Karolinska Institutet (2009, November 11). Poor Leadership Poses A Health Risk At Work. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 12, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com? /releases/2009/11/091102121626.htm
This was a cool study that came about recently that examines the effect that possible bad managerial leadership can have on workers' long term health. They also examined the relationship that possible bad managerial leadership had on workers taking more time off for sick leave. This study was conducted by the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet in which they got their results from 20,000 employees from such countries as Germany and Poland as well as most of Sweden's working population. These employees worked at various places like hotels. Once they got the results back, the conductors of this study looked at different people's stress levels, the number of sick leave that they took, and their different health problems that they had as well as other things. The conductors related this to how these people viewed their manager's leadership whether it was good or bad like how supportive he or she was. Through all of the results, they found out that possible poor managerial leadership actually did have an effect on a worker's long term health as well as the increased number of days that people were on sick leave from work due to poor managerial leadership. The conductors also found out that workers who viewed their managers as being good leaders, that those people had spent less days on sick leave from work.
I think that one factor that really wasn't mention that could make the employees view their managers as being poor leaders could be the leader's style. The employees might prefer a more relationship-oriented leader rather than a task-oriented leader or vice versa. Even though this is definitely not considered to be bad leadership, some employees might view this as being bad leadership. I also feel that some of the employees might view their leaders as being poor leaders based on things like their leaders showing a little favoritism towards the other employees. Those workers might end up having a dislike for their boss and end up viewing this as poor leadership which is another example that might not be considered by others to be poor leadership. I also agreed with the results that came about from this study. I think that employees who feel that their bosses are good leaders are more likely to live happier and healthier lives now and down the road. I think that this also can lead employees to enjoy their work more.
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I would be interested to know what economic status these workers held. My reason for this is that it's been my experience that working really hard for not nearly enough pay is discouraging in itself. I also know from experience that a great leader or supervisor can make coming to work more tolerable and sometimes fun even when the job itself is depressing and mundane. Same thing applies for the opposite. A leader with poor management skills has only ever served to intensify the repetitious and unrewarding aspects of a minimum-wage job. I think the study would have been better if they had made a point to include and point out any differences there might be between economic classes.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to know how much of the long term illness could be attributed to substance abuse. It has been my experience that when employees do not have faith in the company drinking and drug abuse goes up along with the accident rates at work.
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