WHEN WORRY COMES TO WORK
A Seven-Part Leadership Series
How Good Leadership Can Lower Workplace Stress
If relationships matter, the next question is whether research gives us any reason to believe they actually change how workplace stress is experienced.
It does.
The evidence does not allow us to say that strong Leader-Member Exchange relationships treat Generalized Anxiety Disorder [GAD]. My original review did not identify studies directly examining LMX as an intervention for GAD or workplace-related anxiety disorders.
What the research does show is that high-quality social exchange can influence several factors that matter greatly when people are working under stress.
Those include psychological distress, workgroup integration, perceived control, access to resources, self-efficacy, perceived risk, job satisfaction, and well-being.
Rousseau et al. (2008), for example, examined the relationship between social interactions at work and psychological health. Their research connected stronger leader-member exchange and workgroup integration with lower psychological distress.
One reason is that relationships provide resources.
When employees have access to supervisors and coworkers, they do not have to solve every problem alone.
They can clarify an expectation.
Test an assumption.
Ask for information.
Negotiate aspects of the work.
Seek another perspective.
Request help.
That access can change the experience of a stressful situation.
Martin et al. (2005) also examined LMX in relation to locus of control and work reactions. Their work helps us think about the role that perceived control plays in workplace experience.
Control does not mean employees get to decide everything.
It means they understand where they have influence.
Few things create frustration faster than being responsible for an outcome while having no meaningful ability to affect it.
For someone experiencing anxiety around uncertainty, being able to distinguish what they control from what they do not may be particularly important.
Walumbwa et al. (2011) add another useful dimension. Their research connected LMX with both self-efficacy and means-efficacy.
Self-efficacy concerns the belief that I am capable of performing the task.
Means-efficacy concerns whether I believe the external resources required to complete the task are available to me.
Those are different questions.
Can I do this?
Do I have what I need to do this?
Leaders influence both.
We influence confidence through feedback, coaching, opportunity, and the way we respond to mistakes.
We influence means-efficacy through staffing, information, authority, tools, time, access, and organizational support.
de Clercq et al. (2018) found relationships among self-efficacy, job-related anxiety, workplace incivility, and job performance. Their research reinforces something leaders should remember: confidence and performance do not exist independently from the environment around the employee.
Risk is another area where the relationship matters.
Muldoon et al. (2012) studied LMX, empowerment, and perceived injury risk. Their findings suggested that stronger leader-member relationships and empowerment affected how employees perceived physical workplace risk.
The specific setting of that research is important, and we should not stretch its conclusions beyond what was studied.
But the underlying leadership lesson remains useful.
People experience risk differently when they believe they can discuss concerns openly and have some ability to respond to them.
McCarthy et al. (2016) looked directly at workplace anxiety and performance and found that the relationship depended in part on the quality of social exchange.
Importantly, social exchange extends beyond the supervisor.
Coworker relationships matter too.
A workplace where colleagues share knowledge, provide support, respond constructively to questions, and help one another under pressure offers a very different social environment from one marked by isolation, competition, incivility, or blame.
That is why leadership culture cannot stop with the leader-employee relationship.
The broader network matters.
Bernerth and Hirschfeld (2016) also found that LMX had implications for the subjective well-being of group leaders themselves.
That is worth noticing.
Good relationships at work are not only something leaders provide to followers.
Leaders work inside those relationships too.
Executives who believe they must carry every organizational problem themselves eventually discover the limits of that approach.
Healthy reciprocal relationships create resources in both directions.
None of this removes the need for professional treatment when someone is experiencing an anxiety disorder.
It does suggest that workplaces are not neutral.
The quality of leadership and coworker relationships can either increase the resources available to someone under stress or make those resources harder to reach.
That is a meaningful leadership responsibility.
Reflection
When pressure rises in your organization, do relationships become a source of support or another source of stress?
References
Bernerth, J. B., & Hirschfeld, R. R. (2016). The subjective well-being of group leaders as explained by the quality of leader-member exchange. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(4), 697–710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.04.003
de Clercq, D., Haq, I. U., & Azeem, M. U. (2018). Self-efficacy to spur job performance: Roles of job-related anxiety and perceived workplace incivility. Management Decision, 56(4), 891–907.
Martin, R., Thomas, G., Charles, K., Epitropaki, O., & McNamara, R. (2005). The role of leader-member exchanges in mediating the relationship between locus of control and work reactions. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78(1), 141–147.
McCarthy, J. M., Trougakos, J. P., & Cheng, B. H. (2016). Are anxious workers less productive workers? It depends on the quality of social exchange. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(2), 279–291.
Muldoon, J., Matthews, R. A., & Foley, C. (2012). Mediated effects of physical risk factors, leader-member exchange and empowerment in predicting perceived injury risk. Stress and Health, 28(2), 149–162.
Rousseau, V., Aubé, C., Chiocchio, F., Boudrias, J.-S., & Morin, E. M. (2008). Social interactions at work and psychological health: The role of leader-member exchange and work group integration. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(7), 1755–1777.
Walumbwa, F. O., Cropanzano, R., & Goldman, B. M. (2011). How leader-member exchange influences effective work behaviors: Social exchange and internal-external efficacy perspectives. Personnel Psychology, 64(3), 739–770.