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LEADERSHIP AND EMPLOYEE
WITHDRAWAL BEHAVIORS:
A Systematic Literature Review
Teng Xiao University of Amsterdam
Economics and Business, BSc in Business Studies Supervisor: Claudia Buengeler
Student Number: 10256377 June 2014
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Table of Contents
Abstract ... 4
1. Introduction ... 5
1.1 Leadership ... 6
1.1.1 Leadership behaviors ... 8
1.1.1.1 The full range leadership theory.……...………...8
1.1.1.2 Ethical leadership...………10
1.1.1.3 Consideration and initiating structure ..………...………..11
1.1.1.4 Situational leadership ………...………..12
1.1.1.5 The Bonoma-Slevin leadership model………….……….13
1.1.2 Leader – member exchange theory ... 14
1.1.3 Leader’s power ... 14
1.2 Withdrawal Behaviors ... 15
1.3 Research Questions ... 17
1.4 Hypotheses ... 18
2. Methods ... 19
2.1 Search Strategy ... 19
2.2 Categorization... 20
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2.3 Selection ... 20
2.4 Coding ... 21
2.5 Analysis ... 21
3. Results ... 22
3.1 Leadership behaviors ... 22
3.1.1 The full range leadership theory ... 22
3.1.2 Ethical leadership ... 29
3.1.3 Consideration and initiating structure ... 32
3.1.4 Situational leadership ... 34
3.1.5 The Bonoma-Slevin leadership model ... 38
3.2 Leader – member exchange theory ... 39
3.3 Leader’s power ... 41
4. Discussion ... 43
4.1 Implications ... 43
4.2 Limitation ... 45
4.3 Conclusion ... 46
5. References ... 47
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Abstract
Purpose: Many previous studies have shown that leadership is closely related to various employee withdrawal behaviors, but rarely did they conduct systematic literature reviews on this
relationship. Thereby, the aim of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review on the
relationship between leadership and employee withdrawal behaviors based on considerable
primary studies.
Method: The search strategy of this multidisciplinary systematic literature review involved two databases. Key words searched were “leadership AND absence/absenteeism”, “leadership AND sick leave/sick-leave absenteeism”, “leadership AND turnover”, “leadership AND withdrawal”, and “leadership AND retention". 43 empirical studies that examined leadership and employee withdrawal behaviors were used in the present thesis.
Findings: Outcomes associated leadership were categorized into three big groups: “leadership behaviors”, “leader–member exchange theory”, and “leader’s power”. Classical leadership theories describing leaders’ behaviors fell into “leadership behaviors", such as the full range leadership theory, ethical leadership, and situational leadership. Further, all leadership constructs
found in the sample were broken into one of two categories: that focused on tasks to be
accomplished [i.e., task oriented] and that focused on people and relationships to achieve the
common goal [i.e., relationship oriented]. Then, the association between task/relationship oriented
leadership and withdrawal behaviors was examined in each group. Findings suggested that
relationship oriented leadership helps reduce employee withdrawal behaviors whereas task
oriented leadership leads to increasing these counterproductive behaviors.
Conclusion: The results showed that leadership constructs classified as task oriented and relationship oriented have differential effects on employee withdrawal behaviors. Leaders focused
5 recommended to encourage developing relationship oriented leadership or relationship oriented
leadership together with task oriented leadership to combat the employee withdrawal problems.
1. Introduction
In the United States, the average sickness absence rate of the labor force is 1.5 % of the scheduled
work time, adding up to approximately 375 million lost work days per year (Bureau of Labor
Statistics, United States Department of Labor, 2013). In the United Kingdom, absenteeism leads
to a waste of 32.8 billion euros. In the Netherlands, it is reported that the average costs caused by
employee withdrawal is estimated at 1,268 euros per year (Edwards & Greasley, 2010).
Obviously, employee withdrawal behaviors are detrimental to organizations, so to improve the
performance of enterprises it is critical to tackle this problem.
As it has been reported in many literature, leadership is one of the key determinants of employee
withdrawal behaviors, such as absenteeism and turnover (Boudreau, Christian & Thibadeau, 1993;
Gestner & Day, 1997; Griffeth, Hom & Gaertner, 2000; Richardson & Vandenberg, 2005;
Tharenou, 1993; Van Dierendonck, 2002; Zhu, Chew & Spangler, 2005). Given the association
between leadership and withdrawal behaviors, the question has been raised regarding what types
of leadership will bring about withdrawal behaviors and what types of leadership will reduce
those behaviors? In the following sections, I firstly explain each main concept mentioned in this
study, and posit research questions as well as hypotheses. Then, I introduce how I conducted the
search for literatures. Next, results are presented in tables with the elaboration on featured
findings regarding influences of relationship/task oriented leadership on employee withdrawal
6 1.1 Leadership
Defined by the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) study of 62 societies, leadership stands for “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of organizations of which they are
members” (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman & Gupta, 2004). Leadership has been one of the imperative driving forces in the workplace and has drawn much attention from different schools
in the history. Following Bryman (1992), main trends of leadership theories’ development could
be classified into four periods -- before late 1940s, late 1940s to late 1960s, late 1960s to early
1980s, and 1980s until the present.
In the early times, up to the late 1940s, inspired by Thomas Carlyle’s (1849)“great man” theory,
leadership was mostly viewed as an innate ability, which means leaders are those born with
certain characteristics (Cowley, 1931). Between late 1940s to late 1960s, in contrast with the trait
approach, scholars showed that leadership is patterns of behavior which can be acquired through
training (Bass, 1990; Bryman, 1992). One of the most representative schools is the Ohio State
studies. Based on questionnaire-based studies, researchers found that leadership could be best
defined as a two-factor construct: consideration and initiating (Fleishman & Harris, 1962). In
addition to Ohio State studies, findings from a leadership researching program carried out at the
University of Michigan (Likert, 1961, 1967) were also influential at that time. Researcher
concluded three types of leader behaviors from their studies: task-oriented behavior,
relationship-oriented behavior and participative relationship-oriented behavior. From late 1960s to early 1980s, with
further development of leadership theories, academics pointed out that the degree of the
effectiveness of leadership is contingent on different situations (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969;
Vroom & Yetton, 1973; House, 1971; Yukl & Falbe 1990). Situational leadership theory that was
emerged at this time is a typical representative of this view. Hersey and Blanchard (1969)
7 high/low relations). Besides, the Bonoma-Slevin leadership model also defined different
situations that leaders involve subordinates in decision making. Finally, from early 1980s onwards, studies focus on the “new leadership” (Bryman, 1922). The new leadership tends to be described mostly as “charismatic” or “transformational” (Hunt, 1999). Charismatic and transformational leaders are often associated with high self-confidence and need for influence,
strong dominance and conviction of the integrity of one’s own beliefs. Transformational leadership was introduced by Bass and Avolio (1998) in their work that built the full range
leadership theory. They ranked three types of leadership on a basis of passive v.s. active and
effective v.s. ineffective range, and transformational leadership was the most effective and active
behavior. This leadership concentrates on the relationship building with employees, which shares
the similar concept to leader- member exchange theory (LMX). Argued by Graen and Uhl-Bien,
(1995) LMX is used to assess the quality of relationship between leaders and members, so this
theory implies that members is the center of the strategy.
