Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie

The health-oriented leadership (HoL) intervention is an innovative leadership and team development measure to promote workplace health. This article outlines the steps of the HoL intervention, the necessary organizational conditions, and the benefits for leaders and teams. The HoL intervention is based on the HoL concept, which distinguishes between health-oriented leadership (staff-care) and health-oriented self-leadership (self-care) and emphasizes four pathways through which leadership affects employee health. The HoL intervention is a structured procedure consisting of the eight steps: 1) coordination meeting with top management, 2) general information event for leaders of an organization, 3) preliminary conversation with interested leader, 4) kick-off workshop with the team and leader, 5) diagnosis of health-oriented leadership using the HoL instrument, 6) intensive coaching session with the leader, 7) workshop with the team and leader, and 8) follow-up with the leader. Previous implementations in various sectors revealed positive evaluation results.

Health-oriented leadership (HoL) is vital for the improvement of health and an essential part of psychological risk management. However, the relevance of different antecedent factors is unknown. We used data from a Germany-wide online survey with N = 738 leaders. Referring to the JD-R model, we analyzed leaders’ demands and resources that facilitate or impede health-oriented leadership from a leader’s perspective. Moreover, we examined the relevance of contextual factors like branch, company size, and management span. Whereas results show only small differences for contextual factors, we found positive relationships between leaders’ resources, like autonomy and social support, and negative relationships with workplace demands (availability, multitasking) and HoL from a leader’s perspective. At the organizational level, HoL is positively linked to high-performance work practices and health-oriented HRM strategies. From a leader’s perspective, the findings provide evidence for the relevance of favorable working conditions and human resources practices for improving HoL as part of psychological risk management.