The effects of leaders’ behaviors on employees’ resilience

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new typology for classifying the leaders’ behaviors and investigate the effects of leaders’ behaviors on employees’ resilience.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper used a mixed method research (i.e. interview and questionnaire). First, through the interviews with employees, the leaders’ behaviors were identified. Next, based on the identified behaviors and Kano model the type of each behavior was classified. Finally, according to this classification, the impact of leaders’ behaviors on employees’ resilience was investigated.

Findings

Based on the results of the interviews, 46 leaders’ behaviors which influence employees’ satisfaction/dissatisfaction were identified out of which 10 behaviors were must-be; 5 behaviors were one-dimensional, 18 behaviors were attractive and 13 behaviors were reverse type. Also, the results of hypotheses testing showed that attractive behaviors have a stronger relationship to employees’ resilience than one-dimensional and must-be behaviors; one-dimensional behaviors have a stronger relationship to employees’ resilience than must-be behaviors; and reverse behaviors have an indirect effect on employees’ resilience.

Originality/value

This research proposes a new typology for classifying the leaders’ behaviors into the five categories and the approach and findings of this research contribute to the literature of Kano model and leadership theory.

Citation

Salehzadeh, R. (2019), "The effects of leaders’ behaviors on employees’ resilience", International Journal of Workplace Health Management, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 318-338. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-02-2019-0016