A leader in need is a leader indeed? The influence of leaders’ stress mindset on their perception of employee well‐being and their intended leadership behavior

Abstract

The ability to respond appropriately to employees’ work‐related well‐being requires leaders to pay attention to their employees’ well‐being in the first place. We propose that leaders’ stress mindset, that is, the belief that stress is enhancing vs. debilitating, may bias their perception of employees’ well‐being. We further propose that this judgment then influences leaders’ intention to engage in or refrain from health‐oriented leadership behavior, to express higher performance expectations, or to promote their employees. We expect this process to be stronger if leaders strongly identify with their team, increasing their perceived similarity with their employees. In three experiments (N1 = 198, N2 = 292, N3 = 250), we tested the effect of participants’ stress mindset on their intention to show certain leadership behaviors, mediated by their perception of employee well‐being (emotional exhaustion, somatic symptoms, work engagement) and moderated by their team identification. Our findings largely support the association between stress mindset and the perception of well‐being. The results for the proposed mediation and the moderating function of identification were mixed. Overall, the results emphasize the critical role of leaders’ stress mindset and may, thus, improve health promotion in organizations by helping leaders to adequately recognize employees’ well‐being and respond appropriately.

Full text

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www.zora.uzh.ch
Year: 2021
A leader in need is a leader indeed? The inuence of leaders’ stress mindset
on their perception of employee well‐being and their intended leadership
behavior
Kaluza, Antonia J ; Junker, Nina M ; Schuh, Sebastian C ; Raesch, Pauline ; von Rooy, Nathalie K ;
van Dick, Rolf
Abstract: The ability to respond appropriately to employees’ work-related well-being requires leaders to
pay attention to their employees’ well-being in the rst place. We propose that leaders’ stress mindset,
that is, the belief that stress is enhancing versus debilitating, may bias their perception of employees’ well-
being. We further propose that this judgment then inuences leaders’ intention to engage in or refrain
from health-oriented leadership behavior, to express higher performance expectations, or to promote their
employees. We expect this process to be stronger if leaders strongly identify with their team, increasing
their perceived similarity with their employees. In three experiments (N1 = 198, N2 = 292, N3 = 250), we
tested the eect of participants’ stress mindset on their intention to show certain leadership behaviors,
mediated by their perception of employee well-being (emotional exhaustion, somatic symptoms, work
engagement) and moderated by their team identication. Our ndings largely support the association
between stress mindset and the perception of well-being. The results for the proposed mediation and
the moderating function of identication were mixed. Overall, the results emphasize the critical role of
leaders’ stress mindset and may, thus, improve health promotion in organizations by helping leaders to
adequately recognize employees’ well-being and respond appropriately.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12359
Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich
ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-210252
Journal Article
Published Version
The following work is licensed under a Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
License.
Originally published at:
Kaluza, Antonia J; Junker, Nina M; Schuh, Sebastian C; Raesch, Pauline; von Rooy, Nathalie K; van
Dick, Rolf (2021). A leader in need is a leader indeed? The inuence of leaders’ stress mindset on
their perception of employee well‐being and their intended leadership behavior. Applied Psychology: An
International Review:Epub ahead of print.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12359

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A leader in need is a leader indeed? The
influence of leaders' stress mindset on their
perception of employee well-being and their
intended leadership behavior
Antonia J. Kaluza
1
| Nina M. Junker
1,2
|
Sebastian C. Schuh
3
| Pauline Raesch
1
|
Nathalie K. von Rooy
4
| Rolf van Dick
1
1
Department of Psychology, Goethe
University Frankfurt, Frankfurt,
Germany
2
Department of Psychology, University of
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
3
Department of Organisational Behaviour
and Human Resource Management,
China Europe International Business
School (CEIBS), Shanghai, China
4
Department of Psychology, University of
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Correspondence
Antonia J. Kaluza, Department of
Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt,
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, 60323
Frankfurt, Germany.
Email: kaluza@psych.uni-frankfurt.de
Abstract
The ability to respond appropriately to employees'
work-related well-being requires leaders to pay atten-
tion to their employees' well-being in the first place.
We propose that leaders' stress mindset, that is, the
belief that stress is enhancing versus debilitating, may
bias their perception of employees' well-being. We fur-
ther propose that this judgment then influences
leaders' intention to engage in or refrain from health-
oriented leadership behavior, to express higher perfor-
mance expectations, or to promote their employees. We
expect this process to be stronger if leaders strongly
identify with their team, increasing their perceived
similarity with their employees. In three experiments
(N
1
=198, N
2
=292, N
3
=250), we tested the effect of
participants' stress mindset on their intention to show
certain leadership behaviors, mediated by their percep-
tion of employee well-being (emotional exhaustion,
somatic symptoms, work engagement) and moderated
by their team identification. Our findings largely sup-
port the association between stress mindset and the
Received: 28 October 2020 Accepted: 13 October 2021
DOI: 10.1111/apps.12359
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2021 The Authors. Applied Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Association of Applied
Psychology.
Applied Psychology. 2021;1–38. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/apps 1

perception of well-being. The results for the proposed
mediation and the moderating function of identifica-
tion were mixed. Overall, the results emphasize the
critical role of leaders' stress mindset and may, thus,
improve health promotion in organizations by helping
leaders to adequately recognize employees' well-being
and respond appropriately.
KEYWORDS
emotional exhaustion, leadership, stress mindset, team
identification, work engagement
INTRODUCTION
Occupational stress is a ubiquitous phenomenon and a major concern for employees and
organizations alike. According to a 2019 survey by the American Psychological Association,
64% of employees in the United States consider their work to be a significant source of stress
(American Psychological Association, 2019). Likewise, a report published by the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health revealed that 40% of US citizens rate their job as
“very or extremely stressful”(National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Working
Group, 2014). Leaders play a pivotal role in organizations, and their behavior can have a crucial
influence on the experience of stress and on the well-being of their employees (e.g., Harms
et al., 2017; Montano et al., 2017). However, the majority of research has focused on the health-
related consequences of different leadership behaviors (e.g., Kuoppala et al., 2008; Schyns &
Schilling, 2013). This is especially true for health-oriented leadership—a research area that has
only recently received increased attention and for which many questions remain open, includ-
ing why some leaders engage in health-oriented behaviors, such as responding to followers'
stress signals, and others do not (cf. Pangert, 2011; Rudolph et al., 2020). Indeed, some leaders
may even assign more tasks and raise their performance expectations in stressful situations
(e.g., Hunt et al., 1999; MacKenzie et al., 2001).
In the present paper, we aim to address this gap and propose that leaders' stress mindset,
that is, their general belief about whether stress is harmful or beneficial to health and produc-
tivity (Crum et al., 2013), may critically affect leaders' perceptions of their employees' well-being
at work, in turn influencing how leaders behave toward their employees. We further propose
that leaders' assessment of their employees' well-being should be particularly influenced by
their own stress mindset for those leaders who strongly identify with their team. On this basis,
we seek to make two main contributions to the stress mindset and leadership literature.
First, previous research has been inconclusive about why some leaders engage in health-
oriented leadership behaviors, whereas others focus more on maintaining and increasing per-
formance. Health issues at work are sensitive topics (e.g., Follmer & Jones, 2018), and
employees may be afraid to openly express that they feel overworked or stressed. Hence, leaders
need to accurately perceive and respond appropriately to the needs and stress signals of their
employees to decrease employees' stress and foster their well-being and performance
(e.g., Dimoff & Kelloway, 2019). However, not only is stress a subjective experience
2KALUZA ET AL.

(Lazarus, 1995), but individuals also differ in their assumptions about the consequences of
experiencing stress. Some people believe that stress is detrimental to health and performance
and, as such, should be avoided whenever possible (a so-called “stress-is-debilitating”[SID]
mindset; Crum et al., 2013). Others regard stress as motivating and as a source for growth, pro-
ductivity, and well-being (a so-called “stress-is-enhancing”[SIE] mindset; Crum et al., 2013). By
taking a social projection perspective (cf., Hogg & Terry, 2000; Robbins & Krueger, 2005), we
argue that when assessing their employees' well-being, leaders project their own stress mindset
onto their followers and, through selective perception, focus on the information that is congru-
ent with their own stress mindset (Ames, 2004b; Krueger, 2007). More specifically, we hypothe-
size that leaders' stress mindset influences their perceptions of employees' well-being, that is,
whether employees are exhausted and need recovery or whether they are actively engaged and
can be expected to accomplish more tasks. We further propose that leaders' judgment of their
employees' well-being, in turn, guides their subsequent health-oriented and performance-
oriented behavior toward their employees. Therefore, we examine employees' physical and psy-
chological exhaustion, as well as their work engagement, as separate indicators of well-being,
because positive and negative forms of well-being reflect independent dimensions with diverg-
ing relations (Howell et al., 2014; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004).
Second, we aim to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the benefits of team iden-
tification in organizations, that is, the feeling of belonging to the team and to share a sense of
“us”(van Dick et al., 2018). Team identification entails many positive effects, such as improved
well-being, and, thus, it has been coined as a “social cure”(Haslam et al., 2018; Steffens
et al., 2017). However, there are recent debates that social identification might also act as a
“social curse,”which can negatively affect health and well-being (e.g., Wakefield et al., 2019).
In a similar vein, we argue that leaders' identification with their team can influence leaders'
assessment of their employees' well-being, as strong identification might result in a biased per-
ception of others. Strongly identified team members perceive other group members as being
more similar to themselves (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; van Dick & Haslam, 2012). Perceived simi-
larity, in turn, increases the likelihood of projecting one's own state and beliefs (e.g., about
stress) onto others, as individuals particularly assume that others think and feel the same way
they do when they regard the other person as similar to themselves (Ames, 2004a). Hence, we
propose that leaders who strongly (rather than weakly) identify with their team are more prone
to project their own mindset onto their employees. For example, strongly identified leaders with
an SIE mindset may be particularly likely to assume that employees also consider stress to be
motivating and enhancing. This may result in an underestimation of employees' stress (i.e., an
overestimation of their well-being) and, subsequently, lead to less health-oriented leadership
behavior (than necessary) but higher performance expectations (than warranted). In sum, we
develop a model that links leaders' stress mindset to their intended leadership behavior via the
perception of employees' well-being, moderated by leaders' team identification (see Figure 1).
THEORY AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
Individual consideration of employees' needs and abilities is not only beneficial for leaders'
effectiveness but also for their employees' well-being, and it is positively related to employees'
satisfaction with their leaders (e.g., DeRue et al., 2011; Franke & Felfe, 2011; Skakon
et al., 2010). Hence, common advice to leaders is to consider their employees as individuals and
to respond to each employee's needs individually. For example, an employee with sufficient
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 3

