The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a profound impact on the personal and professional lives of employees globally. Using extant literature on large-scale traumatic events and extraorganizational stressors as a foundation, this thesis explores the effect of supervisor support on the relationship between COVID-19 related fear and diminished employee mental health. Informed by the Social Support Buffering Hypothesis (Cohen & Wills, 1985) and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping (Lazarus, 1990), and using time-lagged online questionnaire data from 2057 employees residing in Canada and the United States, this study finds a significant positive relationship between COVID-19 fear and poor mental health, such that higher COVID-19 fear was associated with poorer mental health. Results do not support the hypothesized buffering effect of supervisor support on the relationship between fear and poor mental health within the entire sample; however, further (post-hoc) analysis revealed disparate impacts of supervisor support on this relationship according to country of residence. Supervisor support significantly buffered the relationship between fear and poor mental health in the American but not Canadian sample, such that high levels of supervisor support attenuated the relationship between fear and poor mental health. These results have the potential to contribute to the leadership and mental health literature, inform future organizational preparedness, and suggest new, boundary spanning, areas of inquiry for management research.

The front-line homeless-sector workforce provides an essential service in an often emotionally-taxing environment that leads to high turnover. However, there has been limited research focused on front-line homeless sector workers or the supervisory support needed to mitigate the stressful nature of their work. A web-based survey of front-line homeless-sector workers (n=82) was conducted to compare the relative effects of transformational and supportive leadership on emotional exhaustion and turnover intention in front-line homeless sector workers. Established and validated measures were used for each of the variables in the study; the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire for transformational leadership, the Inventory of Supportive and Unsupportive Managerial Behaviours for supportive leadership, the Maslach Burnout Inventory for emotional exhaustion, and the TIS-6 Turnover Intention Scale for turnover intention. Correlational analysis and multivariate multiple regression were used to analyze the relative effects. It was found that although transformational leadership has a correlational association with emotional exhaustion, it does not have a significant association with turnover intention. It also does not have a predictive relationship with either emotional exhaustion or turnover intention in front-line homeless-sector workers. Supportive leadership, however, had significant correlational associations and significant predictive relationships with both emotional exhaustion and turnover intention in the respondents. Implications for homeless-serving agencies and for supervisory support for front-line homeless-sector workers are discussed. / Graduate

The present experimental study aimed to investigate the effect of a controlling leadership style, in contrast to an autonomy supportive leadership style on performance and state anxiety in student football players. The sample consisted of 35 participants, 25 men and 10 women, between 16 to 20 years. The experiment had an interventional effect with pre and post measurements. There were two intervention groups and one control group. The intervention groups consisted of a controlling leadership group and an autonomy supportive leadership group. Pre- and post-test performance was measured by means of four different football skill exercises with binary outcomes. There were four exercises and three measured trials which gave a maximum points total of 12 points in the exercises. State anxiety was measured by means of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 Revised. CSAI-2R is a self-report scale which aims to explore three dimensions of anxiety: Cognitive anxiety (CA), somatic anxiety (SA), self- confidence (SC). Each participant filled in this scale after they completed the four football exercises. No statistically significant pre- to post-test changes in CA, SA, SC or football performance, as an effect of leadership style, was found. However, players in the controlling leadership condition showed significantly higher levels of SA and lower levels of SC in comparison to the control group at post-test