Also, leadership could be defined by its function. According to Shaw (2007), the definition of
leadership is often composed of four aspects: “1) a process that 2) entails influence, 3) occurs within a group, setting or context and 4) involves achieving goals that reflect a common vision”.
This is supported by Hersey and Blanchard’s (1981) definition of leadership – “the process of influencing the activity of an individual or group to obtain a given purpose”, which implies that leadership can be categorized into two types that influence subordinates in different ways, one
aiming on people and relationship, and the other focusing on accomplishing tasks (Hersey, 1985).
Such approach could also be found in Appelbaum, Hebert and Lerous’ (1999) paper in which
they illuminated that two leadership styles could be defined among all the different classical
leadership models. “One is characterized by a more directive style of management that focuses on
the task and initiating structure. The other is characterized by sharing information, participation,
8 consideration” (Vecchio & Appelbaum, 1995, p. 385). This dichotomy was also echoed by Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas and Halpin (2006). In their meta-analysis of leadership behaviors
and team performances, Burke et al. categorized all leadership behaviors found in their sample
into person-focused and task-focused ones. Based on the above arguments, in this study, I would
refer to this definition and classify leadership found in the present sample into “relationship
oriented leadership” and “task oriented leadership” to conduct the analysis.
Given the sample of leadership constructs that have been empirically examined, leadership
theories/approaches can be subsumed under three big groups - “leadership behaviors” which
included “the full range leadership theory”, “ethical leadership”, “consideration and initiating
structure”, “situational leadership”, “the Bonoma-Slevin leadership model”. The other two were
“leader –member exchange theory” and “leader’s power”. 1.1.1 Leadership Behaviors
1.1.1.1 The Full-Range of Leadership Theory
This theory developed by Bass and Avolio (1998) aims to explain the whole range of leadership
behaviors, from “laissez-faire” the most passive and ineffective one, to “transactional”, to “transformational leadership” the most active and effective one.
Laissez-faire leadership, in essence, depicts non-leadership. This type of supervisors incline to withdraw from leadership and provide little direction or support. They are indifferent and pay no attention to subordinates’ needs. Key indicators are an avoidance of making decisions, refusal to take sides in disputes and a lack of interests in dealing with related issues. Laissez-faire is neither
relationship oriented or task oriented leadership, as those managers show no leadership at all, so
findings on this leadership construct were only provided in the Appendix.
Transactional behaviors have three means of exhibition – passive management-by-exception, active by-exception, and contingent rewards. Regarding the passive
management-9 by-exception style, managers are only motivated when the situation is abnormal. They only present to help staff when problems occur, mistakes made or deviations become obvious from
standard. Key motivation behind would be their unwillingness to change the status quo.
Compared to passive exception, leaders who adopt active
management-by-exception style provide close supervision to any problems or deviations, which normally implies an extensive and accurate monitoring and control system to detect those mistakes. Another
traditional transactional behavior is contingent reward. This manager will set clear goals and
establish rewards for the exchange of the objectives. Rewards can be both financial and
non-financial. For example, non-financial rewards can be not only tangible such as extra holiday time,
preferred working schedule, but also intangible such as praise and recognition of satisfying
performance. Moreover, these leaders attempt to provide resources and supports needed by staff
to accomplish the targets.
Transactional leadership is task oriented according to Hargis, Wyatt and Piotrowski (2011), since
they argued that the focus of transactional leadership emphasized on the significance of specific
task performance. Accomplishment of the task is the main reason that motivates transactional
leaders. This is also endorsed by Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas & Halpin (2006, p. 291) who claimed that “transactional leadership behaviors primarily reflect a focus on task accomplishment”.
The final leadership behavior is transformational behavior, which includes four sub-styles:
individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealized
influence. Individualized consideration indicates a compassionate leader. These leaders show
concerns to staff and empathize with individual needs, listening to followers’ feedback and encouraging followers’ continuous development and growth. Employees feel respected and are granted autonomy. Intellectual stimulation fundamentally describes that managers motivate
10 Employees are empowered to do this by utilizing their skills. Furthermore, these managers are able to articulate a promising vision to their subordinates and align the vision with staff’ individual needs. Idealized influence refers to leaders who are equipped with certain
characteristics such as morality, trust and honesty that help example themselves as ideal models
for followers. Those leaders are consistently exhibiting great commitment and persistence in
pursing goals to motivate people around them. It is worth to mention that another leadership
construct - charismatic leadership (House, 1977) shares similar behaviors to transformational
leadership. House defined four personal characteristics of charismatic leadership: dominance,
self-confidence, need for influence, and a strong conviction of the integrity of one’s own beliefs.
Transformational leadership is a typical relationship oriented behavior, as leaders attempt to build
a close relationship with followers by understanding their needs and offering help to solve their
problems in the workplace (Bass, 1991; Bass & Riggio, 2012). This is also in line with the
typology by Burke et al. (2006) who argued that because transformational leadership has the
developmental and self-actualization aspects of many behaviors (i.e. developing subordinates,
transforming followers’ motivational states), it was classified as relationship oriented behavior in
their study.
1.1.1.2 Ethical leadership approaches
Business scandals and increased media attention lead to an increasing awareness of the
importance of ethical behaviors of leaders. Ethical leadership approaches are defined as the
demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct (Zhang, Walumbwa, Aryee & Chen, 2013).
Authentic leadership is a pattern of open and ethical leader behavior that promotes transparency in sharing information to make decisions while encouraging input from followers (Spence
Laschinger, Wong & Grau, 2012). Apart from authentic leadership, both servant leadership and
moral leadership which also belong to ethical leadership approaches put followers’ needs as the highest priority. Those managers purpose to encourage, support and enable individuals to realize
11 their full potentials. Delegation responsibility and empowerment are necessities to achieve it.
