Health-Oriented Leadership in Healthcare

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to explore a model of health-oriented leadership in which healthcare leaders' attitudes and cognitions precipitate their health-oriented leadership behaviors and ultimately impact frontline healthcare workers' health and well-being. To better understand these relationships, this chapter will explore this model at different levels of specificity of leadership including general (e.g., transformational), specific (e.g., health-oriented), and targeted (e.g., sleep). The authors separately examine the ways in which healthcare leaders' health-oriented attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors can impact followers' health and well-being. In doing so, they highlight that internal antecedents (e.g., attitudes and cognitions) are necessary precursors for effective health-oriented leadership behaviors. Then they provide recommendations for research and practice based on the model and the current state of the literature in order to better their understanding of health-oriented leadership while simultaneously improving the health and wellness of frontline healthcare workers.