An exploration of healthy leadership in the New Zealand context : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, New Zealand

Abstract

Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) is becoming an increasingly integral part of organisational Health and Safety (H&S) systems designed to positively impact employee wellbeing and business performance. A comprehensive approach to WHP emphasises that the organisation of work (i.e., physical and psychosocial aspects of the work environment) can have a profound influence on the wellbeing of employees. Leadership research indicates that within the psychosocial environment, management’s relationship with their direct reports can serve as a key determinant of employee wellbeing. Following that research strand, a specific stream of leadership research – the healthy leadership literature – has identified several health-promoting behaviours by which managers can positively affect the wellbeing and performance of their direct reports. However, the factors which drive managers to actually engage in these important behaviours have been largely unexamined. Drawing on the Self Determination Theory (SDT) of motivation as the theoretical framework, this research examines how managers and non-managers conceptualise a healthy workplace in the New Zealand context, which behaviours they consider as health-promoting, and what managers report doing to support the wellbeing of their teams. Importantly, this research explores the enablers and barriers to managers’ Health-Promoting Leadership Behaviours (HPLB), and how these behaviours lead to positive wellbeing and performance outcomes for non-managers. This research proposes that multiple factors may shape a manager’s motivation to engage in HPLB, ranging from organisational support (such as psychosocial safety climate (PSC)) to managers’ job characteristics (such as perceived job autonomy) or even managers’ personal characteristics (such as authentic leadership). Together, these factors suggest that perceived autonomy and authentic leadership may shape managers’ perceptions of PSC. Accordingly, this research examines the role of a manager’s autonomy perceptions and their authentic leadership behaviours in shaping their perceptions of organisational Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC). The study utilises a sequential explanatory mixed-method design. In the first phase, quantitative data was collected via an online survey from managers and non-managerial employees working in New Zealand. In the second phase, in-depth interviews were conducted with a selection of managers and non-managers to further explore the research questions. The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using SPSS and NVivo, respectively. The research findings indicated that both managers and non-managers conceptualise a healthy workplace as catering to both the wellbeing-related needs and the work-related needs of employees. Non-managers further emphasised the human aspects of the work environment as a dimension of managers’ HPLB, whereas managers regarded authentic leadership as an important dimension. Several factors were identified as important enablers of managers’ HPLB. These included organisational support, managers’ job-related factors, technological factors, managers’ personal values, beliefs, and preferences, and employee-related factors. On the other hand, the absence of these factors, including a lack of organisational support, poorly designed managerial roles, a lack of managers’ or employees’ commitment to health, and a lack of technological support, appeared to be barriers to managers’ HPLB. The findings further indicated that managers’ perceptions of autonomy had a strong positive relationship with their perceptions of the PSC. Furthermore, psychological wellbeing (PWB) mediated the relationship between non-managers’ perceptions of their managers’ HPLB (both positive and destructive leadership behaviours) and their self-reported performance (both in-role performance and extra-role behaviours). This research contributes uniquely to the healthy leadership literature by providing a richer understanding of the role of healthy leadership in the New Zealand context, while also identifying specific enablers and barriers of managers’ health-promoting leadership behaviours, and their impact on non-managers’ wellbeing and performance. These findings address an important theoretical and practical gap in the research and practice relating to the domain of healthy leadership. Theoretically, the identification of autonomy as an important predictor of a managers’ perceptions of organisational PSC extends the PSC literature and also offers opportunities for future studies to explore how other elements of a manager’s job design may relate to their perceptions of PSC. A detailed understanding of the dynamics of a healthy workplace in the New Zealand context, specific health-promoting behaviours of frontline managers, and the identification of the enabling factors along with barriers for managers’ engagement in HPLB contribute to wider leadership research and specifically to the healthy leadership literature. The strong association between managers’ HPLB and employee job performance through PWB underscores the wellbeing-supportive role of healthy leadership. These findings also add to workplace health promotion research and the occupational health psychology literature by adding further evidence of the importance of psychosocial aspects of the work environment in promoting employee wellbeing and performance outcomes. Practically, the findings offer significant insights for intervention research and for how organisations can invest in reshaping their PSC and redesigning the roles of their frontline managers to promote managers’ wellbeing-supportive behaviours that will improve employee performance and business success.