Integrity, which was defied as one of the most typical traits of ethical leaders (Brown et al., 2005; De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008; Kalshoven et al., 2011), means that leaders speak and act
truthfully and earnestly. These leaders know what is right and behave accordingly, so employees
trust them and rely upon their words.
These four types of ethical leadership approaches are all deemed to be relationship oriented, since
they all put people instead of work at the center (Easley, 2008; Locander & Luechauer, 2005;
Zhang, Walumbwa, Aryee & Chen, 2013). Easley (2007) described ethical leadership as a
behavior in which the “relationship represents the morally founded means of influencing the
quality of the work".
1.1.1.3 Consideration and initiating structure
Early researchers at the Ohio State University identified two styles of leadership: consideration
and initiating structure. Consideration examines the degree to which a leader shows respect for
followers, concerns their personal welfare, and expresses appreciation and supports. Key indicators of this style are being friendly and approachable, consulting members’ suggestions, and treating everyone equal in the group. In contrast, initiating structure is a way to determine leaders
who initiate actions to attain goals and define explicit roles of each other. This style often
involves well-defined practices in the workplace and clear channels of communication. Key
indicators are assignment of particular tasks with pointed individuals, scheduling the progress of
work, and establishment of uniform standards (Judge, Piccolo & Ilies, 2004).
Consideration and initiating structure represent the typical relationship oriented and task oriented
leadership, respectively. It is clear that consideration aims to maintain the interpersonal
12 espouses the priority of tasks by offering assistance to individuals to complete work (Judge,
Piccolo & Ilies, 2004).
Congruent with the distinction of consideration and initiating structure, results of Michigan
studies (Likert, 1961, 1967) also showed that leadership could be divided into relationship
oriented and task oriented. However, in addition to these two types of behaviors, a third behavior
(participative oriented behavior) was defined in Michigan studies as well, moving the debate
further into the question of leading teams rather than just individuals. It is worth to clarify that
their classification of relationship/task oriented leadership is different from the present study, as
they focus on certain behaviors of leaders, but I focus on the existed leadership theories which
involve these behaviors in a broader sense.
1.1.1.4 Situational leadership
Based on the theory of consideration and initiating structure leadership behaviors, Hersey and
Blanchard (1972) developed a new leadership theory including four behaviors - telling, selling,
participating and delegating – defined according to the degree of task behavior orientation and
relationship behavior orientation. Telling (high task behavior, low relationship behavior) implies
that followers cannot accomplish the task alone, so leaders set clear instructions and rules to assist.
Selling (high task behavior, high relationship behavior) addresses that leaders now choose a two-way communication and provide supports to followers. Since followers have developed certain
abilities, leaders now should listen to the feedback and offer advices. Participating (low task
behavior, high relationship behavior) indicates that at this level subordinates are mostly
competent to carry tasks but are not fully committed. Thus, leadership should focus on educating
and supporting. Finally, delegating means that leaders fully delegate obligations, given
employees are fully capable to conduct the work with minimum supervision. Leaders are only
involved in decision making while monitoring the whole process. The situational leadership
13 the situation. With different situations, managers are suggested to adjust themselves to the most
appropriate styles discussed above.
Managers who adopt selling and participating strategy are labelled as “democrats” while those
using telling are “autocrats”. Endorsed by Schreuder, Roelen, van Zweeden, Jongsma, van der
Klink and Groothoff (2011), the democratic leader is relationship oriented who is concerned with
the feelings, the attitudes, and the satisfaction of their followers. While the autocratic leader
addresses issues at hand, focusing on the task, these leaders should be classified as task oriented.
1.1.1.5 The Bonoma-Slevin leadership model
Bonoma and Slevin (1978) classified leadership into four styles based on the amount of
supervisor’s participation in the decision-making process. The first style is a consensus manager who solicits inputs from the group and includes followers in the decision making process. The
second one is labelled as a consultative autocrat who also searches for inputs from others but
makes decisions on his or her own. The third one is characterized as an autocrat. Leaders using
this style do not seek inputs from the group but make all decisions themselves. The final type is a
shareholder manager. A shareholder manager described as the weakest one of the four types (Donoghue & Castle, 2009), refers to those who not only avoid any ideas from the group to make
decisions but also refuse to share information with staff. This style infers the least amount of
participation for employees to make decisions.
It is reported in Donoghue and Castle’ (2009) paper that the method applied by consensus managers is similar to transformational leadership, as both empower employees through shared
governance. Therefore, since transformational leadership is relationship oriented, consensus
manager should also be classified as relationship oriented. However, the other three styles,
14 cultivating. To accomplish the task, they only act on the intuition without consulting others,
which shows a task oriented leadership style.
In addition to leadership behaviors, leadership can be characterized by other relevant aspects. In
the following section, I therefore introduce how leadership has been described and examined
from another than the behavioral perspective, namely the quality of the relationship between
leader and follower, and the power of leaders.
1.1.2 Leader-member exchange theory
The leader-member exchange theory (LMX) is built on a two-way relationship, also labelled as
dyadic relationships between supervisors and subordinates. It outlines how leaders in groups
interact with members through a series of tacit exchange agreements. LMX puts an emphasis on
the quality of the exchange between leaders and members. In 1986, Dienesch and Liden argued
that the dyadic relationship was based on three ways of exchange. Contribution is the first
exchange means and plays a significant role in LMX. It helps determine what amount, direction,
and quality of tasks members devote to the dyadic relationship. Loyalty is the second exchange
which measures the level of reciprocated relationship between leaders and members. Dienesch
and Liden (1986) demonstrated that leaders tend to rely on loyal members to conduct tasks which
requires more independent judgment and responsibility. The third one, affect, is simply about the
mutual liking between two parties. More appreciation between leaders and members stands for
higher quality of LMX.
Obviously, LMX is relationship oriented, as this approach aims to assess the quality of the
relationship between leaders and members (Mardanov, Heischmidt & Henson, 2008).
1.1.3 Leadership power
French and Raven (1959) came up with five types of social power implemented by supervisors:
15 threaten members to obey their rules by using coercive power. This underlines that those leaders
force followers to do things that are not desirable perceived by followers. Reward power occurs
when leaders promise remuneration to motivate employees to meet the targets. Legitimate power
implies the authority of leaders as being held account to plan and control the development of the
company. Expert power is based on the competency of leaders, so the more knowledgeable and
capable the leader is, the more expert power s/he gains. Finally, if followers are willing to
emulate the behaviors of a leader, the leader scores high on referent power.
