Understanding The Elements Behind Employees Job Well-Being

Refereed paper

Mäkelä, Liisa; Viitala, Riitta; Hölsö, Sari

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study how coaching leadership, leader-member exchange relationships, life satisfaction and job well-being are related to each other. The original sample (N 114) is drawn from employees of four business units from a large Finnish logistics company. The quantitative data was collected by questionnaires. Using regression analysis, our results show that coaching leadership and LMX relationships are statistically significantly related to job satisfaction and job strain. Moreover, general life satisfaction explains statistically significantly job satisfaction. Using cluster analysis we identified four different groups, representing a more holistic view of respondents’ working life experiences, which we named: ‘we can do this’, ‘slaving away’, ‘nine to fivers’ and ‘the happy-go-luckies’. The sub-unit and the length of the LMX relationship were related to the composition of the group.

Key words: Job Well-Being, Coaching leadership, Leader-Member Exchange relationship, General Life Satisfaction

1. Introduction

The basis of sustainable competitiveness in an organization is said to be in valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable resources (Barney, 1991). According this resource-based view (RBV) organizations achieve competitive advantage by successful use of human capital (Ulrich 1997; Sveiby 1997: 36-37; Sanchez & Heene 2004:55). Nevertheless, the literature on human capital focuses mostly only on knowledge, and although it is a very important element, it is not alone sufficient to produce qualified, developmental and innovative action in organizations (Ulrich, 1997). Without sufficient well-being the employees cannot be creative, productive and enthusiastic. We argue that managing employee’s well-being is necessary part of ensuring company’s competitive advantage.

Job well-being can be defined as an employee´s ability to manage his / her daily workload. Factors like the physical, mental and social condition of the employee, as well as the working environment and work community all relate to this ability. Job well-being is regularly studied through concepts such as commitment, job satisfaction and work-life balance (Baptiste, 2008). Job satisfaction, a very important element of job well-being, can be defined as a person’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their job and with other factors related to the job (e.g. wages, colleagues). The basis of job satisfaction is the employee´s positive or negative feeling about their job (Danna and Griffin, 1999; Ghazzawi, 2008). The negative side of job well-being can be studied through considering workload or job strain, focusing on the extent to which individuals perceive their workloads as onerous. In this study, job well-being is studied through job satisfaction and job strain.

One of the most important antecedents related to job well-being is the way in which people in organizations are managed (e.g. Kirmeyer and Dougherty, 1988; Fried and Tiegs, 1993; Moyle, 1998; Gardner and O´Driscoll, 2007; Baptiste, 2008). The key person in the people management process is the employee’s immediate supervisor, as they have the ability to, for instance, increase job satisfaction through supervisory support and also to create stress by unfavourable leadership behaviour (Sparks, Faragher and Cooper, 2001; Baptiste, 2008; Gardner and O´Driscoll, 2007; Kuoppala et.al, 2008). Coaching has been defined as a leadership style which empowers employees to exceed prior levels of performance (Evered and Selman, 1989) and it has been seen as a part of the day-to-day relationship between supervisor and employee, focusing more on the supervisor behaviour.

Leadership can be seen as a process occurring between supervisor and the subordinates. Leader-Member Exchange theory (LMX) (Danserau, Graen and Haga, 1975; Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) focuses on leadership from this perspective. According to LMX, each supervisor-subordinate dyad is unique and the quality of the dyad varies from low to high. Earlier studies have shown that the quality

of LMX relationship is related to job satisfaction; higher LMX quality relates to higher job satisfaction (Erdogan and Enders, 2007; Schyns and Wolfram, 2008; Sparr and Sonnentag, 2008). Therefore, both of these perspectives on leadership; coaching leadership and LMX relationships are taken into account in this paper.

Usually well-being in job is argued to be the consequence of organizational aspects, also non-work elements, e.g. work-family conflicts, are found to be important (refs). However, there is a dearth of empirical studies taking account both leadership and general life satisfaction perspectives and therefore general life satisfaction is studied in this paper together with coaching leadership and LMX relationships.

