Why inspiring leaders are bad for your health

Pressure from ‘transformational leaders’ may increase levels of sickness absence among employees, according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The study showed that vulnerable employees that showed signs of presenteeism in groups with transformational leaders suffered from increased sickness absence rates in the long-run.

Professor Kevin Daniels, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at UEA’s Norwich Business School, says that the assumption ‘more transformational leadership is better’ doesn’t hold over time: “Managers need to strike a balance, they can still encourage staff to perform well, but in a way that is not at the expense of their health and well-being.”

Professor Karina Nielsen, Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at UEA’s Norwich Business School, who led the study, described the relationship between transformational leadership and sickness absence as complex: “It is possible that high performance expectations pose a risk to both healthy and vulnerable employees and the motivational aspects of transformational leadership may backfire.