The article authored by Delve and colleagues (2007) entitled “Leadership in workplace health promotion projects: 1- and 2-year effects on long-term work attendance” investigated the impacts of different modes of leadership on the behavior of its employees. The research involved a comprehensive analysis of the attendance of employees in correlation to the leadership characteristics of their leader at the workplace.
It is interesting to note that the paper thoroughly analyzed the frequency of employees who come to work on a long-term basis. In this paper, attendance has been defined as the frequency of an employee filing for sick leave, which is categorized into different levels of illness, from the simple headache to the more serious migraines and other sicknesses.
The efforts in determining such correlation are based on the notion that there is little information known with regards to the health conditions of employees as influenced by the leadership strategies that are employed in the workplace. More importantly, the research article presents a method in which the operations and settings of a workplace can be descriptively and qualitatively assessed using a questionnaire that focuses on quantifying the level of organization and environmental bliss which the employees themselves are allowed to complete.
The research article is a very interesting read because it significantly shows that the leadership method that is employed in a workplace is strongly influenced by the personal ideas of the supervisor or leader.
It is thus usually observed that those leaders who promote sound judgment and values often succeed in leading a progressive workgroup, as well as a physically and mentally healthy team.
The results also indicate that interactions between the leader and the group members played a positive force in the success of the workplace. In addition, the leader’s methods in treating obstacles in the workplace, as well as an intervention during conflicts within the workplace, also influence the attendance of employees of the workplace.
In order to analyze such a connection between leadership approaches and workplace attendance, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed. For the qualitative investigation, several comprehensive and personal interviews were conducted with a number of leaders of workplaces. The quantitative approach was then composed of the number of absences that were recorded at the participating workplaces, and the specific reasons for the sick leave were determined and categorized to their corresponding leadership quality.
The research was based in Sweden, which is known to follow standardized guidelines in legislative and social rulings, which includes provision for employees to apply for a sick leave each month. In case wherein the employee is sick for several days, the expenses incurred from such absence from work are covered by the employer. However, when the employee is sick for more than 14 days, the social security system is responsible for payment. The research was conducted for three years, from 2002 to 2005.
In total, 3,275 employees ranging from the age of 20 to 65 years old were included in this study. The employees were distributed throughout different workplaces, from educational institutions to social work centers. The majority of the subjects were females who were at least 45 years old. In this study, the phrase long-term work attendance was used to pertain to employees who did not file for sick leave for more than seven days within the entire year.
The frequency of sick leave applications was collected from the human resources registers for the entire duration of the study. Other absences of the employees, such as vacation and maternity leaves, were excluded from the attendance.
In order to standardize the collection of information with regards to leadership qualities of a work team, the Swedish Customer Satisfaction Index of the Statistics Department of the Swedish government was employed. This index described the leadership characteristics based on a number of features. One of the features provides a description that the leader of the workplace distributes assignments to his team members in a fair and just manner. Another feature describes that a good leader always considers the maintenance of harmony within the workplace as well as the amount of workload of each employee.
Another characteristic of a good leader is that he has the capacity to deal with conflicts in the workplace without enhancing arising friction by approaching different parties in a composed manner. A good leader also has the talent to lead his team in completing the entire goal of the group.
The frequency of receiving rewards and proper citation for good work is also another basis for team member satisfaction in the workplace. The research also conducted a survey wherein it asked the participants if they were aware of the goal of the entire group, which directly reflects clarity within the team, as based on the transparency of their leader. The questionnaire also included issues regarding trust in their leader, as well as the kind of atmosphere that is perceived by each employee.
This also reflects whether there is an opportunity for discussion of the pros and cons of any operation that is performed in the workplace, and this is all based on the assignments that are given by their leader. For these questions, a point scale system of scoring was implemented, using ten as the highest score and one as the lowest score. The data that was collected was then analyzed using statistical tools, including calculations for prevalence ratios between high and low scores for each category of questions. Relatedness between the variables of the responses to the leadership quality was determined using analysis of variance (ANOVA).
The research showed that approximately 30% of the 3,275 employees did not avail of their sick leave within the entire year, and these employees were mostly responsible for the care of elderly people.
Interestingly, the results also show that in a workplace, attendance is generally higher when good leadership characteristics are observed from the supervisor. This is most exemplified when the supervisor provides proper citation of the good work of each specific employee. Such positive correlation was also observed when there was ample trust between supervisor and employee or between co-employees.
The recognition of respect around the workplace, especially from the supervisor, also served as a major force in increasing attendance at a workplace. The results also describe that when employees clearly understand the goals of the workplace, their performance and attendance was better. Even at the individual and section scale of work, the general attendance was higher between the individual and the group understood what they were working for and what they are aiming for.
