Leadership and stress: A meta-analytic review

Stress has been implicated as an important determinant of leadership functioning. Conversely, the behavior of leaders has long been argued to be a major factor in determining the stress levels of followers. Yet despite the widespread acknowledgement that stress and leadership are linked, there has been no systematic attempt to organize and summarize these literatures. In the present, we meta-analytically review the relationship between three leadership constructs (transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, and abusive supervision) and stress and burnout. Our analyses confirm that leader stress influences leader behavior and that leadership behaviors and leader-follower relationships are significant determinants of stress and burnout in subordinates. We build on these results to suggest new avenues for research in this domain as well as discussing how these results can inform practice with regards to leader development.