resources can be assigned additional work tasks, whereas employees who are already at their
limits should be relieved of some tasks and receive support. Such individualized leadership
requires leaders to correctly perceive the current mental and physical conditions of their
employees and correctly assess their stress levels.
However, it is a common understanding that the experience of stress is subjective and that
individuals differ in their assessment of stress (e.g., Lazarus, 1995). Stress is, in the first place, a
nonspecific response of the organism to any demand or stressor (Selye, 1976) and is, thus,
rather neutral. However, stress has both positive and negative consequences. As such, stress
triggers physical processes that contribute to immunity, strength, and growth (see Crum
et al., 2013, for an overview of stress-related growth) but is also related to cardiovascular dis-
eases and depression (Cohen et al., 2007; Melamed et al., 2006; Wang, 2005). Whether stress
has positive or negative effects depends on various factors, such as the duration (acute
vs. chronic), or psychological factors, such as cognitive appraisal (Jamieson et al., 2018).
Recently, scholars (e.g., Crum et al., 2013; Jamieson et al., 2018) have argued that individuals'
view on stress, whether they consider stress as something positive and enhancing (i.e., SIE) or
negative and debilitating (i.e., SID), their so-called stress mindset, is decisive in determining
their experience of stress.
Building on the idea that a mindset reflects a mental lens through which information about
a specific topic, such as intelligence (Blackwell et al., 2007; Hong et al., 1999) or failure
(Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016), is perceived, selected, and evaluated, a stress mindset represents a
general, domain- and situation-unspecific simplifying system (Jamieson et al., 2018). This men-
tal lens affects important work outcomes, including employees' attitudes, motivation, and per-
formance at work (e.g., Casper et al., 2017; Jamieson et al., 2018). For example, people with an
SIE mindset perceive stressful events as a challenge (“I can handle this”; Kilby &
Sherman, 2016) and use more active coping strategies, such as approach-coping efforts, than
those with an SID mindset (e.g., Casper et al., 2017). Experimental research has shown that
interventions to reinforce an SIE mindset can improve performance and physical and psycho-
logical responses (e.g., reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety; e.g., Crum et al., 2013).
Social projection of one's own stress mindset
Previous research has largely focused on the implications of the stress mindset for individual
employees and, thus, on intraindividual consequences. However, the literature on implicit
FIGURE 1 Hypothesized model linking leaders' stress mindset and their leadership behavior intentions
toward employees
4KALUZA ET AL.

theories suggests that mindsets not only influence how we perceive ourselves but also how we
perceive others (Dweck & Leggett, 1988).
Social projection theories provide an important theoretical lens for understanding the inter-
personal effects of mindsets (e.g., Krueger, 2007; Robbins & Krueger, 2005). These theories sug-
gest that individuals automatically and unconsciously project their own attitudes and states
onto others when they are asked to rate their behaviors, cognitions, and emotions
(Ames, 2004b). Hence, individuals use their own feelings and preferences as anchors for judging
others' feelings and preferences (Epley et al., 2004; Krueger, 2000).
This projection can result in egocentrically distorted perceptions of others, as insufficient
consideration is given to the fact that other people may react differently to themselves
(e.g., Ames, 2004b; Epley et al., 2004). If individuals have to judge the mental state and
needs of others, their mindset will guide their perception of others, and they will mainly
perceive and process information that is congruent to their own mindset (Taylor &
Gollwitzer, 1995). Initial evidence suggests that this also applies to the stress mindset of
individuals. As such, Ben-Avi et al. (2018) found that individuals who hold the belief that
stress is enhancing (compared with the assumption that stress is debilitating) estimated the
stress level of another person who was experiencing a heavy workload to be lower. This, in
turn, influenced their subsequent behavioral intentions, for example, to help the other
person.
Leaders' stress mindset, perceptions, and leadership behavior
Applying this reasoning to the leadership context, leaders' stress mindset may similarly influ-
ence their assessment of employees' well-being. Leaders with an SIE mindset (compared
with those with an SID mindset) are more likely to interpret their employees' signs of stress,
such as not taking breaks or working longer hours, as signs of high work engagement,
defined as a “positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor,
dedication, and absorption”(Schaufeli et al., 2002, p. 74). Indeed, engaged employees are
less likely to take breaks while at work (Bakker & Oerlemans, 2016) and more likely to
work longer hours (Schaufeli et al., 2008). At the same time, leaders with an SIE mindset
should perceive less psychological and physical strain in their employees, in contrast to
those with an SID mindset. Emotional exhaustion is an important indicator of psychological
stress in the job context as a subcomponent of burnout. Emotional exhaustion captures a
sense of being stressed and overextended, resulting from chronic exposure to stressors
(Maslach et al., 2001; Maslach & Jackson, 1981). Somatic symptoms, such as headaches or
stomach or bowel problems, reflect the presence of physical ill-health (e.g., Gierk
et al., 2014), which has been shown to be associated with job-related exhaustion
(e.g., cardiovascular diseases; Honkonen et al., 2006). Although work engagement can co-
occur with emotional exhaustion and somatic symptoms (e.g., Moeller et al., 2018), most
studies suggest that these have a typically negative association (Cole et al., 2012). Conse-
quently, it seems plausible to assume that these are also negatively associated in the percep-
tion of others. As leaders with an SIE mindset focus on the potential for growth when
experiencing stress and interpret stress as an indicator of learning and development (Crum
et al., 2013), they might perceive more work engagement of employees in stressful situations
and, at the same time, less mental exhaustion or somatic symptoms. Hence, we hypothesize
the following:
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 5

H1a. Leaders with an SIE mindset will perceive higher levels of employee work
engagement (compared with leaders with an SID mindset).
H1b. Leaders with an SIE mindset will perceive lower levels of employee emotional
exhaustion (compared with leaders with an SID mindset).
H1c. Leaders with an SIE mindset will perceive fewer employee somatic symptoms
(compared with leaders with an SID mindset).
Leaders' perceptions of employees' well-being should, in turn, impact their leadership
behavior. Indeed, previous research found that the perception of another person influences
one's own behavior toward that person (e.g., Bond & Forgas, 1984; Camps et al., 2014). As such,
the perception of an unpleasant body odor (if judged to be beyond the person's control) elicits
feelings of pity in others and increases prosocial behavior (Camps et al., 2014). Likewise, the
perception of attractiveness and having “normal”body weight (compared with being over-
weight) leads to a stronger intention to help or hire another person (Chiu & Babcock, 2002;
Swami et al., 2008). Moreover, initial evidence shows that perceiving strain in others affects sub-
sequent behavior; the perception that another person is stressed increases the intention to help
them (Ben-Avi et al., 2018). Hence, we propose that leaders' stress mindset indirectly influences
their leadership behavior through the perception of employees' well-being (i.e., emotional
exhaustion, somatic symptoms, and work engagement).
If leaders perceive that an employee is in pain or emotionally exhausted, they may recognize
that this employee needs relief from the strain and will show health-promoting support
intended to reduce the employee's emotional or physical exhaustion. Such support includes
reducing demands, creating healthy workplace conditions, and encouraging employees to
engage in positive health behavior at work (e.g., to use workplace health-promotion programs;
cf., Franke et al., 2014). Indeed, awareness and recognition of employees' well-being are consid-
ered a prerequisite for health-oriented leadership behavior (Franke et al., 2014). The perception
that employees are engaged and full of energy at work, however, should elicit less health-
promoting support from leaders. Hence, we expect that leaders' stress mindset indirectly affects
their intention to support employees in a health-promoting way through their perceptions of
employees' well-being. Based on this, we propose the following:
H2. Leaders with an SIE mindset report a lower intention to show health-oriented
leadership behavior (compared with leaders with an SID mindset). This effect is
mediated by (a) more perceived work engagement, (b) less perceived emotional
exhaustion, and (c) fewer perceived somatic symptoms.
In addition, leaders use their employees' behavior and attitudes to draw conclusions about
their professional capacity and opportunities for career advancement. Based on signaling the-
ory, leaders lack complete information about their employees but must rely on easily accessible
and identifiable cues from employees when evaluating them (e.g., Connelly et al., 2010;
Spence, 1973). Several studies indicate that leaders use an employee's work engagement as a
cue to infer good performance and, hence, rate the employee as more suitable for promotion
and as having more career growth opportunities (e.g., Shore et al., 1995; Weer &
Greenhaus, 2020). Similarly, leaders may adjust their performance expectations based on
employees' signaling. As a result, leaders use these signs of being engaged and of “going the
6KALUZA ET AL.

extra mile”(Schaufeli et al., 2008) to increase their expectations about an employee's future per-
formance. At the same time, a low assessment of exhaustion enhances evaluations of others'
promotability (Ben-Avi et al., 2018). Consequently, if leaders recognize that employees in a
highly demanding work environment show low levels of physical and psychological exhaustion
but are highly engaged, they may interpret it as a signal of good performance, leading them to
set higher performance expectations for these employees in the future and to perceive them as
more suitable for promotion. Hence, we expect leaders' stress mindset to indirectly influence
their intention to express higher performance expectations and promote an employee through
their perceptions of the employee's well-being. Specifically, we hypothesize the following:
H3. Leaders with an SIE mindset report higher performance expectation intentions
(compared with leaders with an SID mindset). This effect is mediated by (a) more
perceived work engagement, (b) less perceived emotional exhaustion, and (c) fewer
perceived somatic symptoms.
H4. Leaders with an SIE mindset report stronger promotion intentions (compared
to leaders with an SID mindset). This effect is mediated by (a) more perceived work
engagement, (b) less perceived emotional exhaustion, and (c) fewer perceived
somatic symptoms.
The moderating role of team identification
We further assume that not all leaders are equally likely to project their own stress mindset onto
their employees, but that this projection process is heterogeneous. According to social projection
theory, the automatic projection of one's own attitudes and behavior can be deliberately attenu-
ated or changed if people are aware that differences or similarities exist between themselves and
the other person (Ames, 2004a; Epley et al., 2004). As such, the more we perceive others to be
similar to ourselves, the more likely we are to project our own experiences onto them.
Perceptions of similarity are critically shaped by individuals' social identities, that is, their
perception of oneness with or belonging to a social group (e.g., Ashforth & Mael, 1989). In par-
ticular, sharing a social identity, such as being members of the same team, relates to a stronger
perception of being similar to the other group members in essential team-defining features,
such as sharing similar values or interpreting the work context in a similar way (Haslam, 2004).
Moreover, sharing a team identity results in a generalization of the specific behaviors of team
members across situations and time (van Dick & Haslam, 2012). Conversely, not sharing a team
identity leads to a stronger emphasis on differences between individuals and a focus on
situation-specific behaviors. In other words, rather than seeing the individual with their unique
attributes, sharing a group membership elicits a process of depersonalization, resulting in a
false perception of sharing more attributes than is objectively the case (Hogg & Terry, 2000).
This effect is stronger, the more the individual identifies with the respective group.
Due to this false generalization of one's own attributes, experiences, and thoughts about
other team members when sharing a social identity, we assume that strongly identified leaders
with an SID mindset are more likely to perceive employees as also holding an SID mindset and
considering stress to be debilitating, exhausting, and detrimental. Strongly identified leaders
with an SIE mindset should be more likely to perceive their employees as holding an SIE
mindset and seeing stress as a motivating and manageable challenge. On the other hand,
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 7

