HONG KONG, CHINA - MediaOutReach - 24 October 2018 - Whilebeing a leader has many benefits, the role also comes with tremendous pressure.What are the pros and cons of being a leader? How can organisations supporttheir leaders to cope with stress?

Being a leader has many benefits -- there is morecontrol in the job, more decision-making power, and more autonomy at work.However, it also comes with higher expectations and thus, more stress. A goodleader is expected not to just perform and deliver, but also to inspire othersto perform well in good and bad times.

Is being a leader beneficial or detrimental to one'swell-being?

There are plenty of studies on how leadershipbehaviors affect followers' performance and well-being. But, very littleattention has been dedicated to the well-being of the leaders themselves.

A research study entitled "Is being aleader a mixed blessing? A dual-pathway model linking leadership role occupancyto well-being" by Wendong Li,Assistant Professor of Department of Management at The Chinese University ofHong Kong (CUHK) Business School, has addressed this often-neglected questionthrough an innovative approach. The study was conducted in collaboration withProf. John M. Schaubroeck from Michigan State University, Prof. Jia Lin Xiefrom the University of Toronto, and Prof. Anita Keller from the University ofGroningen.

"A deeper understanding of this question mayhelp organisations support their leaders in their efforts to cope with stress,"says Prof. Li. "It may also equip employees to anticipate the long-termcosts of taking supervisory responsibilities and thus make more informed careerchoices," he says.

TwoContrasting Views

Previous academic researches on the well-being ofleaders have mainly presented two contrasting views.

One perspective suggests that being a leader isdetrimental to one's well-being as supervisory responsibilities are oftenassociated with long working hours and heavy workloads. This view, though veryintuitive, has rarely been directly examined in previous research.

The other perspective argues that leadership rolemay be beneficial to one's well-being because leaders have more autonomy thannon-leaders, and therefore less stress at work. Empirical examination of thisperspective has also been very limited.

Rather than limiting to view the issue from aneither-or position, Prof. Li's study has taken both views and findings intoaccount.

"Our study serves as the first step towardreconciling the conflicting views and mixed findings on this relationship,"says Prof. Li, adding that their findings have provided a starting point ofevidence accumulation and a potential template for future research and theorydevelopment.

Job Demandsand Job Control

In order to reconcile the two contrasting viewsregarding the impact of leadership roles on the job holders' wellbeing, Prof Liand the team developed a dual-pathway model to test how leadership role isrelated to both job demands (which refer to the psycho-social demands atworkplace), and job control (which relates to the level of discretion in howone chooses to perform one's core job).

"Leadership roles may have highly stressfuldemands while simultaneously conferring high levels of control. Such distinctpathways connecting leadership role occupancy to wellbeing may be mutuallycountervailing," Prof. Li explains.

"Thus, determining the impact of leadershiproles on one's wellbeing may ultimately be a question that concerns therelative strengths of the detrimental and salutary paths."

According to Prof. Li, serving in a leadershipposition may enhance one's wellbeing through the increase in job control, butthe position may have a negative effect on his or her wellbeing due to high jobdemands.

In other words, both job control and job demandshave beneficial and also detrimental effects on a leader's wellbeing. Theoffsetting signs, revealed by the dual-pathway model, highlight the complexityof the overall relationship between leadership role and personal wellbeing.

The Study

The researchers tested their hypotheses with fourindependent samples from different cultural contexts -- Switzerland, USA, China,and Japan.

The Swiss cohort included a sample of 1,006participants; the American cohort included a sample of 1,409 participants overa 10-year time-lagged design; the Chinese cohort of 369 participants worked ina large state-owned manufacturing company in China and the last cohort included1,027 Japanese adults from Tokyo, Japan.

In the study, the researchers examined two types ofpsychological well-being: hedonic (i.e., when we feel happy from pleasureattainment and pain avoidance) and eudaimonic (i.e., when we feel happy fromexperiencing purpose, challenges and growth in life). To examine their physicalwell-being, chronic diseases, blood pressure, and cortisol (often called the 'stresshormone'), were measured.

Key Findings

Overall, the team found that leaders reported bothhigh job demands and high job control. They also reported steeper trajectoriesover time in job demands and job control than non-leaders.

In addition, higher job demands were associatedwith lower wellbeing whereas higher job control was associated with greaterwellbeing. Such findings are consistent with the researchers' predictions andprevious studies.

However, leaders who perceived higher job demandsalso self-reported more chronic diseases and higher blood pressure.

CulturalDifferences

In addition, the study discovered that the effectof leadership role on eudaimonic well-being through job control was larger inthe Japan sample than in the U.S. sample.

This may be due to cultural difference, accordingto Prof. Li. "There is stronger endorsement of power distance as a valuein Japan than in the United States. Thus, gaining control at work may have morepronounced effect for the Japanese than the Americans," Prof. Li explains.

"Future research may further examine how culturalvalues may shape the influence of leadership role occupancy on one's well‐being," he says.

Implications

"Our research provides an important first stepin assessing how distinct work characteristics may explain the relationshipbetween being a leader and a non-leader's wellbeing," Prof. Li says.

"In terms of practical implications, organisationsshould seek to ensure that their investment in leaders is not compromised bylow levels of leaders' well‐being that maydiscourage nascent leaders from continuing in their careers as leaders,"he adds.

Selecting and grooming employees for leadershiproles is a major investment for most organisations. Therefore, to make sure theefforts do not go to waste, Prof. Li also suggests organisations should ensurethat their leaders are not over-burdened and have ample opportunities to restand recover. On the other hand, leaders themselves may consider delegating moreto decrease their job demands.

"Identifying and implementing means to limitleaders' job demands and foster their recovery are critical to obtaining asizable return on these investments," Prof. Li says.

Reference:

Wen‐Dong Li, John M. Schaubroeck, Jia LinXie, Anita C. Keller, "Is being a leader a mixed blessing? A dual‐pathway modellinking leadership role occupancy to well‐being," (7March 2018). Journal of OrganizationalBehavior.

Thisarticle was first published in the China Business Knowledge (CBK) website byCUHK Business School: https://bit.ly/2S7tvAe. 

About CUHK Business School

CUHKBusiness School comprises two schools -- Accountancy and Hotel and Tourism Management -- andfour departments -- Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics, Finance, Management and Marketing.Established in Hong Kong in 1963, it is the first business school to offer BBA,MBA and Executive MBA programmes in the region. Today, the School offers 8 undergraduate programmes and20graduate programmes including MBA, EMBA, Master, MSc, MPhiland Ph.D.

Inthe Financial Times GlobalMBA Ranking2018, CUHK MBAis ranked 43^rd. In FT's2018 EMBAranking, CUHK EMBA isranked 29^th in the world. CUHK Business School has the largestnumber of business alumni (35,000+)among universities/business schools in Hong Kong -- many of whom are keybusiness leaders. The School currently has about 4,400 undergraduate andpostgraduate students and Professor Kalok Chan is the Dean of CUHK BusinessSchool.

More information is available at www.bschool.cuhk.edu.hkor by connecting with CUHK Business Schoolon Facebook: www.facebook.com/cuhkbschooland LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/school/3923680/.