factors that determine and affect behavioural mechanism of healthcare workers during traumatic events and crisis. Clinical leaders and healthcare policy makers must invest in and promote inclusive and supportive environment characterized with open and accessible leaders at workplace to improve psychological safety; it helps reduce levels of psychological distress.

Caring for the caregiver during COVID-19 outbreak: Does inclusive leadership improve psychological safety and curb psychological distress? A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Public health emergencies and epidemics shatter the assumptions of the world as a safe place. Healthcare workers are at the forefront of such pressures resulting from a persistent threat to their safety and well being. It is therefore important to study such mechanisms that can influence and predict the psychological distress of nurses OBJECTIVES: While there is an increasing number of studies on positive outcomes of leadership styles, their influence on curbing unwanted adverse outcomes is scarce. This study aims to observe the influence of an inclusive leadership style on psychological distress while assessing the mediating role of psychological safety. It uses the theoretical lens of job demands-resources theory and the theory of shattered assumptions to develop and test hypotheses.

DESIGN

Cross-Sectional Study with Temporal Separation SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: The researchers recruited 451 on-duty registered nurses from 5 hospitals providing patient care during the highly infectious phase of COVID-19 in January 2020 in Wuhan city, the epicentre of the outbreak in China METHODS: After obtaining permission from hospital administration, data were collected through an online questionnaire survey in three stages with temporal separation to avoid common method bias. Partial least square structural equation modelling was used to analyze data. The study controlled for effects of age, gender, experience, working hours and education.

RESULTS

Hypothesized relationships proved significant. Inclusive leadership has an inverse relationship with psychological distress with a strong path-coefficient. Psychological safety mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and psychological distress while explaining 28.6% variance. Multi-group analysis results indicate no significant differences between respondents based on these control variables CONCLUSIONS: Recurring or prolonged experiences of stress and anxiety at the workplace, without a mechanism to counter such effects, can culminate into psychological distress. Inclusive leadership style can serve as such a mechanism to curb psychological distress for healthcare workers by creating a psychologically safe environment.

Killing two birds with one stone: how intervening when witnessing bullying at the workplace may help both target and the acting observer

Objective

This study examines under which conditions being an observer of bullying can be detrimental to health and well-being. It was hypothesized that health-related problems following observations of bullying are determined by (1) whether the observer has been exposed to bullying her/himself and (2) whether the observer have tried to intervene in the bullying situation that they witnessed.

Methods

The study was based on a longitudinal probability survey of the Swedish workforce, with an 18-month time lag between assessment points (N = 1096).

Results

Witnessing bullying at work were associated with an increase in subsequent levels of mental distress among the observers, although this association became insignificant when adjusting for the observers’ own exposure to bullying. Intervening against bullying moderated the relationship between observations of bullying and mental health problems. Observers who did not try to intervene reported a significant increase in mental health problems at follow-up, whereas there were no significant changes in levels of mental health problems among those who did intervene.

Conclusions

the findings suggest that observer interventions against bullying may be highly beneficial for both the targets and observers of bullying. Organizations should therefore invest in ways to increase constructive bystander behavior in negative social situations at the workplace.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1007/s00420-020-01575-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

How and When Does Inclusive Leadership Curb Psychological Distress During a Crisis? Evidence From the COVID-19 Outbreak

Traumatic events such as a pandemic shatter the assumption of the workplace as a safe place. Nurses face risks of life-threatening infection, which can create psychological distress. Quality of care for infected patients depends on mental well-being of nurses which calls for research on predictors of stress among health care workers. Responding to a call for research on the effects of leadership styles on psychological distress during traumatic events, this paper uses the theoretical lens of social exchange theory and contributes to literature on relationships between inclusive leadership, psychological distress, work engagement, and self-sacrifice. Participants of this cross sectional study included 497 registered nurses from five hospitals in Wuhan. Data were collected with temporal separation through an online questionnaire. Partial least-squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze data. Results show inclusive leadership has a significant negative relationship with psychological distress. Work engagement mediates this relationship, and nurses’ self-sacrificial behavior moderates it. Findings indicate inclusive leadership style serves as a sustainable mechanism to reduce psychological distress during pandemics. It can operationalize the delivery of mental health support in real-time in work settings. Results provide empirical support for social exchange theory through high work engagement to help control psychological distress among nurses.

A Fair Share of Work: Is Fairness of Task Distribution a Mediator Between Transformational Leadership and Follower Emotional Exhaustion?

Drawing on social resource theory and the norm of equity, this research proposes fairness of task distribution as a mediating mechanism of the well-established relationship between transformational leadership and followers' well-being, conceptualizing the latter as low emotional exhaustion. Using data from 479 German employees in a three-wave longitudinal study, we found transformational leadership to be related to fair task distribution over time. The perceived fairness of task distribution mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and follower emotional exhaustion (structural equation modeling) when excluding stabilities. Our results also show a reverse causation effect for emotional exhaustion and transformational leadership over a longer time period (within 20 months), suggesting a circular process, as well as a mediation by fairness of task distribution when excluding stabilities. The findings emphasize the importance of fair task distribution by leaders for followers' well-being.

Workplace Bullying and Medically Certified Sickness Absence: Direction of Associations and the Moderating Role of Leader Behavior

The aim of this study was to determine (1) associations between workplace bullying and subsequent risk and duration of medically certified sickness absence, (2) whether employees’ perceptions of supportive, fair, and empowering leader behavior moderate the association between bullying and absence, and (3) whether prior sickness absence increases the risk of being a new victim of bullying. Altogether, 10,691 employees were recruited from 96 Norwegian organizations in the period 2004–2014. The study design was prospective with workplace bullying and leader behavior measured at baseline and then linked to official registry data on medically certified sickness absence for the year following the survey assessment. For analyses of reverse associations, exposure to bullying was reassessed in a follow-up survey after 24 months. The findings showed that workplace bullying was significantly associated with risk (risk ratio = 1.23; 95% CI = 1.13–1.34), but not duration (incidence rate ratio = 1.05; 95% CI = 0.89–1.25) of medically certified sickness absence after adjusting for age, gender, and supportive, fair, and empowering leader behavior. None of the indicators of leader behavior moderated the association between bullying and sickness absence (both risk and duration). Adjusting for baseline bullying, age, and gender, prior long-term sickness absence (>21 days) was associated with increased risk of being a new victim of bullying at follow-up (odds ratio = 1.86; 95% CI = 1.28–2.72). Effective interventions toward workplace bullying may be beneficial with regard to reducing sickness absence rates. Organizations should be aware that long-term sickness absence might be a social stigma as sick-listed employees have an increased risk of being bullied when they return to work.