leaders with lower team identification should be less likely to project their own stress mindset
onto their employees. Therefore, we hypothesize that leaders' identification with their team
moderates the association between leaders' stress mindset and their perceptions of employees'
well-being. Specifically, we hypothesize the following:
H5. Leaders' identification with their team moderates the effect of their stress
mindset on their perceptions of employee (a) work engagement, (b) emotional
exhaustion, and (c) somatic symptoms, such that these effects will be stronger for
leaders who strongly identify with their team and weaker for those who weakly
identify with their team.
OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT RESEARCH
We conducted three experimental studies to test our hypotheses. In Study 1, the scenario and
stress mindset manipulation were tested by examining the proposed downstream effect of par-
ticipants' (manipulated) stress mindset on their intended leadership behavior via the perception
of an employee's well-being. These results showed that the scenario and stress mindset manipu-
lation were effective, leading to further examination of the proposed model in two additional
preregistered studies (see Supporting Information for the preregistrations and additional mate-
rial). In these studies, we also tested the proposed moderation of the relationship between
leaders' stress mindset and perceptions of employees' well-being by team identification. Study
2 assessed leaders' identification with their team, and Study 3 experimentally manipulated their
team identification. Both studies employed a similar study design, namely, a 2 (SID vs. SIE
mindset) 2 (low vs. high team identification) between-subject design.
STUDY 1
Method
Participants
Participants were recruited online in the United States via the MTurk platform, and 256 partici-
pants answered the online questionnaire. After excluding the outliers based on the a priori
exclusion criteria (i.e., failing attention checks; finishing the questionnaire in less than 50% of
the median time needed to complete it, as it is hardly possible to seriously answer it in such a
short time; indicating current unemployment; providing senseless answers in the stress mindset
manipulation; see Supporting Information for details), the final sample size was N=198 with
53% men and 47% women. The mean age was M=34.80 (SD =10.22, ranging from 20 to
65 years). Most participants worked full-time (85%), and 50% had managerial responsibilities.
Procedure
The study consisted of two parts, which were introduced as separate studies. In the first
part, participants' stress mindset was manipulated. Because people tend to have an SID
8KALUZA ET AL.

mindset (Clark, 2003; Kinman & Jones, 2005), manipulating the stress mindset
seemed advisable and had been successfully implemented in previous research (Ben-Avi
et al., 2018). Participants were randomly assigned to either the SID or SIE condition.
Participants in the SID condition were asked to recall a situation from their work life
in which they found stress harmful. Those in the SIE condition were asked to think of a
situation in which stress was useful. The participants then briefly described this situation
and completed four sentences regarding their feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and body sensa-
tions in this situation (e.g., “If stress affects me in a negative/positive way, I feel the follow-
ing physical sensations …”; see Supporting Information for a detailed description of the
manipulation). As a manipulation check, the participants' reported stress mindset was
measured.
In the second part, participants were asked to imagine that they were the leader of their
current team that included an employee named “Ben.”They then read a scenario describing
the fictitious employee Ben, who was exposed to very high work demands (e.g., long
working hours) and who also had many family demands (adapted from Ben-Avi et al., 2018; the
wording of the scenario can be found in the Supporting Information). Participants were then
asked to rate Ben's perceived well-being (e.g., work engagement and emotional exhaustion) and
their intention to show health-oriented leadership behavior, to express high-performance expec-
tations, and to promote this employee.
Measures
The established measures drawn from previous research were adapted to the specific study con-
text. Unless otherwise noted, all measures were presented using a 5-point rating scale ranging
from 1=strongly disagree/never to 5=strongly agree/always.
Participants' reported stress mindset was measured with eight items based on Crum
et al. (2013), with higher values representing a more SIE mindset. A sample item is
“Experiencing stress enhances my performance and productivity”(ω=.87).
Perceived work engagement of Ben was assessed using the three-item version of the Utrecht
Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli et al., 2019). A sample item is “…at work, Ben feels bursting
with energy”(ω=.73).
The Emotional Exhaustion subscale from the Maslach Burnout Inventory
was used to measure the perceived emotional exhaustion of Ben with five items (Bakker
et al., 2002; Maslach et al., 1996). A sample item is “…Ben feels burned out from work”
(ω=.92).
Participants' intention to show health-oriented leadership behavior was assessed using seven
items of the Health-oriented Leadership instrument (Franke et al., 2014). A sample item is “I
would try to reduce Ben's demands by optimizing his working procedures (e.g., set priorities,
care for undisturbed working, and daily planning)”(ω=.88).
Participants' intention to express high-performance expectations toward Ben was evaluated
using three items from the High Performance Expectations subscale of the Transformational
Leadership Inventory (Podsakoff et al., 1990). A sample item is “I would show Ben that I expect
a lot from him”(ω=.81).
Participants' intention to promote Ben was measured with three items (see Ben-Avi
et al., 2018; based on scales by Hoobler et al., 2009, and Tiedens, 2001). A sample item is “Ben
should be promoted”(ω=.85).
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 9

Randomization check and control variables
Due to the experimental design, we tested whether participants were randomly assigned to the
two stress mindset conditions in terms of their demographics (age, gender), their dispositional
optimism, and their current stress. The experience and assessment of stress (perceived in
others) can be influenced by a person's general optimism or stress level, as more optimistic indi-
viduals perceive less stress and use better coping strategies in stressful situations
(e.g., Chang, 1998; Segerstrom et al., 1998), whereas individuals' own stress makes them less
sensitive to the demands and strains of others (e.g., Trougakos et al., 2015). Thus, participants'
optimism was measured using three items from the Revised Life Orientation Test (Scheier
et al., 1994). A sample item is “I'm always optimistic about my future”(ω=.86; 5-point scale
from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree). Participants' current stress level was assessed
using four items from the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1983). A sample item is “In the
last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not over-
come them?”(ω=.84: 5-point scale from 1=never to 5=always).
Furthermore, reading the vignette may have influenced participants' mood, which could
explain differences in well-being ratings between the two stress mindset conditions
(cf., Ben-Avi et al., 2018). Participants' mood was assessed directly after reading the vignette
with one item from the Self-Assessment Manikin (Bradley & Lang, 1994). The item asked
“Right now I am feeling …”and was scored on a 5-point rating scale ranging from
1=unhappy to 5=happy. To eliminate these alternative explanations, we tested whether par-
ticipants in the two stress mindset conditions differed for these variables. If so, we controlled
for them in our analyses.
In addition, to test whether participants' leadership experiences (i.e., whether they held a
leadership position in their current job) influenced the results, we also calculated all analyses
with leadership position (yes/no) as a control variable. The findings of these additional analyses
can be found in the respective footnotes for all studies, and detailed results are provided in the
Supporting Information.
Data analysis
A priori exclusion criteria and how to treat outliers were determined before collecting data (see
Supporting Information and preregistrations of Studies 2 and 3 for details). The analyses were
conducted using the observed scale means in Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017). We con-
ducted sequential mediation analysis to simultaneously test the impact of the stress mindset
condition on the dependent variables (i.e., intention to show health-oriented leadership behav-
ior, intention to express high-performance expectations, and intention to promote) and its indi-
rect effects via the reported stress mindset and well-being perceptions (i.e., the target's
perceived emotional exhaustion and work engagement). This is the recommended procedure
for testing whether the experimental conditions affected the intended construct (i.e., the stress
mindset) rather than testing the effects of the experimental condition itself (Lench et al., 2014).
Using this approach allowed us to draw the causal conclusion that difference in mental state,
that is, the participants' stress mindset, truly caused the effects (Lench et al., 2014). The well-
being variables and intended leadership behaviors were allowed to covary. Given the directional
nature of this study's hypotheses, all hypothesis analyses were one-tailed, with the level of sig-
nificance set at p< .05 (as specified in the preregistrations).
10 KALUZA ET AL.

Results
Preliminary analyses and manipulation check
Descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and correlations between the observed variables are presented
in Table 1. We successfully manipulated participants' stress mindset as participants in the SIE
condition reported higher stress mindset scores, indicating a stronger SIE mindset (M=3.36,
SD =0.72), than participants in the SID condition (M=2.39, SD =0.78; t(196) =9.05,
p< .001). Participants in both conditions did not differ in their gender, age, stress level, opti-
mism, or mood (p> .05 for all variables). Hence, randomization to the two conditions was suc-
cessful, and no covariates were included in the following analyses.
Hypothesis testing
The results of the sequential mediation model can be found in Figure 2. The overall model
showed a good fit to the data: χ
2
(5) =4.11, p=.533, root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) =0.00, comparative fit index (CFI) =1.00, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) =1.01, and
standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) =0.02.
Consistent with the results from our manipulation check, the stress mindset manipulation
condition significantly predicted individuals' reported stress mindset (b=0.97, 95% CI [0.79,
1.15], SE =0.11, p< .001). Supporting H1a and H1b, people with a stronger SIE mindset per-
ceived more work engagement (b=0.18, 95% CI [0.09, 0.27], SE =0.05, p< .001) and less emo-
tional exhaustion (b=0.39, 95% CI [0.50, 0.27], SE =0.07, p< .001).
Perceptions of work engagement, in turn, related to more intended health-oriented leader-
ship behavior (b=0.45, 95% CI [0.33, 0.57], SE =0.07, p< .001). Thus, although the indirect
effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived work engage-
ment on intended health-oriented leadership behavior was significant (b
ind
=0.08, 95% CI
[0.03, 0.12], SE =0.03, p=.003), we could not support H2a, which proposed an indirect nega-
tive association between the stress mindset condition and intended health-oriented leadership
behavior. Perceptions of emotional exhaustion related to more intended health-oriented leader-
ship behavior (b=0.21, 95% CI [0.12, 0.30], SE =0.06, p< .001). Supporting H2b, the indirect
effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived emotional
exhaustion on intended health-oriented leadership behavior was significant (b
ind
=0.08, 95%
CI [0.12, 0.04], SE =0.03, p=.002).
Perceived work engagement positively predicted participants' intention to express
high-performance expectations (b=0.24, 95% CI [0.12, 0.37], SE =0.08, p< .001). In support
of H3a, the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and
perceived work engagement on intention to express high-performance expectations was
significant (b
ind
=0.04, 95% CI [0.01, 0.07], SE =0.02, p=.014). Contrary to H3b, perceived
emotional exhaustion was unrelated to the intention to express high-performance expectations
(b=0.02, 95% CI [0.08, 0.12], SE =0.06, p=.374), resulting in a nonsignificant indirect
effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived emotional
exhaustion on intention to express high-performance expectations (b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI
[0.04, 0.03], SE =0.02, p=.375).
Participants' perception of work engagement was positively related to their intention to pro-
mote (b=0.48, 95% CI [0.36, 0.59], SE =0.07, p< .001). Supporting H4a, the indirect effect of
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 11

