ORGANISATIONAL SUPPORT RESOURCES - A PRECONDITION FOR PRACTICING HEALTH PROMOTING LEADERSHIP? A questionnaire study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate if health promoting leadership orientations (Participative leadership, Developmental leadership, Health oriented leadership) were associated with organisational support resources among first-line managers in Gothenburg City. This study was conducted with theoretical basis in Kanter’s (1993) organisational theory of structural empowerment and Bakker and Demerouti’s (2007) job demands-resources model. Additionally, health promoting leadership, transformational leadership and servant leadership was used as foundation to the leadership variables. To investigate the purpose, a cross sectional quantitative research design was chosen, using a web survey with first-line managers in Gothenburg City as participants (n=763, 56% response rate). Most variables were measured with indexes from Gothenburg Manager Stress Index (GMSI). The data was analysed by doing descriptive analysis, bivariate correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis and a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Through this analysis, organisational support was associated with Participative leadership and Health oriented leadership. Other forms of organisational support, such as Health promoting self-leadership and Health promoting organisational projects were also important factors affecting Health oriented leadership. In conclusion, well-functioning organisational support resources can give first-line managers more time to practice health promoting leadership orientations and hence increase well-being and health for their employees. The organisational support resources chosen for this study cannot alone explain the variance in the health promoting leadership orientations. Our results reveal that other support resources and structures and to date unknown variables may also play an important role in how to increase the occurrence of health promoting leadership orientations.