Syftet med denna studie var att bidra med fördjupad förståelse för vilka friskfaktorer som är avgörande för långtidsfriskhet ur ett medarbetarperspektiv. Detta genom att studera vad medarbetare inom sociala sektorn i Borlänge kommun upplever bidrar till välbefinnande och friskhet på arbetsplatsen. Vidare ämnade denna studie ge förslag på hur arbetet med friskfaktorer inom Borlänge kommun kan utvecklas. För att på bästa sätt kunna besvara syftet valdes en kvalitativ metod där tillvägagångssättet för insamling av empiri var semistrukturerade intervjuer med långtidsfriska medarbetare från verksamhetsområdet personlig assistans.  Resultatet visar att begreppen stödjande ledarskap, god kommunikation, delaktighet i beslutsfattande, balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv samt ett positivt arbetsklimat är faktorer som tenderar att ge positiva effekter för hälsa då de finns på arbetsplatsen. Ytterligare faktorer som kunde identifieras var trygghet till följd av lång erfarenhet samt arbetsmoral kopplat till lojalitet. Erfarenheten beskrivs som ett hjälpmedel att hantera olika situationer som kan tänkas uppstå i arbetssituationen samt som stressreducerande eftersom det skapar en tydlighet kring vilka förväntningar som finns i arbetet och mellan kollegorna. Hög arbetsmoral till följd av lojalitet verkar bottna i en vilja att bidra till en medmänniskas nytta genom att vara en viktig resurs i dennes liv.   Denna studie visar betydelsen av ett stödjande ledarskap för förtroendet och tilliten dels mellan chef och medarbetare, dels medarbetare emellan, vilket i förlängningen även påverkar möjligheten till delaktighet samt tryggheten i den egna arbetssituationen. Slutligen visar studiens resultat att friskfaktorer under vissa omständigheter kan bidra med nya möjligheter till främjande arbetsmiljöarbete. / The purpose of this study was to contribute to a deeper understanding of factors that are crucial for long-term well-being and health from an employee perspective. This by studying what employees in the social sector in Borlänge municipality experience contributes to well-being and health in the workplace. Furthermore, this study intended to give suggestions on how the work with health factors in Borlänge municipality can be developed. To best answer the purpose, a qualitative method was chosen in which the approach for collecting empirical data was semi-structured interviews with long-term healthy employees from the area of personal assistance. The results showed that factors such as supportive leadership, participation, autonomy, positive work climate and work-life balance were common in the respondents work situation, which are factors that has shown to have a positive effect on employees' health. Furthermore, the respondents' long-term well-being and health could also be explained by additional health factors that were identified in their work environment. The respondents described that security due to long work experience and work ethic linked to loyalty were factors that contributed to their well-being. The experience is described as a means of handling various situations that may arise in the work situation as well as stress reducing as it creates a clarity about what expectations are in the work and between colleagues. High work ethic due to loyalty seems to be rooted in a desire to contribute to the benefit of another human by being an important resource in his or her life. All in all, the results show that the foundation for successful environment work with health factors requires security and trust partly between the manager and employees and partly between the employees. Finally, the study's results show that, in certain circumstances, health factors may contribute to new opportunities for promoting work environment work.

En enkätstudie har genomförts med 47 deltagande ideella kvinnojourer. Respondenterna har fått uppge vad verksamheternas ledningssystem för systematiskt kvalitetsarbete innefattar samt identifiera framgångsfaktorer och utmaningar kopplat till det egna kvalitetsarbetet. Resultatet påvisar att kvinnojourerna i viss utsträckning har ett dokumenterat kvalitetsledningssystem. Vidare framkommer att verksamheterna arbetar med kvalitetsfrågor i praktiken i större utsträckning än vad som finns dokumenterat i kvalitetsledningssystemet. Det framkommer även att respondenterna upplever att styrelsernas engagemang för kvalitetsfrågor är svalt men att anställd personal och ledare för kvinnojourerna är desto mer engagerade och delaktiga i verksamhetens kvalitetsarbete.  Resultaten i denna studie kan vara av intresse för skyddade boenden i Sverige, organisationer som representerar skyddade boenden och myndigheter som arbetar mot våld i nära relation. / A survey has been conducted with 47 representatives from non-governmental women’s shelter. The respondents have shared what their quality management system includes and identified success factors and challenges connected to their quality work. The result show that the women’s shelter has partly documented quality management system. It also shows that the women’s shelter does more quality work in practice than what is documented in the management system. Moreover, the respondent reckons there is a low commitment for the organisation’s quality work among the board members and that work and commitment is driven mainly by employed staff and the business manager of the shelters.  The results presented in this study might be of interest for women´s shelter in Sweden, organisations representing women´s shelter and authorities working against domestic violence. / <p>2021-06-06</p>

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The purpose of this study was to examine the leadership styles adopted by school principals and their influence on the job performance of primary school teachers in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. The study was designed to gain insight into the kinds of leadership styles presently used, the leadership preference of principals, the perceptions of the teachers and principals regarding the leadership styles of the principals and the effect of the leadership styles on teachers’ performance. The main research question that guided this study was: Which leadership styles are most commonly used by primary school principals in the Tigray region and what is their effect on the performance of teachers? A mixed-methods research design was used with questionnaires as well as a focus group interview as means of data-collection. One hundred and seventy eight principals and 446 teachers comprising 69% male and 31% female teachers participated in the study. The path-goal leadership questionnaire as well as a self-constructed questionnaire to measure teacher performance was self-administered to collect data from the selected principals and teachers, which secured a 97% response rate. During the qualitative phase, eight supervisors participated in the focus group interview. The questionnaire data were analysed using the Statistical Analysis System (SAS) software. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted and presented in a clear and logical manner. The principals and teachers indicated that all the leadership styles, except the directive leadership style, have a positive impact on the teachers’ performance. Furthermore, the supportive leadership style is the most frequently used style. Importantly, age, qualifications and experience as independent variables had an effect on teachers’ performance. The data also indicated a statistically significant relationship between the job performance of teachers and the leadership styles employed by the principals. The study results make a contribution to the research on the relation between leadership styles and teachers’ performance, especially since no study has been conducted on this issue in the Tigray region of Ethiopia before. It was possible to make several meaningful recommendations for implementation in the Tigray region. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Education Management)