TABLE 1 Means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations among the study variables in Study 1
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. Age 34.80 10.22 -
2. Gender - - .20
**
-
3. Stress mindset condition - - .02 .05 -
4. Reported stress mindset 2.85 0.89 .03 .12
†
.54
**
(.87)
5. Optimism 3.52 0.93 .09 .13
†
.09 .36
**
(.86)
6. Stress level 2.45 0.93 .18
*
.05 .05 .26
**
.66
**
(.84)
7. Mood 3.53 0.98 .01 .11 .12
†
.30
**
.50
**
.44
**
-
8. Perceived work engagement 3.68 0.70 .20
**
.05 .08 .23
**
.28
**
.25
**
.28
**
(.73)
9. Perceived emotional exhaustion 3.17 0.93 .10 .04 .20
**
.37
**
.13
†
.15
*
.24
**
.33
**
(.92)
10. Health-oriented leadership
behavior intentions
3.92 0.75 .06 .07 .01 .06 .08 .02 .03 .33
**
.12
†
(.88)
11. High-performance expectation
intentions
3.40 0.73 .13
†
.09 .00 .10 .25
**
.18
*
.18
*
.23
**
.05 .08 (.81)
12. Promotion intentions 4.31 0.72 .19
**
.17
*
.04 .03 .19
**
.13
†
.17
*
.42
**
.04 .58
**
.16
*
(.85)
Notes:N=198 participants. McDonald's omega for each variable appears along the diagonal within parentheses. Gender: 1 =male, 2 =female; stress mindset condition: 0 =SID, 1 =SIE.
†
p< .10.
*
p< .05.
**
p< .01, two-tailed.
12 KALUZA ET AL.

the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived work engagement on
intention to promote was significant (b
ind
=0.08, 95% CI [0.03, 0.13], SE =0.03, p=.003).
However, perceived emotional exhaustion was unrelated to the intention to promote (b=0.08,
95% CI [0.004, 0.17], SE =0.05, p=.058). Contrary to H4b, the indirect effect of the stress
mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived emotional exhaustion on intention
to promote was also not significant (b
ind
=0.03, 95% CI [0.07, 0.003], SE =0.02, p=.068).
1
Discussion of Study 1
In summary, the results of Study 1 demonstrate the effectiveness of the stress mindset manipu-
lation in inducing an SIE or SID mindset. Furthermore, the findings offer initial support for the
proposed mediation and downstream effect of participants' (manipulated) stress mindset on
their intention to show certain kinds of leadership behaviors via the perception of an
employee's work engagement and emotional exhaustion. Even though the model showed a
good fit, the RMSEA and CFI values were at a maximum. This may be due to the small sample
size and/or small correlations. As only 198 individuals participated in this study, this could be
the reason for these results. Because the other fit indices are also good and the chi-square test is
insignificant, we believe that we may accept and interpret the model in this way.
We further tested the proposed model using two preregistered follow-up studies. In Study
2, we also assessed participants' perception of Ben's somatic symptoms besides perceived work
engagement and emotional exhaustion to test H1c, H2c, and H3c. Moreover, we measured par-
ticipants' identification with their team to test H5.
FIGURE 2 Results of Study 1. Notes: Unstandardized coefficients reported. Stress mindset condition:
0=SID, 1 =SIE. χ
2
(5) =4.11, p=.533, RMSEA =0.00, CFI =1.00, TLI =1.01, SRMR =0.02. The results for
the indirect effects are as follows: H2a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work
engagement -> health-oriented leadership behavior intentions: 0.08 (0.03)
**
; H2b: Stress mindset condition ->
reported stress mindset -> perceived emotional exhaustion -> health-oriented leadership behavior intentions:
0.08 (0.03)
**
; H3a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work engagement -> high-
performance expectations intentions: 0.04 (0.02)
*
; H3b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset ->
perceived emotional exhaustion -> high-performance expectations intentions: 0.01 (0.02); H4a: Stress mindset
condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work engagement -> promotion intentions: 0.08 (0.03)
**
;
H4b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived emotional exhaustion -> promotion
intentions: 0.03 (0.02)
†
.
†
p< .10,
*
p< .05,
**
p< .01, one-tailed
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 13

STUDY 2
Method
Participants
Participants were recruited online in Germany via social networks (Facebook, Xing, etc.). As an
incentive for participation, the authors donated 0.30€to a charitable organization for each com-
pleted questionnaire. A total of 346 respondents answered the online questionnaire. After exclud-
ing the outliers based on the a priori exclusion criteria (see Study 1 and the preregistration), the
sample size was N=292, with 31% men, 68% women, and 1% indicating their gender as “other.”
The mean age was M=37.64 (SD =11.76, ranging from 18 to 67 years). The sample was predom-
inantly employed full-time (70%), and 32% of the participants had managerial responsibilities.
Procedure
Similar to Study 1, this study consisted of two parts, which were presented as two separate stud-
ies. In the first part, participants' stress mindset was manipulated using the same procedure as
in Study 1. In addition, we assessed the participants' identification with their team. In the sec-
ond part, we proceeded in the same way as in Study 1. Participants were asked to imagine being
the leader of their current team, with “Ben”as one of their employees, and were then presented
with the scenario from Study 1. In addition to work engagement and emotional exhaustion, we
asked participants to rate the perceived somatic symptoms of Ben.
Measures
We used the same measures as in Study 1 to assess participants' reported stress mindset (Crum
et al., 2013; ω=.89), their perception of Ben's work engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2019; ω=.80)
and emotional exhaustion (Maslach et al., 1996, ω=.88), and their intention to show
health-oriented leadership behavior (Franke et al., 2014; ω=.76), their intention to express
high-performance expectations toward Ben (Podsakoff et al., 1990; ω=.73), and their intention
to promote Ben (e.g., Hoobler et al., 2009; ω=.83).
Participants' identification with their team was measured using three items from Doosje
et al. (1995). A sample item is “I identify with my team”(ω=.92; 5-point scale from
1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree).
Perceptions of Ben's somatic symptoms were assessed using the eight-item Somatic Symp-
toms Scale (Gierk et al., 2014). Consistent with our approach in Study 1, these items were
adapted to assess Ben's somatic symptoms, indicating how much he could have been experienc-
ing, for example, “Stomach or bowel problems”and “Headaches”(ω=.88; 5-point scale from
1=not at all to 5=very much).
Again, we examined whether participants were randomly assigned to the two stress mindset
conditions in terms of their demographics (age and gender), their optimism (Scheier et al., 1994;
ω=.73), and their current stress level (Cohen et al., 1983; ω=.81) and mood (with one item,
Bradley & Lang, 1994). We also conducted additional analyses controlling for the participants'
leadership positions in their current job.
14 KALUZA ET AL.

Data analysis
The same handling of outliers, procedure for the control variables, and analytic strategy were
used as in Study 1. The model was tested simultaneously for all mediators and the moderator
using the observed scale means. As in Study 1, we conducted a sequential mediation analysis to
examine the influence of the stress mindset condition on the dependent variables (i.e., health-
oriented leadership behavior intentions, high-performance expectation intentions, and promo-
tion intentions) and its indirect effects via the reported stress mindset and well-being percep-
tions (i.e., the target's perceived emotional exhaustion, somatic symptoms, and work
engagement). The moderator team identification as well as the interaction term between partic-
ipants' team identification and the reported stress mindset were additionally included in the
model to test H5. We grand-mean-centered the predictor variables (team identification and
reported stress mindset) to control for multicollinearity (Hofmann & Gavin, 1998).
As this study was part of a student project, additional variables were tracked for educational
purposes, which are described, along with the respective analyses, in the preregistration and
Supporting Information.
Results
Preliminary analyses and manipulation check
Descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and correlations between the observed variables in Study 2
are presented in Table 2. The manipulation check revealed that, as intended and consistent
with Study 1, participants in the SIE condition showed higher stress mindset scores, indicating
a stronger SIE mindset (M=3.28, SD =0.61) than participants in the SID condition (M=2.69,
SD =0.70; t(284.83) =7.58, p< .001). In addition, participants in both conditions did not dif-
fer in their gender, age, stress level, optimism, or mood (p> .05 for all variables). In line with
Study 1, we thus report the analyses without covariates.
Hypothesis testing
Figure 3 shows the results of the hypothesis tests. As in Study 1, the overall model showed a
good fit to the data: χ
2
(14) =23.29, p=.056, RMSEA =0.05, CFI =0.97, TLI =0.92,
SRMR =0.03.
Consistent with Study 1 and the results from our manipulation check, the stress mindset
manipulation significantly predicted individuals' reported stress mindset (b=0.58, 95% CI
[0.46, 0.71], SE =0.08, p< .001). Further consistent with Study 1, and again supporting H1a,
people with a stronger SIE mindset perceived more work engagement (b=0.14, 95% CI [0.05,
0.23], SE =0.06, p=.006). Similar to Study 1, and again supporting H1b, people with a stron-
ger SIE mindset perceived less emotional exhaustion (b=0.29, 95% CI [0.39, 0.19],
SE =0.06, p< .001). Moreover, and supporting H1c, those with a stronger SIE mindset per-
ceived fewer somatic symptoms (H1c; b=0.32, 95% CI [0.42, 0.22], SE =0.06, p< .001).
Again not supporting H2a, the perception of work engagement was not related to the
intention to show health-oriented leadership behavior (b=0.08, 95% CI [0.01, 0.16],
SE =0.05, p=.067), resulting in a nonsignificant indirect effect of the stress mindset
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 15