The research article provides the first attempt to scientifically examine the connection between the health conditions of group members as primarily influenced by the leadership qualities shown by the team leader. The article provides proof that interpersonal relationships between the leaders and the members of the team or workplace provide a positive boost to the morale of the employee, which in turn results in the decrease of psychologically causes health illnesses such as headaches, migraines, back pains, and gastrointestinal disorders such as ulcers and indigestion.
In addition, if the team members are not allowed to express their concerns and apprehensions to their leaders, these individuals tend to work at a sub-optimal level, which consequently affects the progress of the company (Fairchild et al., 2004; Schwartz and Pogge, 2000). Another feature that is most appreciated by team members is that the leader positively praises each member of the team for the work they have done or contributed (Suddick and De Souza, 2006). Even the simple way for the leader to remember the name of each team member connotes a positive impact on the performance of the team member (Prather and Jones, 2003).
A leader is defined as a person who shows the ability to affect and guide individuals in attaining a common objective (Barker, 1997). Several theorists have attempted to define the actual methods to achieve successful leadership, yet it has been observed that leadership qualities may change depending on the setting a leader is situated in. Analysts have described four approaches of leadership, and not one style may be called the gold standard because every team and situation is unique in its own way (Hersey et al., 1996). One of the most effective leadership approaches that have been employed for several years is that of participation (Corrigan et al., 2000; Insalaco et al., 2007)).
In the field of medicine, wherein supervisory chief residents watch over the other medical residents, participation in the treatment of patients in the hospital is generally effective because it stimulates the medical resident to work better and harder in order to reach the common goal, which is to make the patient feel better (Reinertsen, 1998; Gibbon et al., 2002). Should the leader or chief resident participate in establishing the correct diagnosis of a patient, there is less conflict between the medical resident and his supervisor, and the treatment of the patient is applied at a faster pace.
The research article of Dellve et al. (2007) also describes the same participatory setting because the employees indicated that they fell motivated in coming in to work because they know that their supervisor or leader will also be working hand in hand with them. Such sense of integrity within the workplace, as exuded by the team leader, thus plays a major force in the work attendance. This core value is very important in every workplace because it also influences trust between members of the team. More importantly, integrity also enhances consistency of work ethics within the workplace.
A leader’s capacity in fair and just treatment of his team members also influences the level of success that the group achieves because each member is thus feeling more motivated to excel as he completes his assigned task (Bender, 2004). Should a leader of a team show such positive qualities, the members of the team will put more initiative by demonstrating eagerness to fulfill his duties and come up with completion of the assignment and achieve the goal of the work. Initiative may also be correlated with the level of activity that each employee shows, as a result of positive leadership skills given by the leader of the work team (Krause, 1995; Wright et al., 2000).
Organizational teams, be it in the academic, medical, or industrial field, are constantly evolving, because of the constituent members of the team. Not a single gold standard for good leadership can be described and suggested because all teams are unique on its own. The paper of Dellve et al. (2007) is thus a revolutionary paper that attempts to describe how good leadership affects the behavior of a team member or employee. It has long been well known that employees often suffer psychosomatic illnesses that originate from conditions in the workplace, including head and backaches (Karjalainen et al., 2003).
There are even some cases wherein depression sets in as an employee experiences chronic stress and conflict in the workplace. The paper of Dellve et al. (2007) is thus an eye-opener because it quantitatively and qualitatively examines the effect of leadership qualities on the work attendance of its employees. Such scientific approach in assessing these incidents can provide a better understanding of how interactions in the workplace, between the team leader and the team member, affects the work output of a team, can thus be predicted and even estimated based on the number of absences an employee files for within each fiscal year.
The paper of Dellve et al., (2007) can serve as a seminal paper in the future because it is the first attempt to scientifically correlate the health conditions of team members of a workplace with the leadership quality of their supervisor. Although we all know that begrudged employees more often file for sick leave to get a few days off the workplace, there is not a single research article that have tried to describe such a connection.
I would like to suggest that more readers look into this paper because they could learn some much from the research article. Should this survey be applied to different types of workplaces such as clerical, social or medical workplaces, there would be more information that could be gathered that could further explain why psychosomatic illnesses are triggered by inferior leadership skills. This research paper thus also serves as a warning to leaders and supervisors that their skills should be reassessed and modified if they notice that his team members are often filing for sick leave every year.
They should realize that the workplace may be losing from hundreds, thousands, to millions of dollars of revenue if his team members are often sick from the stress and disappointment that they experience from dealing with sup-optimal leaders.
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