For these five bases of power, coercive power and reward power are deemed to be task oriented,
as both are supposed to be impersonal and based on an exchange or transaction of rewards for
services. Referent power is similar to the concept of idealized influence of transformational
leadership, because both hold that leaders act as role models for followers (Bass & Riggio, 2012).
Moreover, as transformational leadership is relationship oriented, I classified referent power as
relationship oriented as well. Given that legitimate power and expert power do not provide a clear
indication for the classification, and the present thesis’s focus was on the classification between
relationship oriented leadership and task oriented leadership, so they were excluded from the
relationship analysis. Findings of these excluded behaviors were provided in the Appendix.
1.2 Withdrawal Behaviors
Withdrawal behaviors has been extensively investigated in organizations (Podsakoff et. al, 2007;
Eder & Eisenberger, 2008; Hanisch & Hulin, 1990; Carmeli, 2005). Withdrawal results from
employees reducing their sociopsychological attraction to the workplace, as a way to express their
work disengagement (Bluedorn, 1982). Because of its high costs, this phenomenon can be a grave
impediment not only to the workplace health management but also the organizational success. As
reported by Sagie, Birati and Tziner (2002), the economic costs of withdrawal was some 2.8 million US dollars equal to 16.5 percent of the company’s before-tax income. In addition to
16 financial costs, it also results in non-financial costs, such as employees’ morale and motivation
reduction at the work environment.
Withdrawal behaviors can be exhibited in different ways. For example, John (1985) pointed out
that absenteeism and turnover are the discontinuous outcomes that measure the same withdrawal
phenomenon (Thom, 1975; Zeeman, 1979). Besides, sick-leave absenteeism is also concerned as
one way for employees to withdraw from work (Hensing, Alexanderson, Allebeck & Bjuruf,
1996).
Absenteeism, represents what Johansson and Palme (1996, p. 196) defined that “time when the employee is absent from work, which cannot be referred to as statutory leisure time or absence
agreed upon in advance with the employer”. According to Jeff and Morris (2012), two distinct forms of absenteeism were identified – legitimate (e.g. approved holidays) and illegitimate (e.g.
casual absence), and illegitimate absenteeism is what most organizations struggle to eliminate.
Besides, since absenteeism and absence measure the same behavior at workplace, two concepts
were both adapted into the current research. Sick-leave absenteeism, one of the withdrawal
patterns, is expressed in the way that employees (Henrekson & Persson, 2004) are absent due to
indicated sickness In the present thesis, sick leave absenteeism and sick-leave absenteeism are
regarded as the same meaning, so both of them were involved.
Turnover, reflects the loss of employees in the company (Paul & Paula, 1980). Practitioners often break turnover into two parts: voluntary turnover and involuntary turnover. Voluntary turnover
indicates the decision made by employees themselves. On the contrary, involuntary turnover is
the choice initiated by employers (Shaw, Delery, Jenkins & Gupta, 1998).
Retention, shows the ability of employers to keep their staff stay within the organization (Hausknecht, Rodda & Howard, 2009). Though the retention rate does not directly measure
17 opposite exhibition of turnover (Brown & Yoshioka, 2003; Eisenberger, Stinglhamber,
Vandenberghe, Sucharski, & Rhoades, 2002; Sheridan, 1992; Spencer, 1986;). As a result, this
thesis also encompassed retention to help determine the relationship between leadership and
employment turnover. In consequence, results that showed a positive (negative) relationship
between leadership and employee retention would imply a negative (positive) relationship.
All the above mentioned employee withdrawal behaviors are detrimental for companies and
society. It was reported that the turnover rate is estimated to amount to about 29 percent in 2020
in the United States, which implies a rise of 93.3 percent from 2014 (HSM Group, 2002). In
Wilhem, Herd, and Steiner (1993)’s report, they pointed out that the top one reason for turnover is
that employees are treated poorly by their supervisors. Indeed, it has been suggested in the
literature that leadership is the core to this problem. Both academics and practitioners have long
asserted that effective leadership would play a determinant role in influencing employee
withdrawal behaviors (Graen, Liden & Hoel, 1982; Graen & UhlBien, 1995; Waters & Roach,
1971; Schaufeli, González-Romá, Peiró, Geurts & Tomás, 2005; Walumbwa & Lawler, 2003).
Having introduced main concepts in the current study, in the next sections, I demonstrate the
research questions followed by hypotheses.
1.3 Research Questions
Although previous research has shown that both relationship oriented and task oriented leadership are antecedents of employee withdrawal behaviors (Gilmartin & D’Aun, 2007; Wong & Cummings, 2007). Rarely did they provide outcomes on the association between these two
constructs through systematic literature reviews. Consequently, the purpose of this thesis was to
conduct and present a systematic review of multidisciplinary studies that examined the
association between leadership and some form of employee withdrawal behaviors. Furthermore, I
discussed the implications of the review’s outcomes, made recommendations for further research,
18 research, the following two research questions guided the whole systematic literature review and
analysis.
1. Does leadership influence employee withdrawal behaviors?
2. If so, what are the associations between task/relationship oriented leadership and employee
withdrawal behaviors?
1.4 Hypotheses
In this section, I will provide arguments on the linkages between different leadership constructs
(i.e. relation- versus task-oriented leadership), followed by hypotheses.
Many theorists have pointed out that there is a linkage between relationship oriented leadership
and employee withdrawal behaviors (Cerit, 2009; Dvir, Eden, Avolio & Shamir, 2002; Zhu, May
& Avolio, 2004). For example, transformational leadership (relationship oriented), which has
been empirically examined frequently in the last decades, has been shown to have an effect on
employee absenteeism behaviors in the workplace (Thareous, 1993). Similarly, a recent study
endorses that the relational leadership styles were associated with high rate of retention (Elshout,
Scherp & van der Feltz-Cornelis, 2013).