TABLE 2 Means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations among the study variables in Study 2
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1. Age 37.64 11.76 -
2. Gender - - .18
**
-
3. Stress mindset condition - - .03 .09 -
4. Reported stress mindset 2.98 0.72 .16
**
.04 .41
**
(.89)
5. Optimism 3.61 0.74 .09 .01 .04 .10 (.73)
6. Stress level 2.13 0.79 .18
**
.01 .01 .16
**
.52
**
(.81)
7. Mood 3.04 1.08 .02 .07 .07 .03 .15
**
.29
**
-
8. Perceived work
engagement
3.29 0.69 .09 .09 .02 .17
**
.13
*
.13
*
.09 (.80)
9. Perceived emotional
exhaustion
3.30 0.75 .16
**
.01 .05 .29
**
.05 .10
†
.15
*
.50
**
(.88)
10. Perceived somatic
symptoms
2.85 0.78 .13
*
.02 .09 .31
**
.08 .19
**
.24
**
.26
**
.61
**
(.88)
11. Health-oriented
leadership behavior
intentions
4.22 0.55 .01 .01 .01 .14
*
.04 .00 .03 .04 .24
**
.27
**
(.76)
12. High-performance
expectation intentions
a
3.04 0.69 .15
*
.08 .09 .00 .10
†
.17
**
.06 .01 .10
†
.09 .01 (.73)
13. Promotion intentions
a
3.56 0.86 .18
**
.15
*
.08 .04 .02 .05 .07 .12
*
.02 .06 .14
*
.12
*
(.83)
14. Team identification 3.77 1.05 .24
**
.07 .06 .12
*
.23
**
.20
**
.08 .13
*
.10 .08 .11
†
.03 .00 (.92)
Notes:N=292. McDonald's omega for each variable appears along the diagonal within parentheses. Gender: 1 =male, 2 =female; stress mindset condition: 0 =SID, 1 =SIE.
a
291 participants, due to missing values.
†
p< .10.
*
p< .05.
**
p< .01, two-tailed.
16 KALUZA ET AL.

condition via reported stress mindset and perceived work engagement on intended health-
oriented leadership behavior (b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.002, 0.02], SE =0.01, p=.102). In line
with Study 1, and again supporting H2b, perceived emotional exhaustion positively predicted
intended health-oriented leadership behavior (b=0.13, 95% CI [0.04, 0.23], SE =0.06,
p=.011), and the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset
and perceived emotional exhaustion on intended health-oriented leadership behavior was sig-
nificant (b
ind
=0.02, 95% CI [0.04, 0.004], SE =0.01, p=.023). Similarly, consistent with
H2c, perceived somatic symptoms were positively related to intended health-oriented leader-
ship behavior (b=0.13, 95% CI [0.05, 0.21], SE =0.05, p=.006), resulting in a significant
indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived
somatic symptoms on intended health-oriented leadership behavior (b
ind
=0.02, 95% CI
[0.04, 0.01], SE =0.01, p=.014).
FIGURE 3 Results of Study 2. Notes: Unstandardized coefficients reported. Stress mindset condition:
0=SID, 1 =SIE. Interaction term: Interaction of reported stress mindset and leader team identification. χ
2
(14)
=23.29, p=.056, RMSEA =0.05, CFI =0.97, TLI =0.92, SRMR =0.03. The results for the indirect effects are
as follows: H2a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work engagement -> health-
oriented leadership behavior intentions: 0.01 (0.01); H2b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset ->
perceived emotional exhaustion -> health-oriented leadership behavior intentions: 0.02 (0.01)
*
; H2c: Stress
mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived somatic symptoms -> health-oriented leadership
behavior intentions: 0.02 (0.01)
*
; H3a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work
engagement -> high-performance expectations intentions: 0.01 (0.01); H3b: Stress mindset condition -> reported
stress mindset -> perceived emotional exhaustion -> high-performance expectations intentions: 0.02 (0.01);
H3c: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived somatic symptoms -> high-performance
expectations intentions: 0.01 (0.01); H4a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived
work engagement -> promotion intentions: 0.01 (0.01)
†
; H4b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress
mindset -> perceived emotional exhaustion -> promotion intentions: 0.01 (0.02); H4c: Stress mindset condition
-> reported stress mindset -> perceived somatic symptoms -> promotion intentions: 0.02 (0.02)
†
.
†
p< .10,
*
p< .05,
**
p< .01, one-tailed
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 17

Inconsistent with Study 1 and not supporting H3a, perceived work engagement was not
related to participants' intention to express high-performance expectations (b=0.07, 95% CI
[0.04, 0.18], SE =0.07, p=.153), and the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via
reported stress mindset and perceived work engagement on high-performance expectation
intentions was not significant (b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.004, 0.02], SE =0.01, p=.173). In line
with Study 1, and again not supporting H3b, perceived emotional exhaustion did not predict
participants' intention to express high-performance expectations (b=0.10, 95% CI [0.03,
0.22], SE =0.08, p=.102), and the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported
stress mindset and perceived emotional exhaustion on intention to express high-performance
expectations was not significant (b
ind
=0.02, 95% CI [0.04, 0.01], SE =0.01, p=.112). Not
supporting H3c, we also found a nonsignificant relationship between perceived somatic symp-
toms and intention to express high-performance expectations (b=0.04, 95% CI [0.07, 0.14],
SE =0.07, p=.297), as well as a nonsignificant indirect effect of the stress mindset condition
via reported stress mindset and perceived somatic symptoms on intention to express high-
performance expectations (b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.03, 0.01], SE =0.01, p=.299).
As in Study 1, perceived work engagement positively predicted intention to promote
(b=0.17, 95% CI [0.03, 0.31], SE =0.08, p=.023). However, inconsistent with Study 1, and
not supporting H4a, the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported
stress mindset and perceived work engagement on promotion intentions was not significant
(b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.001, 0.03], SE =0.01, p=.062). Similar to Study 1, and again not
supporting H4b, perceived emotional exhaustion was unrelated to the intention to promote
(b=0.03, 95% CI [0.18, 0.13], SE =0.09, p=.382), resulting in a nonsignificant indirect
effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived emotional
exhaustion on promotion intentions (b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.02, 0.03], SE =0.02, p=.382).
We found similar results for somatic symptoms, which were not in line with H4c; perceived
somatic symptoms did not predict the intention to promote (b=0.12, 95% CI [0.02, 0.25],
SE =0.08, p=.079), and the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported
stress mindset and perceived somatic symptoms on promotion intentions was also not signifi-
cant (b
ind
=0.02, 95% CI [0.05, 0.01], SE =0.02, p=.090).
Furthermore, we did not find conclusive support for H5, which proposed that team
identification moderates the association between reported stress mindset and the perception
of well-being. In particular, team identification did not moderate the relationship between
reported stress mindset and perceived work engagement (H5a; b=0.08, 95% CI [0.01, 0.16],
SE =0.05, p=.068), perceived emotional exhaustion (H5b; b=0.03, 95% CI [0.11, 0.06],
SE =0.05, p=.317), and perceived somatic symptoms (H5c; b=0.09, 95% CI [0.18, 0.01],
SE =0.06, p=.064).
2
Discussion of Study 2
The findings of Study 2 partially support our hypotheses. We successfully replicated our find-
ings from Study 1 that leaders with an SIE mindset perceived higher levels of work engagement
and lower levels of emotional exhaustion and found that they also perceived fewer somatic
symptoms. We further replicated the indirect downstream effect of stress mindset manipulation
via participants' rated stress mindset and the perception of employee emotional exhaustion on
their intention to show health-oriented leadership behavior. We established a similar indirect
association via the perceived somatic symptoms. Again, we did not find evidence of an indirect
18 KALUZA ET AL.

effect via perceived work engagement. Inconsistent with Study 1, participants' stress mindset
did not indirectly affect their intention to express high-performance expectations and intention
to promote.
In addition, we found only tentative (marginally significant) support for a moderating func-
tion of the leader's team identification. One possible explanation could be the study design, as
participants were asked to indicate their identification with their current team. Even though
they were asked to imagine themselves as the leader and Ben as a member of this team, this
conceptualization could have reduced the effects. Therefore, the aim of Study 3 was to replicate
and extend this model by experimentally manipulating participants' team identification.
STUDY 3
Method
Participants
The participants were recruited from the United States via the online platform MTurk. In total,
332 participants completed the online questionnaire. After excluding all outliers (see Study
1 and the preregistration), the sample size was N=250, with 55% men and 45% women. The
mean age was M=35.06 (SD =9.74, ranging from 19 to 76 years). The sample was predomi-
nantly employed full-time (89%). Furthermore, 57% of the participants had managerial
responsibilities.
Procedure
Our study design was similar to that of Studies 1 and 2, in which we manipulated participants'
stress mindset using an identical procedure in the first part and then presented our scenario
and let the participants rate Ben's well-being and their intended leadership behaviors in the sec-
ond part. Both parts of the study were presented as separate studies.
Deviating from Study 2, we experimentally manipulated participants' identification with the
fictious team in the second part by telling them that they were leading a team with which they
either did or did not strongly identify (e.g., “Thinking about your time working with this team,
you realize that you strongly identify/don't really identify with it …”; see Supporting Information
for a detailed description of the manipulation). This manipulation proved to be effective in pre-
vious studies (e.g., Schuh et al., 2016). The participants' team identification was measured as a
manipulation check.
Measures
We used the same measures as in Studies 1 and 2 to assess participants' reported stress mindset
(Crum et al., 2013; ω=.88) and team identification (Doosje et al., 1995; ω=.98), and their per-
ceptions of Ben's work engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2019; ω=.76), emotional exhaustion
(Maslach et al., 1996, ω=.93), and somatic symptoms (Gierk et al., 2014; ω=.90). Likewise,
identical measures to operationalize their intention to show health-oriented leadership behavior
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 19

(Franke et al., 2014; ω=.88), their intention to express high-performance expectations toward
Ben (Podsakoff et al., 1990; ω=.81), and their intention to promote (e.g., Hoobler et al., 2009;
ω=.87) were used.
As in Studies 1 and 2, we tested whether participants were randomly assigned to the two
stress mindset conditions in terms of their demographics (age and gender), their optimism
(Scheier et al., 1994; ω=.89), and their current stress level (Cohen et al., 1983; ω=.81) and
mood (with one item; Bradley & Lang, 1994). Again, we conducted additional analyses control-
ling for participants' leadership positions in their current jobs.
Data analysis
As in Studies 1 and 2, we first examined outliers and performed manipulation and randomiza-
tion checks. Similar to Study 2, the model was tested simultaneously for all mediators, the mod-
erator, and all outcomes. Again, this study was part of a student project, and additional
variables that were assessed for educational purposes are described in the preregistration and
Supporting Information.
Results
Preliminary analyses and manipulation check
Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and correlations between the study vari-
ables. Again, consistent with our expectations and Studies 1 and 2, participants in the SIE con-
dition reported higher stress mindset scores, indicating a stronger SIE mindset (M=3.25,
SD =0.75) than participants in the SID condition (M=2.23, SD =0.74; t[248] =10.79,
p< .001), demonstrating the effectiveness of the stress mindset manipulation. Moreover, the
team identification manipulation was successful; participants in the low identification group
reported less identification (M=2.50, SD =1.42) than those in the high identification group
(M=4.31, SD =0.82; t(194.89) =12.30, p< .001).
As in Studies 1 and 2, participants in the two stress mindset conditions did not significantly
differ in gender, age, stress level, or optimism (p> .05 for all variables). However, in contrast to
Studies 1 and 2, independent sample t-tests revealed differences between the two stress mindset
conditions in mood (M
SID
=3.22, SD =1.01; M
SIE
=3.65, SD =0.98; t[248] =3.36, p=.001).
Therefore, analyses were conducted with and without mood as a control variable. Given the dif-
ferences between the two stress mindset conditions, we report the results controlling for mood
and only mention the results without mood as a control variable when they differ. The full
results of the analyses without controlling for mood can be found in the Supporting
Information.
Hypothesis testing
Figure 4 presents the results of hypothesis tests. Similar to Studies 1 and 2, the overall model
showed a good fit to the data: χ
2
(14) =32.87, p=.003, RMSEA =0.07, CFI =0.96, TLI =0.85,
SRMR =0.04. Further, consistent with the manipulation check and Studies 1 and 2, the stress
20 KALUZA ET AL.

