Anxiety of the Leaders: Future Research Directions through Literature Reviews and Suggestions

Abstract

Main purpose of this study is to review studies on the anxiety of the leaders, to explore its application in leadership research, and to suggest future research directions. Under the rapidly changing environment, leaders are likely to feel anxiety especially after COVID-19 pandemic. Even if the anxiety is an important emotion these days, studies have yet to pay attention to it, especially about leader’s anxiety. It might be because there is a conceptual overlap of fear, neuroticism, and job stress, and at the same time, may studies have not been conducted due to the difficulty to observe leader’s emotion. Therefore, this study first looked at the history of anxiety research and clarified differences from other related concepts before reviewing researches at home and abroad. Then, we propose six research suggestions based on leader’s anxiety. In particular, it is suggested that studies about the sources of leader’s anxiety, the comparison between groups of leaders and employees, the negative and positive effects of anxiety, and the relevance of decision-making ability with leader’s anxiety need to be further investigated. This study presents a new emphasis on leadership research based on anxiety and has a theoretical contribution to making specific research suggestions. In addition, there is a practical contribution in terms of enhancing the understanding of anxiety of the leaders.