The aim of this paper is to study empirically how coaching leadership, leader-member exchange relationships, general life satisfaction and job well-being relate to each other.

Next, the theoretical basis of this study is presented through a literature review, followed by the description of the study methodology and the results of the study. The last part of this paper features discussion and conclusions.

2. Job well-being, general life satisfaction and leadership Recent decades have seen the general discussion of well-being in general, and at workplaces in particular, increase dramatically. In daily speech well-being is usually meant to be a comprehensive sense of a good feeling about life as a whole or good physical health. Researchers have previously been interested in elements of well-being and how it is experienced. Currently research interest has turned to the antecedents and consequences of well-being (Danna and Griffin, 1999). Despite the increasing amount of discussion, the definition of well-being is still quite incoherent and difficult to specify. Definitions of well-being are determined according to the scientific angle it is approached from — that of psychology, sociology, medicine or economic science (Cronin de Chavez et al., 2005).

Well-being can also be viewed objectively (e.g. as relating to working conditions, health, standard of living) or subjectively, which refers to affective and experienced well-being (Tuomi, Vanhala, Nykyri and Janhonen, 2002; Gardner and O´Driscoll, 2007). Initially well-being was specified through diseases and the absence of sickness (Schultz, 2008), but the rise of positive psychology has increased the optimism perspective in well-being research (Feldt, Kinnunen and Mäkikangas, 2005; Diez-Pinol, Dolan and Sierra, 2008).

Job well-being can be defined as employee’s ability to manage their daily work (The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland, 2005:17). Factors like the physical, mental and social condition of the employee, as well as their working environment and work community are related to this ability. Family and changes in life, among other things, are connected to employees’ overall well-being and are thus worthwhile to take into account when job well-being is studied.

Job satisfaction is one of the most researched themes in organizations (Ghazzawi, 2008. Danna and Griffin (1999) maintain, that job satisfaction is a very important part of job well-being and they define job satisfaction as a person’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their job and with the factors related to the job (e.g. wages, colleagues). The basis of job satisfaction is the employee´s positive or negative feeling about their job. Although many researchers have used job satisfaction as a measure of affective well-being and especially in measuring happiness, some of their colleagues have criticized the approach for ignoring the employee´s life outside work (Schultz, 2008; Wright and Cropanzano, 2000). Judge and Locke (1993) consider that the relationship between well-being and job satisfaction is related to how important work is in the employee´s life as a whole.

Workload, or strain, can be physical (e.g. due to equipment or methods) or mental (e.g. due to amount or ease of work). The mental workload can be experienced when an employee feels that the demands of work (e.g. how fast work must be done or how many interruptions occur) are relatively higher than the employee´s locus of control. The locus of control in this context refers to the degree to which the employee has the required skills and knowledge to manage their work and the opportunity to control their work (Karasek, 1979; Almost and Spence Laschinger, 2002:410). Number of studies have found out, that the three most common factors involved in job dissatisfaction are work demands , lack of support and lack of opportunity to control the work (Way and MacNeil, 2006). When work is mentally

demanding over an extended period and the demands are strong enough, the employee is likely to experience stress (e.g. Love et al., 2007) which may bring broader problems like burnout (Maslach and Jackson, 1981).

In future, globalization, changes in the population age structure and transition to a service culture put bring further challenges to job well-being. Challenges for management that can already be seen include maintaining competitiveness alongside the well-being of personnel, controlling more effective operations and the demands it brings, and recognizing the tolerance and flexibility which are connected to a changing working environment (Hakanen 2004; Dewe and Kompier, 2008).