TABLE 3 Means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations among the study variables in Study 3
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1. Age 35.06 9.74 -
2. Gender - - .01 -
3. Stress mindset
condition
- - .00 .11
†
-
4. Identification
condition
--.02 .01 .01 -
5. Reported stress
mindset
2.74 0.90 .06 .01 .57
**
.09 (.88)
6. Optimism 3.68 0.95 .13
*
.04 .11
†
.00 .20
**
(.89)
7. Stress level 2.39 0.95 .20
**
.01 .08 .01 .11
a
.65
**
(.81)
8. Mood 3.44 1.02 .04 .00 .21
**
.09 .30
**
.36
**
.32
**
-
9. Perceived work
engagement
3.60 0.70 .16
**
.16
*
.14
*
.02 .11
a
.15
*
.10 .18
**
(.76)
10. Perceived emotional
exhaustion
3.33 0.93 .08 .05 .25
**
.02 .18
**
.00 .07 .19
**
.36
**
(.93)
11. Perceived somatic
symptoms
2.52 0.88 .04 .02 .11
a
.02 .08 .15
*
.19
**
.25
**
.32
**
.62
**
(.90)
12. Health-oriented
leadership behavior
intentions
3.91 0.73 .10 .18
**
.02 .06 .08 .09 .15
*
.01 .16
*
.12
†
.04 (.88)
13. High-performance
expectation intentions
a
3.38 0.74 .14
*
.06 .08 .05 .04 .10 .01 .04 .30
**
.01 .05 .03 (.81)
14. Promotion
intentions
a
4.24 0.75 .15
*
.22
**
.05 .00 .09 .14
*
.19
**
.08 .33
**
.05 .01 .49
**
.09 (.87)
15. Team identification 3.42 1.46 .05 .06 .13
*
.62
**
.12
†
.20
**
.07 .20
**
.22
**
.01 .00 .18
**
.16
*
.18
**
(.98)
Notes:N=250 participants. McDonald's omega for each variable appears along the diagonal within parentheses. Gender: 1 =male, 2 =female; stress mindset condition: 0 =SID, 1 =SIE.
a
248 participants, due to missing values.
†
p< .10.
*
p< .05.
**
p< .01, two-tailed.
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 21

mindset manipulation significantly predicted individuals' reported stress mindset (b=0.95,
95% CI [0.80, 1.10], SE =0.09, p< .001).
Inconsistent with Studies 1 and 2, and not supporting H1a, the reported stress mindset was
not associated with perceived work engagement (b=0.03, 95% CI [0.05, 0.11], SE =0.05,
p=.285). However, consistent with Studies 1 and 2, and again supporting H1b, the reported
stress mindset was negatively related to the perception of emotional exhaustion (b=0.13,
95% CI [0.24, 0.02], SE =0.07, p=.025). Inconsistent with Study 2 and not supporting H1c,
the reported stress mindset was not associated with perceived somatic symptoms (b=0.01,
95% CI [0.11, 0.10], SE =0.06, p=.454).
Similar to Study 1, but inconsistent with Study 2, and not in line with our expectations of a
negative association, perceived work engagement positively predicted intention to show health-
oriented leadership behavior (b=0.24, 95% CI [0.12, 0.35], SE =0.07, p< .001). Not supporting
FIGURE 4 Results of Study 3. Notes: Unstandardized coefficients reported. Stress mindset condition:
0=SID, 1 =SIE. Interaction term: Interaction of reported stress mindset and leader team identification. χ
2
(14)
=32.87, p=.003, RMSEA =0.07, CFI =0.96, TLI =0.85, SRMR =0.04. The results for the indirect effects are
as follows: H2a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work engagement -> health-
oriented leadership behavior intentions: 0.01 (0.01); H2b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset ->
perceived emotional exhaustion -> health-oriented leadership behavior intentions: 0.02 (0.01)
†
; H2c: Stress
mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived somatic symptoms -> health-oriented leadership
behavior intentions: 0.00 (0.00); H3a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work
engagement -> high-performance expectations intentions: 0.01 (0.02); H3b: Stress mindset condition -> reported
stress mindset -> perceived emotional exhaustion -> high-performance expectations intentions: 0.004 (0.01);
H3c: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived somatic symptoms -> high-performance
expectations intentions: 0.001 (0.01); H4a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived
work engagement -> promotion intentions: 0.01 (0.02); H4b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset
-> perceived emotional exhaustion -> promotion intentions: 0.02 (0.01)
†
; H4c: Stress mindset condition ->
reported stress mindset -> perceived somatic symptoms -> promotion intentions: 0.00 (0.00).
†
p< .10,
*
p< .05,
**
p< .01, one-tailed
22 KALUZA ET AL.

H2a, the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and
perceived work engagement on intended health-oriented leadership behavior was not signifi-
cant (b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.01, 0.03], SE =0.01, p=.288). In line with Studies 1 and 2 and as
expected, perceived emotional exhaustion positively predicted intended health-oriented
leadership behavior (b=0.17, 95% CI [0.06, 0.27], SE =0.06, p=.005). However, inconsistent
with Studies 1 and 2 and not supporting H2b, the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition
via reported stress mindset and perceived emotional exhaustion on intended health-
oriented leadership behavior was not significant but indicated a trend in the proposed direction
(b
ind
=0.02, 95% CI [0.04, 0.001], SE =0.01, p=.062). However, the indirect relationship
between the stress mindset condition and health-oriented leadership behavior intentions via
perceived emotional exhaustion and reported stress mindset yielded significance when mood
was not controlled (b
ind
=0.03, 95% CI [0.06, 0.003], SE =0.02, p=.032; see Supporting
Information for the full results), supporting H2b and consistent with both other studies.
Inconsistent with Study 2, perceived somatic symptoms did not predict intended health-
oriented leadership behavior (b=0.02, 95% CI [0.13, 0.09], SE =0.07, p=.404). Not
supporting H2c, the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset
and perceived somatic symptoms on health-oriented leadership behavior intentions was also
not significant (b
ind
=0.000, 95% CI [0.002, 0.002], SE =0.001, p=.458).
In line with Study 1, but not with Study 2, perceptions of employee work engagement were
positively related to participants' intentions to express high-performance expectations (b=0.38,
95% CI [0.26, 0.49], SE =0.07, p< .001). However, inconsistent with Study 1 but in line with
findings in Study 2, and not supporting H3a, the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition
via reported stress mindset and perceived work engagement on intention to express high-
performance expectations was not significant (b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.02, 0.04], SE =0.02,
p=.286). In line with Studies 1 and 2 and again not supporting H3b, perceived emotional
exhaustion did not predict intention to express high-performance expectations (b=0.03, 95%
CI [0.07, 0.13], SE =0.06, p=.317), and the indirect effect of the stress mindset condition via
reported stress mindset and perceived emotional exhaustion on intention to express high-
performance expectations was not significant (b
ind
=0.004, 95% CI [0.02, 0.01], SE =0.01,
p=.322). In contrast to Study 2, perceptions of somatic symptoms were positively related to the
intention to express high-performance expectations (b=0.11, 95% CI [0.003, 0.22], SE =0.07,
p=.045). However, consistent with Study 2, and again not supporting H3c, the indirect effect
of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived somatic symptoms on
intention to express high-performance expectations was not significant (b
ind
=0.001, 95% CI
[0.01, 0.01], SE =0.01, p=.454).
Consistent with Studies 1 and 2, perceived work engagement positively predicted the inten-
tion to promote (b=0.42, 95% CI [0.31, 0.54], SE =0.07, p< .001). In line with Study 2 but not
with Study 1, and again not supporting H4a, the stress mindset condition was not indirectly
related to promotion intentions via reported stress mindset and perceived work engagement
(b
ind
=0.01, 95% CI [0.02, 0.04], SE =0.02, p=.286). In contrast to Studies 1 and 2, percep-
tions of emotional exhaustion were positively related to the judgment of being more suitable for
promotion (b=0.15, 95% CI [0.05, 0.25], SE =0.06, p=.008). However, similar to Studies
1 and 2, and again not supporting H4b, we found no significant indirect effect of the stress
mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived emotional exhaustion on promo-
tion intentions (b
ind
=0.02, 95% CI [0.04, 0.002], SE =0.01, p=.066). As in Study 2, and
again not supporting H4c, perceived somatic symptoms were unrelated to the intention to pro-
mote (b=0.02, 95% CI [0.08, 0.13], SE =0.07, p=.354), resulting in a nonsignificant indirect
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 23

effect of the stress mindset condition via reported stress mindset and perceived somatic symp-
toms on promotion intentions (b
ind
=0.000, 95% CI [0.003, 0.002], SE =0.002, p=.456).
Overall, we found support for H5, which proposed that team identification would moderate
the association between reported stress mindset and well-being. In particular, supporting H5a
and the trend found in Study 2, the association of the reported stress mindset with perceived
work engagement was contingent on team identification (b=0.05, 95% CI [0.001, 0.10],
SE =0.03, p=.046). Simple slope analyses (see Figure 5) revealed that strongly identified par-
ticipants showed a stronger relationship between their reported stress mindset and the percep-
tion of work engagement (b=0.10, 95% CI [0.003, 0.20], SE =0.06, p=.055) than
participants with low team identification (b=0.05, 95% CI [0.16, 0.07], SE =0.07,
p=.255). However, the moderation was only marginally significant when mood was not con-
trolled (b=0.05, 95% CI [0.002, 0.10], SE =0.03, p=.058).
Supporting H5b, but inconsistent with Study 2, the association between reported stress
mindset and perceived emotional exhaustion was moderated by team identification (b=0.09,
95% CI [0.15, 0.02], SE =0.04, p=.013). In line with our hypothesis, for strongly identified
participants, the relationship between their reported stress mindset and perceived emotional
exhaustion was stronger (b=0.26, 95% CI [0.40, 0.12], SE =0.08, p< .001) than for those
with low team identification (b=0.001, 95% CI [0.15, 0.15], SE =0.09, p=.495; see
Figure 6).
Finally, not supporting H5c, but consistent with the trend found in Study 2, the interaction
of reported stress mindset and team identification in predicting perceived somatic symptoms
was not significant, even though pointing in the proposed direction (b=0.06, 95% CI [0.12,
0.001], SE =0.04, p=.054).
3
Discussion of Study 3
By manipulating participants' team identification, the results of Study 3 confirmed the trend
found in Study 2 that team identification was a moderating factor. The simple slopes revealed
that particularly those participants who strongly identified with their team tended to project
FIGURE 5 Simple slope analysis. Leaders' perception of employees' work engagement as a function of
leaders' reported stress mindset and leaders' identification with their team (Study 3). Note: Illustration of simple
slopes with values +/1SD
24 KALUZA ET AL.

