Health-oriented leadership: Antecedents of leaders’ awareness regarding warning signals of emerging depression and burnout

Due to growing demands, there is an increase in depression and burnout causing sickness absence and early retirement. Detecting depression and burnout at an early stage is a crucial task for leaders to allow for early support and prevent more severe illnesses. Within the health-oriented leadership concept, awareness is the ability to recognize followers’ warning signals as a potential health risk. Although it is widely accepted that awareness is a precondition to taking appropriate action, it is yet unclear to what extent leaders recognize the warning signals of followers and which factors facilitate or impede awareness. In an experimental study (N = 54) and a survey study (N = 215) we examined antecedents of awareness in followers and leaders: (a) clarity of displayed warning signals in followers, (b) leaders’ stressors, (c) leaders’ autonomy. Even under favorable conditions, only about half of the leaders recognized warning signals as a health risk. Leaders showed lower awareness during times of high stress and low autonomy and when followers displayed less clear warning signals. Autonomy moderated the effect of stress (workload) on awareness, but there was no buffering effect as expected. The findings deepen the theoretical understanding of awareness and suggest that leaders need to know how their awareness may be impeded. We provide practical recommendations for human resource management on how leaders’ awareness can be fostered.