Leader Behaviour affecting Well-Being at Work

Leader behaviour has a significant impact on employee behaviour, performance and well-being. Extant theory and research on leadership behavior has predominantly focused on employee performance, treating employee well-being (typically measured as job satisfaction) as a secondary outcome variable related to performance, rather than as an important outcome in itself. From a criterion perspective, the narrow focus on job satisfaction doesn’t fully capture the concept of employee well-being, which is multi-dimensional. The purpose of this paper is to focus first on the main ideas about leadership theory and behavioural approaches to it, and then turn the attention to processes by which leadership behaviour (i.e., change, relational, task, passive) affects employee well-being. Five mediator groupings (social-cognitive, motivational, affective, relational, identification) have been identified by extending the criterion space for conceptualizing employee well-being (i.e., psychological: hedonic, eudaimonic, negative; and physical).