Also, plenty of literature showed the linkage between task oriented leadership and employee
withdrawal behaviors (Howell & Hall-Merenda, 1999; Walumbwa et al., 2008; Sosik, &
Godshalk, 2000). However, the judgments regarding the effects of task oriented leadership are
more split. Theorists such as Cummings et al. (2009) hold the view that “leadership focused on task completion alone is not sufficient to achieve optimum outcomes”, indicating that task oriented leadership is not efficient. Nevertheless, academics Bass and Avolio (2000) contend that
effective leaders engage in both transformational and transactional leadership. As a result, based
19 Hypothesis 1. Both relationship oriented and task oriented leadership are related to employee withdrawal behaviors.
Hypothesis 2. Relationship oriented leadership is negatively related to employee withdrawal behaviors
Hypothesis 3. Task oriented leadership is neutrally linked to employee withdrawal behaviors, which implies that it can be both positively and negatively related to employee withdrawal
behaviors.
2. Methods
According to Cooper & Lindsay (1998. p.4), systematic literature review focused on “empirical
studies and seek to summarize past research by drawing overall conclusions from many separate
investigations that address related or identical hypotheses. The goal is to present the state of
knowledge concerning the relation(s) of interest and to highlight important issues that research
has left unresolved.” In other words, a systematic literature review tries to identify, appraise,
select and synthesize all high quality research evidence relevant to that question.
According to Cooper (2010), the design of the systematic literature review can be divided into
following steps which were explained in the following sections. The first step is to formulate the
problem, which I stated in the above sections. The second step is to search the literature. This step
involves search strategy and categorizing inclusive papers. The next step is to gather information
from studies, which includes selection and coding of inclusive studies. The final step is to
integrate outcomes of inclusive studies and present findings.
2.1 Search Strategy
Originally, the search was based on two databases – PsychInfo and Business Source Premier.
20 employed as well. Searching for the following keywords within abstracts: leadership AND
absence/ absenteeism; leadership AND sick leave/ sick-leave absence/ absenteeism; leadership AND turnover; leadership AND withdrawal; leadership AND retention, resulted in 1391 and 1519 hits in PsychInfo and Business Source Premier, respectively.
2.2 Categorization
All hits were imported into Mendeley under different folders. At first, two main folders were
created for two databases, and under each folder there were five sub folders named with key
searching terms. For example, under the main folder “PsychInfo”, five sub folders were
“leadership AND absence/absenteeism”, “leadership AND sick leave/sick-leave
absence/absenteeism”, “leadership AND turnover”, “leadership AND withdrawal”, “leadership
AND retention”. Then, to merge hits from two databases and check duplicates, a new folder was created as “After duplication check”, which resulted in 2719 hits. In particular, there were 788 hits for “leadership AND absence/absenteeism”, 21 hits for “leadership AND sick leave/sick-leave absence/absenteeism”, 816 hits for “leadership AND turnover”, 191 hits for “leadership
AND withdrawal” and 1025 hits for “leadership and retention”. 2.3 Selection
A new folder called “After selection” was generated in Mendeley to include selected hits. Two criteria were applied to the selection: (1) English language; (2) associations between leadership
and employee withdrawal behaviors were reported. Each hit was reviewed twice before selected
in the folder. The selection process involved screening the title of each hit, and if the title did not
explicitly meet the criteria, abstract would be analyzed to further determine whether to include the
paper or not. However, if the content of the abstract was still not sufficient enough for the
judgment, I would read the whole paper to determine whether it should be selected in the database. As a result, 443 hits were included in the final selection, specifically, 95 hits for “leadership AND
21 absence/absenteeism”, 14 hits for “leadership AND sick leave/sick-leave absence/ absenteeism”, 274 hits for “leadership AND turnover”, 26 hits for “leadership AND withdrawal” and 74 hits for “leadership AND retention”. Nevertheless, because of the restricted access to some of these hits, only 44 primary studies were available to be reviewed. To further extend the database, another
search via Google Scholar was conducted, and with the search engine 38 more papers were
included in the final sample of the current study. Finally, the sample contained 82 papers to be
systematically reviewed.
2.4 Coding
The coding process was assisted with SPSS 21. Included studies were coded according to six
types of information: “background information”, “sample characteristics”, “measurement
instruments”, “reliability and validity”, “types of leadership”, “the relationship between leadership and withdrawal behaviors”. Particularly, each category comprised more fine-grained variables. For example, author, journal, year, country, type of the paper are variables created for
“the background information”. Sample size, mean age of the sample, male/female percentage of the sample, working industry of the sample, number of supervisors/employees are variables
describing “sample characteristics”. Under “the relationship between leadership and withdrawal behaviors”, variables such as correlation, coefficient, association were created.
In the result section, characteristics of inclusive studies were present in seven tables according to
different leadership constructs they belonged to. Eight variables were included in tables: category
(which withdrawal behavior), author(s), year and country, leadership, sample, setting level,
measurement, relationship.
2.5 Analysis
Using content analysis, inclusive studies were classified into three groups according to whether
22 classification of relationship oriented and task oriented leadership constructs discussed in the
above sections and findings from all inclusive studies, the association of relationship oriented
leadership and task oriented leadership with withdrawal behaviors was examined in each group.
3. Results
3.1 Leadership behaviors
3.1.1 The full range leadership theory
In total, 15 studies in the present sample were concerned with the full range leadership theory. 13
empirical studies measured the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and
employee withdrawal behaviors. Within these 13 studies, six compared the effects of
transformational leadership and transactional leadership on withdrawal behaviors. Three studies
investigated similar constructs to transformational leadership (i.e. attentive managerial leadership,
inspirational leadership, supportive leadership), so I involved them in this section as well.
Although one paper did not measure transformational leadership directly, authors compared
employees’ attitudes and behaviors after implementing transformational leadership in the workplace, and the paper was therefore included as well.
Transformational leadership
All papers examining transformational leadership indicated mediating variables existing between
leadership and withdrawal behaviors. For example, in Richardson and Vandenberg’ (2005) study,
the work unit climate of involvement fully mediated the relationship between work managers’
transformational leadership and turnover as well as absenteeism. A work unit represents a middle-
or front-line manager and that manager’s direct subordinates. Richardson and Vandenberg found
that transformational leadership directly increases the involvement in the work unit, and the high
23 transformational leadership nor a climate of involvement significantly affected turnover directly.
They argued that this outcome might be due to the fact that many factors have been considered as
possible contributors to turnover supported by previous studies (Lee, Mitchell, Wise & Fireman,
1996), which implies the weak effects caused by leadership.