their own stress mindset onto their employees and perceive the employees' work engagement
and emotional exhaustion in line with their stress mindset.
In line with Studies 1 and 2, the results of Study 3 showed that participants' stress mindset
influences their perception of an employee's exhaustion, yet inconsistent with these studies, we
could not replicate the influence of participants' stress mindset on perceived work engagement
and somatic symptoms. Contrary to our expectations, the downstream effect of stress mindset
via perceptions of well-being on the intended leadership behavior could not be replicated.
EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS
External validity has often been raised as an issue in experimental studies. Even though
scenario experiments have greater external validity than pure laboratory experiments (van
Knippenberg & van Knippenberg, 2005; see also Dipboye, 1990) and the use of experimental
vignette methodology is an adequate approach to study everyday work phenomena that are not
easily observable (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014), the examined relationships in our three studies
might be limited by the fact that the subjects did not hold a leadership position. Therefore, in
an exploratory approach, we reanalyzed our data, including only those individuals from all
three studies who held a leadership position in their current job. This group might perceive the
vignette as more aligned with their (work) experience so that our description might have a
stronger impact as they may have already witnessed such situations in their daily work. We
tested the overall model for all mediators, the moderator, and the outcome variables simulta-
neously and used the full information maximum likelihood method to estimate parameters
based on the incomplete data matrix (Lüdtke et al., 2007).
The total sample consisted of 333 individuals holding a leadership position (99 leaders from
Study 1, 92 leaders from Study 2, and 142 leaders from Study 3). They were, on average,
38.56 years old (SD =10.98), and 57% were women (one person indicated “other”as gender).
The results showed that the overall model fit the data well: χ
2
(16) =36.86, p=.002,
RMSEA =0.06, CFI =0.95, TLI =0.86, SRMR =0.05 (see Supporting Information for the full
results). The results are consistent with the manipulation checks that the stress mindset
FIGURE 6 Simple slope analysis. Leaders' perception of employees' emotional exhaustion as a function of
leaders' reported stress mindset and leaders' identification with their team (Study 3). Note: Illustration of simple
slopes with values +/1SD
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 25

manipulation predicted participants' reported stress mindset. Supporting H1b and H1c, partici-
pants' reported stress mindset was related to the perception of lower levels of emotional exhaus-
tion and fewer somatic symptoms. However, not supporting H1a, the reported stress mindset
was unrelated to perceived work engagement.
In support of H2b, the stress mindset condition indirectly influenced the intended health-
oriented leadership behavior via the reported stress mindset and perceived emotional exhaus-
tion. However, not supporting H2a and H2c, the indirect effects of the stress mindset condition
via reported stress mindset and perceived work engagement as well as perceived somatic symp-
toms on health-oriented leadership behavior intentions were not significant. Furthermore, H3
and H4 could not be supported, as the stress mindset condition was not indirectly related to par-
ticipants' intention to express high-performance expectations or to promote the employee via
their reported stress mindset and any of the well-being variables. Supporting H5b and H5c,
team identification moderated the association between the reported stress mindset and the per-
ception of emotional exhaustion and somatic symptoms. As expected, the relationships between
reported stress mindset and perceived emotional exhaustion as well as perceived somatic symp-
toms were stronger for participants with strong team identification than for those with low
team identification. Not supporting H5a, the relationship between the reported stress mindset
and perceived work engagement was not moderated by team identification.
Overall, the results of this exploratory analysis supported most findings from all three stud-
ies (see Figure 7 for an overview of the results from Studies 1, 2, and 3). In line with the overall
trend found in all of the studies, leaders projected their own stress mindset when evaluating an
employee's emotional exhaustion and somatic symptoms. This was especially the case for
leaders who strongly identified with their team. Consistent with all three studies, the proposed
downstream effect on their intended leadership behavior was only confirmed for the perception
of emotional exhaustion and intended health-oriented leadership behavior.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
This research examined how leaders' stress mindset affects the recognition and evaluation of
their employees' well-being, depending on the leaders' identification with their team, and the
downstream effect on their intended leadership behavior. Across all three studies, we found
consistent support that individuals adopting a leader's view holding an SIE mindset (compared
with an SID mindset) were less likely to evaluate an employee experiencing heavy workload as
suffering from emotional exhaustion. We also found some, albeit less consistent, indication that
they also rated this employee lower in somatic symptoms (Study 2) and higher in work engage-
ment (Studies 1 and 2).
In all three studies, the perception of an employee's emotional exhaustion, in turn, was
related to stronger intentions to show health-oriented leadership behavior, confirming the indi-
rect effect of leaders' stress mindset on health-oriented leadership behavior intentions (only
marginally significant in Study 3). In contrast, we only found limited support for a similar
downstream effect via the perception of somatic symptoms (only in Study 2) and no support via
the perception of work engagement.
Even though the perception of work engagement was positively associated with leaders'
intention to express high-performance expectations (Studies 1 and 3) and to promote this
employee (all studies), the indirect influence of leaders' stress mindset on their intended expres-
sion of higher performance expectations and promotion intentions via perceived work
26 KALUZA ET AL.

engagement was only supported in Study 1 and was never supported for perceived emotional
exhaustion and somatic symptoms as mediators.
Leaders' identification with their team moderated the effect of their stress mindset on their
perception of employee work engagement and emotional exhaustion (in Study 3) and on their
perception of employee emotional exhaustion and somatic symptoms in the exploratory analy-
sis, in which only participants who held a leadership position in their current job were
included.
In summary, across three experimental studies, initial support was found for the assumption
that leaders project their own stress mindset when evaluating employee well-being and that this
projection process is partly strengthened by leaders' team identification. However, the results
regarding the downstream effects on their intended leadership behavior were mixed. The fol-
lowing section discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
FIGURE 7 Overview of results across studies. Note: The significance and direction of the effects are plotted
in the order of the studies for each pathway—that is, Study 1/Study 2/Study 3. ns, not significant; na, not
available, as this relationship was not assessed/investigated in the respective study. Interaction term: Interaction
of reported stress mindset and leader team identification. The results for the indirect effects are as follows (in the
order of the studies, i.e., Study 1/Study 2/Study 3): H2a: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset ->
perceived work engagement -> health-oriented leadership behavior intentions: sign (but positive)/ns/ns; H2b:
Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived emotional exhaustion -> health-oriented
leadership behavior intentions: sign/sign/ns; H2c: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset ->
perceived somatic symptoms -> health-oriented leadership behavior intentions: na/sign/ns; H3a: Stress mindset
condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work engagement -> high-performance expectations
intentions: sign/ns/ns; H3b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived emotional
exhaustion -> high-performance expectations intentions: ns/ns/ns; H3c: Stress mindset condition -> reported
stress mindset -> perceived somatic symptoms -> high-performance expectations intentions: na/ns/ns; H4a:
Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived work engagement -> promotion intentions:
sign/ns/ns; H4b: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived emotional exhaustion ->
promotion intentions: ns/ns/ns; H4c: Stress mindset condition -> reported stress mindset -> perceived somatic
symptoms -> promotion intentions: na/ns/ns
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 27

Theoretical and research implications
By drawing on social projection and the social identity approach, these findings expand our
understanding of leadership behavior, stress mindset, team identification, and health promotion
in organizations.
First, this work complements previous research that seeks to understand the antecedents of
certain leadership behaviors, especially why leaders engage in health-oriented leadership. All
three studies and the exploratory analysis across the three samples revealed the trend that
leaders' stress mindset influences their perception of employees' exhaustion, which, in turn,
relates to the extent of (intended) health-oriented leadership behavior. Thus, leaders' cognitions
and, in particular, their stress mindset, represent relevant antecedents of health-oriented leader-
ship behavior. Health-oriented leadership varies among leaders, and researchers have often
assumed that leaders or organizations refrain from promoting their employees' health and well-
being because they do not care or because they do not know how to help their employees
(e.g., Ipsen et al., 2020; Pfeffer, 2019). However, as the present research shows, leaders' stress
mindset affects how they interpret their employees' attitudes and behavior, and they act in line
with their interpretation. Thus, rather than not caring or not knowing how to help their
employees, they might not be aware of their employees' need for health-oriented support due to
their biased perception. Together with other research on leader cognition, such as their implicit
followership theories (i.e., assumptions about ideal and typical followers; Junker & van
Dick, 2014), this highlights the need for a stronger emphasis on the role of bias in the percep-
tion of employees and how this might affect leadership behavior in future research.
The finding that leaders' stress mindset affects their perception of employee well-being
might also explain why organizational interventions to boost employee health and well-being
are often less effective than they could be (e.g., Biron & Karanika-Murray, 2014). Such interven-
tions are most effective when employees participate as soon as symptoms (e.g., being more irri-
table) appear, and they are less effective if employees already suffer from severe symptoms
(e.g., from chronic sleep problems). Leaders play a key role here, as they can alert employees to
such early warning signs and draw their attention to appropriate organizational support struc-
tures. However, as our findings show, leaders with an SIE mindset perceive these types of symp-
toms in their employees less often, and they are more likely to interpret these signs as
indicators of work engagement rather than emotional exhaustion. As a result, rather than
preventing additional ill-being, they accelerate this process by adding—well-intended—further
demands.
Interestingly, the results of our studies did not provide consistent support for the idea that
leaders' stress mindset indirectly influences their intentions for high-performance expectations
and promotion via their perceptions of employee well-being. Accordingly, it would be interest-
ing for future research to further explore the relationships between leaders' stress mindset and
their performance expectations or willingness to promote their employees in more detail.
Although perceptions of employee well-being may not be a central mediator for these links,
other mechanisms may play a role. For example, it seems possible that an SIE mindset influ-
ences leaders' perceptions of employees' competence or performance (cf., Ben-Avi et al., 2018),
such that leaders with an SIE mindset provide lower ratings than leaders with an SID mindset,
as they evaluate stress and demands as feasible challenges that can be addressed and overcome.
Leaders' performance appraisal, as well as their judgment of the employee's competence, in
turn, could impact the leaders' future performance expectations and promotability rating of this
employee. Examining these and related dynamics would be important, as such research can
28 KALUZA ET AL.