The way that employees are managed is related to job well-being (e.g. Kirmeyer and Dougherty, 1988; Fried and Tiegs, 1993; Moyle, 1998; Juhala and Fonsen, 2009: Gardner and O´Driscoll, 2007; Baptiste, 2008; Stogdill, 1974: 376–381; Bowers, 1975; Bass, 1970; Myers 1970; Sheridan et.al., 1975; Miles, 1979). As several meta-analyses have shown, support from the supervisor is one of the most important antecedents of well-being (Sparks, Faragher and Cooper, 2001; Baptiste, 2008). In a quite recent survey from Finland, a group of researchers discovered that good leadership has an influence on job satisfaction, well-being and reduced absenteeism, but less on work performance (Lamminpää, Liira and Vainio, 2008). According to some research, unsatisfactory leadership is one of the antecedents of stress (Gardner and O´Driscoll, 2007; Baptiste, 2008).

Research has also shown the kind of leadership that promotes job well-being.For example, transformational leadership has proved to be positively related to the experiences of job satisfaction and well-being (Bass, 1982; Moore, Grunberg and Geenberg, 1995; Nielsen et al., 2008), as well as a good working climate (Curphy, 1992). Transformational leaders are described as kind, equalitarian, communicative and trusting; and set demanding and clear goals; they support their employees by advising, helping, educating and paying attention to them; they are demanding when necessary; and encourage to work autonomy and support personal development (Bass, 1982).

In conclusion we notice that according some research, good leadership and especially that which supports learning, promotes job well-being. At the core of that statement is supportive knowledge development, which is the focal element in job control and thus job well-being. Job control includes the knowledge and skills required to work successfully and perform well. Evidence of the relationship between learning at work and job satisfaction has also been found (e.g. Tannebaum, Salas and Cannon-Bowers, 1996; London and Smither, 1999). However, sufficient know-how alone does not promote the requirements of work performance. One of the basic elements in experience of both job satisfaction and job strain is things that are related to the working community and especially the supervisor and leader-member-exchange. Even though is has been argued that when occupational well-being is studied, e.g through burnout, it is important to focus only on work related factors and discuss other parts of life separately. However, general well-being in life appears as important element also when job well-being is on focus and should thus be taken into account. Prior research about the relationship between leadership and job well-being has viewed this dimension quite superficially. Below we concentrate on coaching leadership and LMX-research more thoroughly taking account also general life satisfaction.

Coaching leadership

Literature on leaders as coaches is still comparatively immature. Most of the discussions have been presented in normative literature (e.g. Gilley and Boughton, 1996). The pioneers among researchers, Ellinger and his associates, describe coaching leaders on the basis of qualitative studies (Ellinger and Bostrom, 1999, 2002; Ellinger, Watkins and Bostrom, 1999; Ellinger, Ellinger and Keller, 2005). Ellinger and Bostrom (1999) isolated two paradigms in the conversation. The first, the control-dominate-prescribe paradigm, refers to the coaching model where the coach prescribes, directs and controls the behaviour of the employee. The second is called the empowerment paradigm, which refers to model used by the coach who motivates and encourages the employees to learn, and helps to test assumptions, understand patterns and relationships among people, organizations, and events. Coaching has been defined as a leadership style that empowers employees to exceed prior levels of performance (Evered and Selman, 1989) and it has been seen as a part of the day-to-day relationship between supervisor and employee. What then are the distinctive features of coaching in that relationship? An essential part of it is constructive feedback, which generates a feeling that people are

respected and valued (Goodstone and Diamante, 1998). Another aspect that is often associated with coaching is mutual trust. A leader who acts as a coach believes that people are worth developing and that goals and new opportunities can be accomplished through collaboration (Barry, 1992; Phillips, 1994; Rogers, 2000). Trust is also needed in delegation, as that might require coaches both to be proficient delegators and prepared to accept short-term failures if they lead to long-term development (Rinke, 2001).

A leader’s communications skills have been cited in literature as an important element of coaching skills. It has been analysed as the capability for questioning, listening, giving and receiving feedback, communicating and motivating (Hankins and Kleiner, 1995). Ellinger et.al. (1999) emphasized a leader’s capability to engage in open conversation with employees in one-to-one meetings or in work group settings with the intent of openly and honestly discussing problems and working towards solutions together.

