Transformational Leadership and Employees' Psychological Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study

Lara Lindert; Sabrina Zeike; Kyung-Eun Anna Choi; Holger Pfaff

doi:10.3390/ijerph20010676

Transformational Leadership and Employees' Psychological Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 30;20(1):676. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20010676.

Authors

Lara Lindert^{1

2}, Sabrina Zeike³, Kyung-Eun Anna Choi^{2

4}, Holger Pfaff¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Medical Sociology, Health Services Research and Rehabilitation Science, Faculty of Medicine, University Hospital Cologne, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Cologne, Eupener Str. 129, 50933 Cologne, Germany.
² Center for Health Services Research, Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane, Fehrbelliner Str. 38, 16816 Neuruppin, Germany.
³ vivalue Health Consulting GmbH, Friesenplatz 4, 50672 Cologne, Germany.
⁴ Health Services Research, MIAAI, Danube Private University (DPU) GmbH, Steiner Landstraße 124, 3500 Krems an der Donau, Austria.

Abstract

Managers play a key role in realizing a humane organization of work. Transformational leadership aims to identify and examine leadership behaviors that strengthen employees' awareness of the importance and values of task outcomes by articulating a vision for the future, providing a realistic action plan, and giving individualized support. Previous studies have revealed associations between transformational leadership and the psychological wellbeing of employees in different settings, while others did not find such associations. As research based on longitudinal data remains rare, this study builds on longitudinal data from two employee surveys conducted in 2015 and 2018 in a medium-sized German company. In this study, transformational leadership_t0 and gender had a significant impact on transformational leadership_t1, while psychological wellbeing_∆, social capital_∆, and age did not. Psychological wellbeing_t0 and social capital_∆ had a significant impact on psychological wellbeing_t1, but transformational leadership_∆, age, and gender did not. Therefore, it is worthwhile for companies to invest in social capital and focus on gender aspects at work. As underlying mechanisms regarding employees' psychological wellbeing may differ between companies, it is worthwhile for each organization to conduct mental risk assessments to identify "red flags" and implement suitable measures.

Keywords: leadership research; mental health; mental risk assessment; social capital.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Humans
Leadership*
Longitudinal Studies
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

The overall project from which the dataset was derived was financed as mental risk assessment measure by a German medium-sized company. For data protection reasons, the funder wishes to remain anonymous. The company was not involved in and did not finance any work that has been done to carry out the analyses and write the manuscript. For the purpose of this manuscript, none of the authors received any other specific funding. The research group of L.L. and K.-E.C. is funded by the German pension insurance Berlin-Brandenburg (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Berlin-Brandenburg) that was not involved in the study.