Two papers (Aarons, Sommerfeld & Willging, 2011; Tse, Huang & Lam, 2013) both treated
turnover intention as an antecedent of voluntary turnover in their models of building relationship
between transformational leadership and turnover. Particularly, when Tse et al. (2013) examined
influences of transformational leadership on staff turnover, they included LMX, affective
commitment and turnover intention as three mediators. Results suggested that transformational
leadership directly affected turnover intention and in turn turnover intention was a strong
predictor of turnover behavior. In other words, transformational leadership was linked to lower
turnover through negatively affecting turnover intention. In Aarons, Sommerfeld, and Willging’s
(2011) study, turnover intention was also hypothesized as the antecedent between
transformational leadership and turnover. In their study, two other concepts (i.e. empowering
climate and demoralizing climate) were found to be mediators in the conceptual model. They
explained that transformational leadership was associated with a strong empowering climate
which was then negatively related to turnover intention, and turnover intention determined
turnover rates.
Another mediator which is frequently referred in determining the link between leadership and
employee withdrawal is job satisfaction (Elshout et al. 2013; Spence Laschinger et al., 2012). In Griffith’s (2003) article, the effect of principal transformational leadership on school staff was examined. Through analyses of surveys and archives received from 117 elementary schools, the
author found that principal transformational leadership did not have any direct effects on staff
24 satisfaction. The research showed that transformational leadership of principals is linked to lower
turnover through positively affecting job satisfaction.
Another mediator – collectivism was explored in Walumbwa and Lawler’s (2003) publication.
Instead of sampling within a single country, they carried out their study across three emerging
economies, namely: China, India and Kenya. They determined the impact of national culture on
the relationship between transformational leadership and employee withdrawal behaviors.
Walumbwa et al. demonstrated that transformational leadership is effective in tackling
withdrawal behaviors across different cultures.
Three papers (Mancuso, Roberts & White, 2010; Nyberg, Westerlund, Hanson & Theorell, 2008;
Westerlund et al., 2010) examined the relationship of inspirational leadership, supportive
leadership and attentive managerial leadership with withdrawal behaviors. According to their
claims, those leadership behaviors were similar to transformational leadership. Three studies
provided convergent evidence that those leadership styles were inversely associated with
employee withdrawal behaviors.
Rivers, Pesata, Beasley and Dietrich (2011) implemented a transformational leadership training
program named as “Magnet Recognition Program” in a hospital. After 20 weeks, nurse managers
were invited to assess the effectiveness of the program. Comparing the pre-test scores and
post-test scores from surveys, staff nurses became more satisfied with managers and the retention rate
was increased in the hospital, implying the negative relationship between transformational
leadership and turnover.
Transformational leadership and transactional leadership
Six studies compared the effects of transformational leadership and transactional leadership on
withdrawal behaviors. Kleinman (2004) performed an empirical study to look into the
25 conducted at a community hospital. The classical Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)
was applied to measure the full range leadership of nurse managers. Nevertheless, though weak
positive relationship were shown between transformational leadership and turnover, it was not
significant. The only significant (positive) relationship found in the study existed between active
management-by-exception and nurse staff turnover.
Vandenberghe, Stordeur and D'hoore (2002) showed a direct link between transformational
leadership and transactional leadership and staff nurses turnover. Individual consideration and
intellectual stimulation were found significantly inversely associated with turnover, while passive
management-by-exception and active management-by-exception were positively correlated with
turnover.
Raup (2008) compared the effects that transformational leadership and transactional leadership
had on staff turnover. Results showed that with transformational leadership the mean staff
turnover rate was 12.97% whereas with non-transformational (transactional and passive-avoidant)
leadership, the rate was 29.31%. Hence, the turnover rate was lower in case of transformational
leadership, indicating the positive influence of transformational leadership on employee retention.
Elshout et al. (2013) interviewed ten nurse managers in a mental health care institution in the
Netherlands to explore the association between leadership style, turnover, and employee
satisfaction. Based on the interview, Elshout et al assessed the extent to which managers used
transformational/transactional leadership from three criteria (i.e. communication style, employee
engagement, ways to deal with sick listed staff). Thus, ten nurse managers in the sample were
ranked from a clearly defined transactional leadership (i.e. top-down communication, without
active engagement of the employee in meetings, calling sick listed employees to check
availability to return to work) to a clearly defined transformational leadership (i.e. bottom-up
communication, planning regular face-to-face meeting with personnel, providing the opportunity
26 from a clearly defined transactional leadership style whereas the least turnover was found with a
paragon of transformational leadership.
Hypothesis tests. All studies examining full range leadership theories indicated that both transformational leadership and transactional leadership were relevant to employee withdrawal
behaviors. All papers examining transformational leadership which was classified as relationship
oriented were found inversely related to withdrawal behaviors, which was congruent with
Hypothesis two. Moreover, only positive relationship was found between transactional leadership
(task-oriented) and withdrawal behaviors. All papers measuring both transformational leadership
and transactional leadership found that transformational leadership was more helpful than
transactional leadership in retaining employees. Employees were less likely to withdraw from
work if their leaders tend to listen to their concerns and support their growth.