Other important characteristics that have been connected to coaching leaders are empathy, honesty and neutrality (Whitmore, 2007:20-21), motivation to act with coaching methods ( Phillips, 1994:20-21), the belief that each employee has the potential to learn and develop (Rogers, 2000:15; Whitmore, 2007:16), and the ability to recognize the needs of employees and adopt a proper coach role whenever it is needed (Viitala, 2007).

Generally speaking, literature on coaching leadership focuses on a leader and leaves the role of employee and other contextual factors in shadow. It is generally assumed that coaching leadership is a single entity that can be recognized by certain features and that can be experienced collectively in the same way. However, it has been discovered, that employees´ assessments of coaching diverge even when they assess the same leader (Viitala, 2004) Overall, an important aspect of the leadership process is the dyadic relationship that leaders have with their individual followers (Boyd and Taylor, 1998; Vatanen, 2003). The main approach within leadership literature contributing understanding of these relationships is called Leader-Member Exchange and it is reviewed next.

Dyadic Leader-Member Exchange Relationships

Leader-member exchange theory (Dansereau et.al., 1975; Graen and Cashman, 1975; Graen, Novak and Sommerkamp, 1982) has a long history. It originates in researchers’ desire to withdraw from traditional, supervisor-oriented leadership research. Until then, leadership research was interested in the traits which made some people good leaders, or in the special behavioural styles which good leaders cultivated. Leaders were assumed to behave in similar ways towards all of their followers. Challenging that view, LMX focused on dyadic relationships in organizations and on the question of how leadership occurs between two organizationally related individuals, the leader and the follower.

LMX is based on the argument that leaders and their followers create dyadic working relationships which differ from each other in quality. Leader-follower relationships are mutually constituted and co-produced (Collinson, 2005a, 2005b; see also Bligh and Schyns, 2007; Mäkelä, 2009) and fundamentally reciprocal (Collinson, 2005a, 2005b). In terms of reciprocity, two aspects have been distinguished in leader-member exchanges: firstly, attention paid to the subordinate by the leader, and secondly, assistance to the leader provided by the subordinate (van Dierendonck, Le Blanc and van Breukelen, 2002). The status of these relationships is seen as a continuum with high quality relationships at one end and low quality leader-follower dyads at the other (Liden and Maslyn, 1998; for a review, see also Schriesheim, Castro and Cogliser, 1999). Relationships between leaders and their followers are supposed to develop rather quickly and then remain stable. The quality of exchange is determined by mutual reciprocity and the level of regard displayed by both members of the dyad (Klieman, Quinn and Harris, 2000). Moreover, LMX studies have also focused on exploring the kind of background issues that affect the nature of these LMX dyads. Such issues that have been found are commonly linked to similarity attraction (Byrne, 1971). Similarly, studies focusing on outcome level, organizational efficacy aspects and individual well-being found these issues to be related to the quality of such dyadic work relationships (McCuiston, Wooldridge and Pierce, 2004; Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995).

While the focus of this investigation is the relationship, the level of analysis can vary as the relationships can be examined at the level of the group, the dyad or the individuals within the dyad

(Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). The most well-established way to study LMX relationships had been to collect the data from subordinates using an LMX7 (refs) scale. There have been studies which have used data from both partners in the dyad, but the ratings of superiors and subordinates about LMX have not usually been in line with each other and therefore it is suggested that LMX is a different construct for each partner in the dyad.

All in all, the differentiation among the same superior’s followers raises questions of equality and justice. It is suggested that leaders must offer opportunities to subordinates to improve the quality of leader-member relationships (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). For example, superiors may create a supportive and an open atmosphere, increase the number and type of challenging assignments and projects, set higher standards and provide positive feedback to out-group members (e.g. Hackman and Johnson, 1996, cited in Lee, 2001). One way in which subordinates can reciprocate in these relationships is by either enlarging or limiting their roles so that they either only follow the contract or extend their behaviours beyond the normal requirements of the role (Bhal, 2006).

