Background: Evidence suggests that leadership behaviors and sense of coherence (SOC) influences subordinate health. However, this has not been investigated in any detail.
Objectives: To study the association between leadership behaviors and SOC. It was hypothesized that both task and relation oriented leadership behaviors would be positively associated with SOC, whereas a laissez-faire leadership would be negatively associated with SOC.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional quantitative study of managers and subordinates in a large governmental organization. The study used two common and empirically tested leadership styles: task oriented leadership and relation oriented leadership. In a logistic regression analysis, the association between types of leadership behavior and SOC were analyzed while controlling for age, gender, income, type of employment and organizational tenure.
Results: Neither task oriented or relation oriented leadership behavior were significantly associated with SOC.
Conclusions: The result indicates that the type of leadership behavior exercised is not directly associated with subordinate's SOC. In future studies the importance of subordinate leadership preferences should be acknowledged. More research is needed to reach an understanding as to the nature of and the potential of this mechanism.
Keywords: Workplace well-being; health; manager influence; managerial style; psycho-social working conditions.