Table 1 The full range leadership theory
Category Author(s), year and country
Leadership Sample size Setting Level Measurement Relationship
Absence/Abs enteeism Zhu, W., Chew, I. K., & Spangler, W. D. (2005), USA Transformational leadership, transactional leadership
170 Firms Individual MLQ, 6 subscales (Bass and Avolio, 1995) r (transformational)= -.16; significant r (transactional)= -.25; significant Absence/Abs enteeism, Turnover Richardson, H. A., & Vandenberg, R. J. (2005). USA Transformational leadership 167 U.S. organizations Team Transformational Leadership Inventory (Podsakoff et al, 1990), 6 subscales β (Absenteeism)= -.35; significant β (Turnover)= -.28; not significant Absenteeism Westerlund, H., Nyberg, A., Bernin, P., Hyde, M., Oxenstierna, G., Jäppinen, P., Väänänen, A. & Attentive managerial leadership 12,622 A multinational forest industry company Team AML questionnaire(Hug o et al, 2008) r = -.10; significant
27
Theorell, T. (2010), Sweden
Absenteeism Nyberg, A., Westerlund, H., Hanson, L. L. M., & Theorell, T. (2008), Sweden Managerial leadership 5,141 Swedish labor force
Team Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Programme questionnaire OR(Seldom Inspirational leadership)=2.91; significant OR(Seldom Team integration)=.96 ; not significant OR(Seldom Integrity)=1.72 ; significant OR(Often Autocratic)= 1.73; significant OR=Odds Ratios Absenteeism Frooman, J., Mendelson, M. B., & Murphy, J. K. (2012), Canada Transformational leadership and passive avoidant 120 A national mail delivery company
Individual MLQ (Bass and Avolio, 1995) r(Transformational, Illegitimate absenteeism)= -.23; significant r(Transformational, Legitimate absenteeism)= -.03; not significant r(Passive avoidant, Illegitimate absenteeism)= .19; significant r(Passive avoidant, Legitimate absenteeism)= -.22; significant Absenteeism Elshout, R., Scherp, E., & van der Feltz-Cornelis, C. M. (2013), the Netherlands Transformational leadership and transactional leadership 61 Mental health care institution
Team Interview No correlation reported, but comparison of results from a longitudinal study
28 Turnover Griffith, J. (2004), USA Transformational leadership 117 Elementary schools Individual transformational leadership survey(James, 2003) β(Transformational; JS)= .88; significant β(JS, T)=-.14; significant
Turnover Aarons, G. A., Sommerfeld, D. H., & Willging, C. E. (2011), USA Transformational leadership 190 Low-income adults Individual MLQ- five subscale (Bass and Avolio, 1995) b(Transformational, Empowering)=.800; significant b(Empowering, Turnover intention)= -.341; significant b(Turnover intention, T)= .263; significant Turnover Raup, G. H. (2008), USA Transformational leadership; Transactional leadership; Passive-avoidant leadership 15 (employers) + 30(employees)
A hospital Individual MLQ μ
(Non-Transformational)=.2931; μ
(Transformational)=.1297 No correlation provided. μ stands for mean staff nurse turnover percentage of leaders who exhibited transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Retention Kleinman, C. (2004), USA Transformational leadership; Transactional leadership; 10 (employers) +79 (employees)
A hospital Individual MLQ- 12 subscale (Bass and Avolio, 1995) r(Active management by exception)=.26; significant Turnover TSE, H. H. (2008), Australia Transformational leadership; LMX 490 A large call center Individual MLQ; LMX r(Transformational)= -.10; r(LMX)= -.33
Turnover Tse, H. H., Huang, X., & Lam, W. (2013), Australia
Transformational leadership, LMX
490 A call center Individual MLQ; LMX r(Transformational)=-.08; significant
r(LMX)=-.08; not significant
29
Withdrawal Walumbwa, F. O., & Lawler, J. J. (2003), USA Transformational leadership 577 Banking and financial sectors in China, India and Kenya
Team MLQ r(Job withdrawal)= -.14; significant r(Work withdrawal)=-.10; significant Retention Vandenberghe, C., Stordeur, S., & D'hoore, W. (2002), Belguim Transformational leadership, transactional leadership
1059 A hospital Individual MLQ r(MBE P)= -.22; r(MBE A)= .16; r(contingent reward)=.25; r(transactional leadership)= .30; r(Attributed charisma)= . 26; r(IT)=.27; r(IC)=.26; r(transformational leadership)= .29; r(transformational+ transactional)=.31 all significant Retention;Qu alitative study Rivers, R., Pesata, V., Dietrich, M. & Beasley, M. (2011) Transformational leadership
30 Hospitals Individual Interview Positive association
3.1.2 Ethical leadership approaches
Six empirical studies examined the relationship between ethical leadership approaches and
employee withdrawal behaviors. Specifically, servant leadership (Carter & Baghurst, 2013),
ethical leadership (Zhang, Walumbwa, Aryee, & Chen, 2013), moral leadership (Easley, 2006,
2008), authentic leadership (Laschinger, Wong & Grau, 2012) and integrity (Nyberg, Westerlund,
Hanson & Theorell, 2008) were examined.
Carter and Baghurst (2003) studied servant leadership and employee engagement in a restaurant
that was perceived to be managed by a servant manager. Two focus groups composed of 11 staff
30 and Baghurst found that 55% of the participants appreciated the servant leadership in the
workplace which they described as “a fun place and enjoy coming each day”. This phenomenon
which in turn was positively associated with staff retention. Therefore, it showed that servant
leadership is helpful to retain employees.
Zhang et al. (2013) pointed out that ethical leadership reduces employee work withdrawal. 277
employees and their immediate supervisors in a telecommunication company filled the survey.
Results showed that the relationship between ethical leadership and work withdrawal was
mediated by politics perception, political skill, uncertainty and emotional exhaustion. In other
words, ethical leadership was inversely correlated with politics perceptions, and then uncertainty
partially mediated the politics perception – emotional exhaustion link. Finally, emotional
exhaustion (positively) led to work withdrawal.
Two studies taken by Easley (2006, 2008) explored principals’ moral leadership impacts on
teacher retention. Both studies pointed out the powerful role of moral leadership in retaining
teachers. Five factors (i.e. moral importance of education, career surfing/informational seeking,
environment of fulfilment, lack of support and teaching as a temporary job) for teachers to enter
schools were defined from surveys. It was found that moral importance, that seeks to improve the
human condition through appropriate conducts, was considered as the most important guidance
among the five factors for teachers to enter the profession and which significantly affected their
withdrawal behaviors (Easley, 2006). The author also found supported evidence of the importance of ethical leadership in determining teachers’ entering and exit from school. She revealed three components of ethical leadership which would increase the retention rate: respect
for teachers as professionals, relationships with teachers, and focusing on the right thing.
Spence Laschinger et al. (2012) explained the influence of authentic leadership on newly graduated nurses’ retention outcomes. New graduated nurses working in acute care hospitals in Canada (defined as less than two years of practice experience) completed cross-sectional
31 designed surveys. The Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (Avolio et al., 2007) was applied to
measure nurses’ perception of four components of authentic leadership of their supervisors:
relational transparency, moral/ethical, balanced processing and self-awareness. Mediated by job
satisfaction, turnover was found indirectly negatively associated with authentic leadership. This
suggested that authentic leadership plays an essential role in solving employee dysfunctional
behaviors by creating a supportive environment.
The final paper reporting ethical leadership is from Nyberg et al. (2008). They tested five sub
scales of leadership and their influences on employee absenteeism. One of the five sub scales was
integrity and that was defined from four aspects: honest, just, trustworthy and sincere. A
considerable sample consisting 5,141 Swedish employees were tested in the study. The results
showed that leaders who displayed integrity more often in the workplace would contribute to less
employee sickness absence.
Hypothesis tests. Ethical leadership approaches were found to be significant in influencing employee withdrawal behaviors. All studies showed that ethical leadership approaches
(relationship oriented) were negatively related to employee withdrawal behaviors, which
corresponded with Hypothesis two.
