Unraveling the black box of how leaders affect employee well-being : the role of leadership, leader well-being and leader attentive communication

In a time characterized by growing uncertainty, e.g. because of the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, effective leadership is more important than ever. In addition, employee well-being has been named one of the critical drivers of business success. In this dissertation, we therefore answer the following overarching question: Exactly how can leaders contribute to employee well-being? In order to answer this question, we execute several theoretical and empirical studies, and we also develop new ways of investigating leader (communication) behavior itself. In the first part of this dissertation, we look into the main ways in which positive leadership styles influence employee work engagement. In the first theoretical study, we argue why certain leader behaviors are shared across positive leadership styles, and we identify several theory-driven processes and pathways through which leaders can influence employee work engagement. In the second study, a moderated meta-analysis, we investigate the meta-correlation of positive leadership styles and work engagement, as well as provide an empirically-driven overview of categories of mediating and moderating mechanisms, to end up with an overarching research model. In the second part of this dissertation, we look into the role of leaders’ own well-being, for both their own leadership as well as for employee well-being. In the first study, we test a moderated mediation and find that 1) mindfulness is an antecedent of positive leadership (here: transformational leadership), 2) leaders’ psychological need satisfaction mediates the relationship between mindfulness and transformational leadership and 3) neuroticism moderates the relationship between mindfulness and relatedness need satisfaction. In the second study, with multilevel and multisource data, we investigate the trickle-down effect of leaders’ psychological need satisfaction. We find that psychological need satisfaction indeed trickles down to employees, mediated by (employee-rated) levels of LMX. We also find a direct positive association between leader competence and employee competence, as well as a negative one between leader autonomy and employee competence. In the last part of this dissertation, we look into how we can improve leader communication to increase employee well-being. In the first study we develop a new construct and validate a new 10-item questionnaire for leader attentive communication (LAC), i.e. an open-minded, attentive demeanor while in a conversation with an employee. We also find that psychological need satisfaction and Kahn’s conditions for engagement mediate the relationship between LAC and work engagement. In the second study, we devise and test a two-day training protocol to improve leader communication. Despite an interference by the pandemic in the data-collection, we find small increases in employee-rated outcomes after the training. We also find that employee-rated LAC is related to employee well-being, and that this is mediated by both psychological need satisfaction and Kahn’s conditions for engagement