Development of health-promoting and sustainable leadership: follow-up of an intervention study: Andrea Eriksson

Background

Leadership is considered a key conditions for organizing more attractive work with beneficial working conditions, employees health and work engagement. Health care managers in specific need functional support, competence and handling strategies to meet challenges related to working conditions. The aim of this study was to evaluate effects of a leadership program that was developed to support managers’ knowledge and handling-strategies for health-promoting and sustainable working conditions.

Methods

In step 1 a working material and an intervention program based on system theory were developed. The program included evidence-based knowledge of key-factors and conditions for improving workers health, wellbeing and work engagement. Step 2 was the intervention program being tested in 6 groups of 65 managers and key actors. The program evaluated through interviews and questionnaires to managers (n = 37) and employees (n = 348) before and two times after the intervention program.

Results

The survey results indicated improvements in leadership (p-value 0,00), handling of work environment issues, (p-value 0,00) as well as job satisfaction (p-value 0,05) and work engagement (p-value 0,02) at the workplaces where the managers had actively worked according to the leadership program. The qualitative results indicated good value for managers to engage in dialogue-based management groups where they received support and inspiration to develop health-promoting work conditions.

Conclusions

The content and the pedagogical methods of the intervention program developed in this study correspond to requests of support among healthcare managers. Interventions based on the program have shown to give effects on employee health. The working material developed in this study has, after this study was performed, been diffused to a wide range of stakeholders and managers within the Swedish public sector.

Key messages:

• There is a need of investing in programs that can give healthcare managers functional support to meet challenges related to poor working conditions in the health care sector.

• Dialogue-based interventions based on system theory can have effects on managers handling strategies of work environment issues.