A Meta-Analysis of the Relative Contribution of Leadership Styles to Followers’ Mental Health

This meta-analysis of evidence on the contribution of leadership styles to followers’ mental health indices may interest you.

Not a summary – but you can freely read the full study.

53 studies with 217 effect sizes, comprising >93k participants met inclusion criteria.

They found that:

·        Transformational and destructive leadership were the strongest predictors of overall and negative aspects of mental health in followers

·        Relations-orientated and task-oriented leadership, followed by transformational leadership were the strongest predictors of positive mental health outcomes

·        Transformational leadership and LMX had the strongest effect sizes for mental health; explaining more variance in positive mental health outcomes than transactional and relations-oriented leadership

·        Laissez-faire, relations- and task-oriented leadership and LMX also showed incremental contributions to variance but with lower effect sizes

·        Destructive leadership and to a lesser degree laissez-faire leadership showed the strongest negative links with positive mental health outcomes

·        Notably, “Although the findings confirm the importance of transformational leadership for enhancing positive mental health and reducing negative mental health outcomes, destructive leadership is on a par with the predictive power of transformational leadership”

·        Nevertheless, regarding all of the leadership constructs, there “is a substantial conceptual overlap with transformational leadership (cf. Judge & Piccolo, 2004). This overlap might also prevent the hypothesized augmentation effect, at least in view of mental health outcomes”

·        They argue that the findings suggest that “leadership development programs can be optimized to favorably impact followers’ overall mental health by focusing on the core behavioral characteristics associated with transformational leadership”

·        Moreover, “leadership trainings may also address the importance of an adequate balance between a clear definition of goals and work tasks and the building and maintenance of trustful, respectful, and considerate relationships with followers”

·        And, “At the same time, given the large influence of destructive leadership or laissez-faire on mental health, leader development programs should also explicitly address potential antecedents and the detrimental consequences of those types of leader behaviors, and provide some guidance on appropriate policies and strategies to hinder or restrain their occurrence”

There’s a number of limitations, of course.

Ref: Montano, D., Schleu, J. E., & Hüffmeier, J. (2023). Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 30(1), 90-107.

Study link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/15480518221114854?_t_tags=language%3Aen%2Csiteid%3A9e70eb08-8aab-4b4a-a62a-52bd8c432544&_t_hit.id=Brightfind_Search_Find_Pages_ExternalContentPage/_1c7b28cb-df19-4cf0-a751-369bcf50821f_en&_t_hit.pos=2

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