If Only my Leader Would just Do Something ! Passive Leadership Undermines Employee Well-being Through Role Stressors and Psychological Resource Depletion
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The goal of this study was to develop and test a sequential mediational model explaining the negative relationship of passive leadership to employee well-being. Based on role stress theory, we posit that passive leadership will predict higher levels of role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. Invoking Conservation of Resources theory, we further hypothesize that these role stressors will indirectly and negatively influence two aspects of employee well-being, namely overall mental health and overall work attitude, through psychological work fatigue. Using a probability sample of 2467 US workers, structural equation modelling supported the model by showing that role stressors and psychological work fatigue partially mediated the negative relationship between passive leadership and both aspects of employee well-being. The hypothesized, sequential indirect relationships explained 47.9% of the overall relationship between passive leadership and mental health and 26.6% of the overall relationship between passive leadership and overall work attitude. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Passive or laissez-faire leadership styles are associated with role conflict, work fatigue, and workplace bullying.
“as this leadership style is often associated with role conflict, work fatigue (Barling and Frone 2017;Skogstad et al. 2007Skogstad et al. , 2014;;Vullinghs et al. 2020), and workplace bullying (Dussault and Frenette 2015;Skogstad et al. 2007)”
From Leadership and technostress: A systematic literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Barling and Frone 2017
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Barling, J., & Frone, M. R.
- Affiliations
- Queen's University (CA)
- University at Buffalo, State University of New York (US)
- Corresponding author
- Barling, Julian
- Venue
- Stress and Health
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-07-29
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 211-222
- ISSN
- 1532-2998 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-3005
- PMC
- PMC5791740
- OpenAlex
- W2483668179
- Cited by
- 130
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 3
- FWCI
- 16.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Stress and Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R01-AA016592)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Workplace Health and Well-being
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
- Keywords
- passive leadership, employee well-being, role stress, role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload, conservation of resources theory, mental health, work attitudes, leadership behavior
- MeSH terms
- Occupational Stress, Adult, Burnout, Professional, Employment, Female, Humans, Job Satisfaction, Leadership, Male, Middle Aged, United States
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