Table 2 Ethical leadership approaches
Category Author(s), year and country
Leadership Sample Setting Level Measurement Relationship
Turnover; Qualitative study
Carter, D., & Baghurst, T. (2013), USA
Servant leadership
11 A restaurant Individual The focus group, documentary, observation， interview
Positively associated
Withdrawal Zhang, X., Walumbwa, F. O., Aryee, S., &
Ethical leadership
277 A
telecommunication
Team Ethical Leadership Scale (Brown et al.,2005)
r= -.28; significant
32 3.1.3 Consideration and initiating structure
Only two empirical studies (Johns, 1978; Sheridan & Vredenbuigh, 1978) reported on this type of
leadership behavior, and the withdrawal behaviors assessed in these two studies were turnover
and absenteeism, respectively.
The study carried out by Sheridan and Vredenbuigh (1978) investigated relationships of head
nurses’ leadership behavior and social power variables with employees’ job tension, performance, and termination. In their study, they applied the leadership theory developed in the Ohio State
Leadership Studies (1945). The theory holds that leadership is a two-factor construct that includes
consideration and initiating structure. Besides, in their study, termination was measured by
Chen, Z. X. G. (2013), USA company Retention; Qualitative study
Easley, J. (2006), USA Moral leadership
110 Mercy College Individual Survey Positively associated Retention; Qualitative study Easley II, J. (2008), USA Moral leadership
NR Urban schools Individual Focus group Positively associated
Turnover Spence Laschinger, H. K., Wong, C. A., & Grau, A. L. (2012), Canada
Authentic leadership
342 Hospitals Individual The Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (Avolio et al., 2007) β(Authentic leadership, Job satisfaction)=.20; significant β(job satisfaction, turnover)= -.64; significant Absenteeism Nyberg, A., Westerlund,
H., Hanson, L. L. M., & Theorell, T. (2008), Sweden
Integrity 5,141 Swedish labor force
Team Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Program questionnaire OR(Seldom Integrity)=1.72; significant
33 employee turnover rates. Stogdill’s (1963) Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire was adapted in the study, with an emphasis on “consideration” and “initiating structure” these two dimensions. The results showed that consideration is the most effective leadership style to predict
employee behaviors, which is inversely associated with turnover. On the contrary, the head nurse
who was perceived using initiating structure had a significant positive influence on turnover.
However, it is worth to mention that Sheridan and Vredenbuigh found that although consideration
helps create an attractive work environment to reduce the turnover rate, it is negatively related
with nursing performance. In this way, Sheridan and Vredenbuigh concluded that “leader’s
behavior has varying effects on the work environment and job performance” (1978, p.94).
The other study was conducted by Johns (1978). He examined the relationship between
absenteeism and four predictors (i.e. job satisfaction, personal characteristics, leadership style,
and job content). Consideration and initiating structure were the measured leadership styles in his
study. 208 operative level workers in a manufacturing organization were involved in the study.
The study only observed a modest negative connection between leader consideration and
frequency of absence and between initiating structure and time lost, so Johns suggested that future
research should concentrate upon the details of the supervisor and follower’s relationship which
was directly concerned with absence.
Hypothesis tests. Both two studies indicated the direct relationship between initiating structure/ consideration and absenteeism/ turnover. Particularly, convergent evidence were found that
consideration (relationship oriented) was negatively related to employee withdrawal behaviors.
Conversely, initiating structure (task oriented) showed the exactly opposite effects on withdrawal
34
Table 3 Consideration and Initiating structure
3.1.4 Situational leadership
Concepts of situation leadership were studied in two research (Schreuder, Roelen, Van Zweeden
Jongsma, Van der Klink & Groothoff, 2011; Sellgren & Tomson, 2007) , and similar concepts to
situationa leadership were also examined in the other three studies (Gagnon, Ritchie, Lynch,
Drouin, Cass, Rinfret, Rouleau & Valois, 2006; Kotzian, 2009; Tauntom, Krampitz & Woods,
1989). Except that, one paper (Nyberg, Westerlund, Hanson & Theorell, 2008) analyzing the
relationship between autocratic leadership and absenteeism was also included in this section,
since as discussed before autocratic is one of the behaviors of situation leadership theory.
Category Author(s), year and country
Leadership Sample Setting Level Measurement/instruments Relationship
Absenteeism Johns, G. (1978). Consideration and Structure
208 A
manufacturing organization
Individual Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (Stogdill, 1963) r(Consideration, Frequency)=-.18; significant r(Initiating, Frequency)= -.09; not significant r(Consideration, Time lost)= -.15; significant r(Initiating, Time lost)= -.16; significant Turnover Sheridan, J. E., &
Vredenburgh, D. J. (1978), USA
Consideration and initiating structure;
216 A hospital Individual Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (Stogdill, 1963) r(Initiating structure)= .12; significant r(Consideration)= .04; significant
35 Schreuder et al. (2011) surveyed 699 nurses working in six wards of a Dutch somatic hospital.
Managers leading six wards completed the Leadership Effectiveness and Adaptability Description
questionnaire (Hersay et al., 1974) in this cross sectional study. Sickness absence was the
exhibition of withdrawal behavior measured in the study and the frequency of absenteeism (one
to seven consecutive days v.s. more than seven days) as well as total lost days were both used as
an index. Given the results obtained from nurse managers who adopted different leadership style,
“selling” and “participating” were found negatively associated with short sickness episodes while “delegating” and “telling” were positively associated with short episodes of sickness absence. The association between long sickness absence episodes and leadership styles was very weak, because
sickness lasting long time was mostly due to medical impairments and disability on which leaders
have little influence. Though this outcome indicated that styles that are relationship oriented
would be conducive to absenteeism in the workplace, whereas those classified as task oriented
would facilitate employees withdrawal, the leadership only explained 10% of the variance in
short episodes of sickness absence.
Further evidence of impacts of situation leadership approach used in health institutions was
provided by Sellgren and Tomson (2007). They surveyed 77 nurse managers in a hospital in
Sweden to identify perceived leadership behaviors from three dimensions (i.e.
change/development, production/ task/ structure, and employee/relations). The last two
dimensions (production/ task/ structure and employee/relations) reflect the task oriented approach
(telling) and relationship oriented approach (selling or participating), respectively. However, the
direct association was found not significant in their study. Therefore, in addition to the direct
relationship examined in the study, the indirect association was also measured after manipulating
with mediators – job satisfaction and work climate. The results then supported a significant
