Well-being and stress among leaders and employees: How does leader stress affect employee stress and well-being?

The objective of this PhD-thesis is to summarise the results of a PhD project on the relationship between leaders’ stress and employees stress and wellbeing. The overall aim of the PhD project was to promote a better understanding of the relationship between leader and employee stress and wellbeing, thus of how employees may be affected by leader stress.
A mixed methods approach was applied in order to obtain methodological complementarity: The project includes a systematic review of three decades of research in the field, and quantitative- as well as qualitative study components, presented in five papers. In conclusion, the overall findings bring together a negative leader-employee circle in terms of stress on one and a positive leader-employee circle in terms of well-being on the other side. Moreover, a cascade model of support illustrates stress and well-being dynamics; showing how perceived lack of support from the top-management transmit to lower levels.