3. Method

Participants and procedure

The original sample (N 114) included employees from four business units of one large organization in the logistics-sector. The data collection was performed in autumn 2009, using a questionnaire distributed by a researcher to each employee at a workplace meeting and through a few questionnaires being left for those not present at the meeting. The completed questionnaires were returned directly to the researcher after the meeting or later by post.

The subunits structure and situational factors differed from each other. The most relevant difference regarding this study was the situation in one of the units where the supervisor was new and had worked with the subordinates for only two weeks at the time this data collected. Furthermore, another of these subunits consisted of four smaller units located separately and the supervisor visited each place at least once a week. In one unit, the number of subordinates was high, almost one hundred, even though the number of respondents was not that much higher in our data. More precise information on our data is presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Background information

Background variable

(N= 114)% %

Gender Type of the work contract

female 40,4 permanent 78,1male 59,6 fixed term 21,1

(one missing value)

Age The length of the time in this organization

under 25 14,9 under 1 year 9,626-35 20,2 1-5 years 21,936-45 29,8 5 -10 years 8,846-55 23,7 10 – 20 years 21,1over 55 11,4 yli 20 years 36,8

Unit The length of the time worked with this supervisor

1 22,8 under six months 22,9Measures

Our questionnaire included scales for measuring Leader-Member Exchange, Coaching Leadership, General Life Satisfaction and Occupational Well-being through job satisfaction and job strain. The items were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (totally agree) to 5 (totally disagree) and a high score on each scale indicated a high level of the particular experience.

Leader-Member Exchange. Dyadic Leader-Member Exchanges were measured using a ten item measurement scale which is a combination of the LMX7 (refs) questionnaire’s items and new questions which were focused specifically on the relationship itself. Participants were asked to respond to the items with respect to their dyadic relationship with their immediate leader. Examples of the questions are: “We trust each other”, “I get along well with my supervisor”. The internal consistency of the measure, as recorded by its Cronbach’s alpha, was .96.

Coaching leadership. To assess the coaching leadership style we used a nine item measurement scale (Viitala, 2004). Examples of the items include: “My supervisor promotes co-operation in our working group” and “I receive positive feedback from my supervisor”. The item recorded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.94.

General Life Satisfaction was measured using two items: “I am generally satisfied with my life” and “My working life and my personal life are in a good balance.” Cronbach’s alpha for this was 0.61.

Occupational Well-being. To assess the subjective well-being of individuals, we measured Job satisfaction using six items, including: “I like my job” and “I have the opportunity to develop myself at work”. Cronbach’s alpha for this item was 0.89. Job strain was measured using two items: “The physical strain of my job is manageable” and “The mental strain of my job is manageable”. Cronbach’s alpha for this item was 0.83.

4. Results

Coaching leadership, Leader-Member Exchange relationships, General Life Satisfaction and Occupational Well-being (job satisfaction and job strain) were studied using the measures described above. In our data, LMX relationships were of good quality and scores for LMX were higher than other phenomena in focus. The quality of coaching leadership was also good. General Life Satisfaction was also in a good level. Job satisfaction and job strain are not directly comparable by means to the previous two topics. However, no notably low means emerged in our data. Means and standard deviations are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Means and standard deviationsMean Standard deviation

LMX relationship 4,08 ,73Coaching leadership General Life Satisfaction

3,613,82

,79,85

Job satisfaction 3,44 ,90Strain 3,31 ,99

Linear regression analysis were used for analyzing whether coaching leadership, LMX relationships and general life satisfaction predict job satisfaction and job strain. Due to correlation between LMX and Coaching leadership, separate linear regression analysis were used to analyze how these leadership aspects predicted job well-being. All analyses were adjusted for the effect of age, gender, family/ marital status, supervisor, type of the employment contract (permanent/ fixed-term), length of the employment contract to employer and length of the LMX relationship. Initial analysis revealed no significant interactions between these background variables and job satisfaction and job strain. Therefore, all results presented in this paper are based only on main effects models.

