Engaging leadership and work recovery among key personnel of a major health-care and social services reform.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experiences of engaging leadership and work recovery among preparers of a major health-care and social services reform in Finland in 2022; to investigate whether engaging leadership was associated with work recovery; and to investigate whether engaging leadership alleviated the harmful effect of job demands on work recovery.

Design/methodology/approach: Altogether 258 reform preparers participated in four job well-being surveys. Means and paired t-test were used to measure engaging leadership and work recovery during the study period. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze associations between engaging leadership, job demands and recovery from work.

Findings: Experiences of engaging leadership and recovery from work decreased during the study period. A change in engaging leadership had a small positive association with work recovery at endpoint. A change in job demands had a stronger association with work recovery at endpoint. Engaging leadership did not alleviate the association between job demands and recovery from work.

Originality/value: This study expands previous work recovery literature by demonstrating that engaging leadership style can improve work recovery during health and social care reforms. However, engaging leadership style alone is insufficient to alleviate job demands, and therefore more effective management of job demands is needed. Practically, the findings can be used to plan and lead future reforms.