Managerial leadership is associated with self-reported sickness absence and sickness presenteeism among Swedish men and women.
Nyberg A, Westerlund H, Magnusson Hanson LL, Theorell T.
Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. anna.nyberg@ki.se.
AIMS: The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between managerial leadership and self-reported sickness absence/presenteeism among Swedish men and women. METHODS: Five thousand one hundred and forty-one Swedish employees, 56% of the participants in a nationally representative sample of the Swedish working population, were included in this cross-sectional questionnaire study. The leadership dimensions measured were five subscales of a standardized leadership questionnaire (Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness Programme): Integrity, Team integration, Inspirational leadership, Autocratic leadership, and Self-centred leadership. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted, adjusting for factors in private life, employment category, labour-market sector, working conditions, self-reported general health, and satisfaction with life in general. RESULTS: Inspirational leadership was associated with a lower rate of short spells of sickness absence (<1 week) for both men and women. Autocratic leadership was related to a greater amount of total sick days taken by men. Sometimes showing integrity was associated with higher rate of sickness absence >1 week among men, and seldom showing integrity was associated with more sickness presenteeism among women. Managers performing Team integration were sometimes associated with women taking fewer short (<1 week) and long (>1 week) spells of sickness absence. Adjustment for self-reported general health did not alter these associations for men, but did so to some extent for women. CONCLUSIONS: Managerial leadership was found to be relevant for the understanding of sickness absence in the Swedish working population. There were distinctive gender differences.
PMID: 19004898 [PubMed - in process]
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2008. Vol. 36, nr 8, s. 803-11
Gender, Health, Managerial leadership, Sickness absence, Sickness presenteeism, Working conditions
Internt publ.nr. P2696