Table 3 presents the associations between coaching leadership, LMX, general life satisfaction and job satisfaction and job strain. After adjustment for age and gender, family/ marital status, supervisor, type of the employment contract (permanent/ fixed-term), length of the employment contract to employer and length of the LMX relationship, coaching leadership, LMX and general life satisfaction predicted higher job satisfaction and lower job strain. General life satisfaction and Leadership (LMX and Coaching leadership) predicted job well-being almost in similar extent.

Table 3. Coaching Leadership, LMX relationships and General Life Satisfaction predicting Job satisfaction and Job Strain

    beta t p-valuer^2 chance

Job satisfaction 0,203Coaching Leadership 0,366 4,246 0,000General Life Satisfaction 0,288 3,657 0,000

0,183Leader-Member Exchange 0,317 3,632 0,000

  General Life Satisfaction 0,337 4,298 0,000  Job strain 0,202

Coaching Leadership 0,408 4,383 0,000General Life Satisfaction 0,258 3,045 0,003

0,143Leader-Member Exchange 0,281 2,836 0,006

  General Life Satisfaction 0,297 3,339 0,001  

To gain more a holistic view of individuals’ experiences of their working lives, we used cluster analysis, including of both leadership and well-being. Using a K-Means Cluster Analysis, revealed four groups (sig.=,000) within our data. Each group was large enough for statistical analysis, and we also named the groups in order to highlight their typical features. Table 5 presents the means for each group of phenomena in this study.

Group one was named ‘we can do this’ (N=23) and typically this group perceived leadership (LMX and coaching leadership) as excellent and job satisfaction as acceptable. Job strain did emerge to a certain degree within this group of people.

Group two was named ‘slaving away’ (N=18) and featured respondents with very low levels of job satisfaction and high levels of job strain. Their relationship with their leaders was neutral and the leaders were not perceived as coaches. The existence of this group of employees is of course alarming and the organization needs to act upon it.

The third group named ‘nine to fivers’ (N=32) , reported their experience of each phenomena in the study, that is both leadership and well-being as adequate. The fourth group (N=31), ‘the happy-go-luckies’ comprised those whose perceptions of coaching leadership, LMX relationships, job satisfaction and manageability of job strain were highest. The quality of LMX relationships was very high and the cluster mean was 4,71. Supervisors were also perceived very much to be coaching (mean 4,42) by this group. Job satisfaction was also very good (mean 4,359 and manageability of job strain was good (mean 4,27).

Table 5. Four groups representing a holistic perception of participants’ working life ‘We can do this’N= 23

‘Slaving away’N = 18

‘Nine to fivers’N=32

‘The-happy-go-luckies’N=31

LMX 4,51 3,31 3,58 4,71Coaching leadership

3,86 2,86 3,17 4,42

Job satisfaction 3,51 2,25 3,21 4,35Job strain 2,89 2,00 3,59 4,27

When we focused attention on respondents from a certain group, we did not find that gender, age, family situation, type of employment contract (fixed term/ permanent), length of employment with present employer were statistically significant to that relationship. Two variables were found which explained the group composition to some extent. The first and stronger relationship was between group composition and the unit where participants worked. The other relationship that emerged was between the group and the length of the LMX relationship.

However, due to the small sample size and it being drawn only from employees of a single company, the results presented above are only indicative and in future, larger data sets would be beneficial. In the last section of this paper, we discuss the findings of this study and draw its conclusions.

5. Conclusions and discussion

Well-being is an important element in the formation of human capital in organizations. Without it, knowledge does not develop, renew, get passed on or become efficiently utilised in an organisation. Only a community and an individual that are in good condition can learn, develop and create. Thus, we postulate that fostering well-being in workplaces should be seen as a necessary part of managing human capital in order to achieve success in the market as well as part of developing more sustainable work environments.

