Corporate Manager's Leadership Style and Existence of Employee Health Promotion Programs

Abstract

The establishment and the quality of health promotion programs depend on supportive corporate management. However, there is a paucity of research investigating the area of leadership in corporations as it relates to health promotion programs. In general, the research on health promotion consists primarily of types of programs, cost effectiveness, and physiological responses to specific health behaviors.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of corporate managers' leadership style, determined by Likert's Profile of Organizational Characteristics, and the existence of employee health 
promotion programs. One hundred eighty-seven corporate officers in
Northeastern Ohio completed the questionnaire entitled Corporate Leadership Styles and the Existence of Employee Health Promotion Programs which included questions from Likert's Profile of  Organizational Characteristics, general information, demographic data, and questions about the effects of health promotion. Multiple linear regression procedures were used to analyze the variance in predicting one variable to another. The F test was applied to determine statistical significance at the .05 level.

The results of hypothesis testing for the sample indicated leadership style, as measured by Likert's Profile of Organizational Characteristics, does not aid in predicting the existence of an employee health promotion program. Leadership styles of the respondents in this study clustered around System 2 and System 3. System 2, the benevolent-authoritative system, and System 3, the consultive system, are intermediate systems. These systems resemble the extreme from which they deviate. However, data from a subset of the sample (managers from corporations with health promotion programs) indicated knowledge of leadership style may be used to predict corporate officers' perception that health promotion programs increase employee morale. In addition, data from this subset indicated corporate officer participation in the decision to establish a health promotion program leads to a predictive relationship that health promotion programs are cost effective, increase employee productivity, and decrease absenteeism.