Three phenomena related to Job Well-being

Well-being at work is personally experienced, defined and created in day-to-day work. What happens in work communities on a daily basis has crucial implications for well-being but as our results clearly show, also general life situation is important to take account. As superiors have the power to influence their employees working circumstances (Katz & Kahn 1978: 528–530), they also play a vital role in the formation of job well-being. The influence of a superior is not, however, a one-way process but rather an interaction between the superior and the employee. There is reason to assume that well-being at work is connected to the superiors’ actions and the nature of their relationships with their employees. In this study, we examined how the quality of a superior’s coaching behaviour, the quality of the leader-member relationship and the job well-being experienced at work are related to each other. The

study approached the questions regarding job-related well-being from the perspective of organizational leadership and overall life situation perspectives.

In line with previous research (e.g. Erdogan and Enders, 2007; Schyns and Wolfram, 2008; Sparr and Sonnentag, 2008), this study showed that leadership and the leader-member-relationship were significantly related to work well-being. The contribution of this study is that it looks at the relations between three factors: the superior’s coaching behaviour, the leader-member relationship and the job well-being experienced. This study found that good leadership is significantly related to employees’ experiences of job-related well-being. In addition, the findings showed that good relationships between superiors and employees are statistically related to the employees’ experience of a strong sense of job well-being. The results of this study also demonstrated that coaching leadership is related to good relationships between superiors and employees.

Moreover, this study showed the crucial role of general life satisfaction to job well-being. This is important to understand because very often this aspect is ignored when job well-being is on the focus. Even though organizational circumstances, such as leadership, psychosocial work environment etc. are important, these are not the only dimensions affecting individuals’ experience of job well-being.

Four different groups

Examining four of the factors – coaching leadership, leader-member relationships, job satisfaction and job strain– revealed four groups that stood out and were given the following names: ‘we can do this’ , ‘slaving away’, ‘nine to fivers’ and ‘the happy-go-luckies’. Each of the four types could be found in each of the business units, and therefore members of each group were led by the same leader. This confirms that both leadership and personal job well-being are experienced individually in a work community. The study also indicates that the relationship with the same leader varies and even if it is connected to the experience of the person’s job well-being, the connection seems more complicated than the merely linear. This merits further investigation with a larger dataset.

Practical implications

To sum up, our research has several practical implications for business:

1) Developing leadership of supervisors should be important points of reference, even when the aim is to further job well-being.

2) When developing leadership, attention should be paid to superior-employee relationships and not just the superiors’ work, as traditional leadership training usually does. The theoretical framework of our research can act as a conversation starter in organizations and as a support to the continuing development of leadership work.

3) When job well-being is on focus in work places the general life situation of employees’ should be added to discussion as well as to measurement scales.

Research limitations and suggestions for further studies

Our research also has certain limitations, which are useful to keep in mind when examining the results. The material in this study is relatively narrow and has a skewed distribution. While the sample has been collected from four different units, it is drawn from only one organization. The results are, however, clear and sufficiently guiding to say that the research should be continued with a larger dataset.

From the research perspective, the relationships between coaching leadership, dyadic leader-member relationships, general life satisfaction and job-related well-being should also be examined using other methods. For instance qualitative methods would deepen understanding and quantitative methods –through structural equation models for instance – would help identify possible causal links.

From the perspective of employees’ well-being, future research should take into account individual features (e.g. tolerance, age, sex). Research had previously been conducted mainly on the individual

level and the effects of individual features on well-being should now also be looked at on a group and an organizational level. (Cunningham, De La Rosa and Jex, 2008).

Leadership work itself has become more challenging with societal development and organizational changes. Superiors on all levels of an organization are required to have increasingly broad knowledge and capabilities (Conger and Xin, 2000). This sets challenges for superiors and their own work well-being. That is also a topic that merits further research.

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