provide deeper insights into the links between leaders' stress mindset and their perception and
management of employee performance.
On a more general note, our research advances knowledge on the interpersonal effects of a
stress mindset. Although an SID mindset has many negative intrapersonal effects for individ-
uals, including a maladjusted stress response, worse cognitive flexibility, and a higher morbidity
(e.g., Nabi et al., 2013), our studies show that an SID mindset can be beneficial in terms of inter-
personal effects because these leaders are more likely to provide their employees with health-
oriented supervision when they need it. In doing so, we extend the initial findings on the inter-
personal consequences of a stress mindset (Ben-Avi et al., 2018) and show that these also apply
to leaders and their perceptions and behavioral intentions toward employees.
Second, by studying leaders' team identification as a contingency of the stress mindset pro-
jection process, our research adds to recent attempts to investigate the potential risks of social
identification (e.g., Wakefield et al., 2019). Interestingly, the proposed moderation was signifi-
cant in Study 3 and in the exploratory analysis, in which only participants who held a leader-
ship position in their current job were included in the sample, but not in Study 2. In Study
2, we asked the participants to imagine that the target employee was a member of their own
current work team. Overall, team identification in this study was above the scale-mean average.
Although this is in line with other research on team identification (e.g., Janssen &
Huang, 2008; van Dick et al., 2008), range restriction reduces the potential for finding interac-
tion effects (Aguinis et al., 2017). The fact that we manipulated team identification in Study
3 thus created a balance of strongly and weakly identified leaders, allowing us to find the pro-
posed interaction effects. Nevertheless, further field studies would help to confirm these results.
Furthermore, the inconsistent findings regarding the moderation by team identification sug-
gest that other boundary conditions (personality or situational factors) may be at play, and more
research is needed to examine when and under which circumstances leaders project their own
stress mindset onto their employees. For example, similarities between leaders and employees
in terms of age and gender may influence the projection process. In addition to examining the
moderating factors of the first link between stress mindset and well-being perceptions, the sec-
ond link between well-being perceptions and intended leadership behavior may also be contin-
gent upon other factors. The boundary conditions of this relationship could include
organizational factors, such as the organizational health climate (see, e.g., Ernsting et al., 2013;
Ribisl & Reischl, 1993; Zweber et al., 2016) or, at the leader level, personality variables, such as
self-efficacy beliefs or assumptions as to whether leaders should engage in health-promoting
behaviors (i.e., whether such behaviors lie within their responsibilities). A negative organiza-
tional health climate, for example, if health promotion is not considered important in an orga-
nization and not encouraged by the upper management, could prevent leaders from practicing
health-oriented leadership, even if they perceive employees' physical and psychological exhaus-
tion and, thus, a need for health-oriented support. In addition, leaders who do not see health
promotion as part of their leadership role, or who lack the knowledge and confidence to care
for their employees' health, may also be reluctant to engage in health-oriented leadership
behavior, despite an obvious need. Hence, examining other moderating factors is a potential
avenue for future research.
Finally, our research also provides important starting points and open questions for future
work related to the stress mindset, particularly among leaders. For example, an interesting
question for future research would be whether people with an SIE mindset are more likely to
move into leadership positions because they are selected based on their attitude toward stress
and challenging situations (i.e., their stress mindset). Furthermore, it would be of interest to
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 29

investigate employees' stress mindset and whether a fit or misfit between leaders' and
employees' stress mindsets influences the interpersonal effects of the stress mindset. Employees
and leaders may have different stress mindsets and, therefore, different understandings of when
they want to give and receive health-promoting support. For example, one scenario might be
that leaders with an SID mindset may be overprotective of employees with an SIE mindset, as
they (mistakenly) interpret their health signals as early warning signs of stress and exhaustion
(based on their own mindset), thereby crossing a personal line.
Practical implications
These findings have relevant practical implications. Most importantly, health-promoting inter-
ventions, such as increasing health-oriented leadership behavior (Franke et al., 2014), (implic-
itly) rely on the assumption that leaders accurately perceive employees' well-being signals. Due
to the biases in this perception found in the present studies, a crucial first step would be to raise
leaders' awareness about these biases, teach them about stress mindsets, and acquaint them
with the consequences of their own stress mindset. In the next step, leaders may be trained to
correctly perceive and interpret their employees' signs of stress and exhaustion. That is, leaders
need to be made aware that people differ in their assessment of stress, that is, their stress
mindset, and that these differences can impact their stress response and their needs in such a
situation.
However, based on the positive intrapersonal effects of the SIE mindset found in previous
research (e.g., Crum et al., 2013; Park et al., 2018), the goal of such leadership training should
not be to change leaders' mindset to a more SID mindset. Instead, it would be more advisable to
specifically practice mindfulness and awareness of early warning signs of exhaustion among
employees, so that leaders learn to adequately recognize and interpret employees' well-being
signals and then show the required leadership behavior. To prevent a biased perception of
employees' well-being, leaders should learn to refer to employees' behavior in specific situations
to assess their well-being, instead of relying on their general impressions or intuition (similar to
the findings in the literature on performance appraisals and job interviews; see, e.g., DeNisi &
Murphy, 2017). As health warning signs differ between individuals, it would be especially
important for leaders to pay attention to changes among individual employees (e.g., Dimoff &
Kelloway, 2019); whereas one employee might react irritably and aggressively when stressed,
another employee might be more likely to withdraw and avoid social contact at work when they
feel overworked. Such changes from previous behaviors are possible indicators of exhaustion
and strain. However, the perception of such changes among individual employees can often be
difficult, for example, due to formal (social) distance from the employees. Therefore, esta-
blishing open communication regarding health-related issues is important. This can be
achieved, for example, by leaders acting as role models, visibly taking care of their own health
and openly talking about their own stress and strain (cf., Klug et al., 2019).
Limitations
Despite these contributions, this study had several limitations. By using an experimental
vignette methodology and presenting a realistic scenario, we were able to manipulate and con-
trol the independent variables and subsequently capture participants' responses. Although this
30 KALUZA ET AL.

approach enhances experimental realism, allows the drawing of causal inferences that increase
internal validity (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014), and is an effective way of assessing the conse-
quences of stress mindset (Ben-Avi et al., 2018), the use of scenarios may raise the question of
generalizability and external validity.
For example, leaders typically do not read about their employees, but rather observe them
at work. Even though scenario studies are a widely applied approach, they mainly describe
employees and work situations. For instance, in our study, we described an employee with high
work demands and many private responsibilities; however, no information about his well-being
was provided. This presentation was deliberately chosen because we were interested in how
participants assessed ambiguous signs of stress and well-being depending on their stress
mindset. As a next step, it would be interesting for future studies to capture different types and
degrees of health warning signals and, thus, expand the findings of the present studies—for
example, by showing videos of employees with different levels of exhaustion or work
engagement.
We further asked participants about their intentions to show certain leadership behavior
toward the employee, which might differ from their actual leadership behavior. Future studies
might use a survey approach, in which employees describe their leaders' behaviors, or may
choose a laboratory experiment, in which leaders are put into a role-play situation where their
actual behaviors can be observed. In this context, it would also be interesting to vary the “target
employee”of leaders' actions. In our scenario, we followed the example of Ben-Avi et al. (2018)
and described the employee as a man who is 45 years old. Future studies could vary these
demographics to further examine the generalizability of our findings.
Moreover, as indicated above, it would be interesting to examine the model in an actual
organizational context, for example, through a field study. This might provide further insights
into the ecological validity of our results. However, it is important to note that other studies in
different research areas show that laboratory results are generally comparable with those in the
field (e.g., Vanhove & Harms, 2015). In addition, previous research suggests that identification
can be effectively manipulated in scenario studies and that the results of experimental studies
(with manipulated identification) and field studies (with measured identification) are largely
consistent (e.g., Chen et al., 2016; Ciampa et al., 2021; Schuh et al., 2016). Nevertheless, we call
for future studies to examine the effects of leaders' stress mindset in a field setting. Further-
more, investigating the variables with different instruments and objective measures in addition
to using multisource designs might reduce the risk of common method bias (e.g., Podsakoff
et al., 2012).
In addition, we did not assess the participants' initial stress mindset before the experimental
manipulation. Although our experimental procedure should have succeeded in randomizing
the participants to the two experimental stress mindset conditions, we could not test whether
the two mindsets were indeed similarly represented in both conditions in all studies. Different
representations in the two conditions might explain some of the differences we obtained
between the studies. However, our manipulation check was successful in all studies, and our
focus was on studying the consequences of individuals' (manipulated) stress mindset rather
than interactions between initial and manipulated mindsets. In addition, various studies have
shown that different interventions can effectively change a person's stress mindset in the short
and long term (e.g., through short videos, recalling positive vs. negative stressful situations, or
even 2-h training; for a review see Jamieson et al., 2018). Future research might want to test the
effectiveness of such interventions in light of the individuals' initial stress mindset. For example,
it would be of interest to explore what happens if a person's initial stress mindset does not
LEADER STRESS MINDSET 31

match the assigned experimental condition, for instance, a person with an initial SIE mindset
who is in the SID condition.
Another limitation of Studies 1 and 3 is the use of a crowdsourced sample. Platforms, such as
MTurk, despite being used often in research, bear the risk that the participants suffer from a lack of
attention (e.g., Cheung et al., 2017). However, to minimize this impact, we included several atten-
tion checks in our studies, and participants who incorrectly answered these items were excluded.
Moreover, all studies, despite having slightly different methodologies and sampling methods,
showed largely consistent results, which further bolsters our confidence in the present findings.
Finally, the three studies were conducted in two different countries (Germany and the
United States), which may limit their generalizability to other countries, and cultural differ-
ences might explain some of the inconsistencies found across studies (e.g., House et al., 2013).
Hence, another promising avenue for future research would be the examination of potential
cultural influences on leaders' stress mindset and their effects. Indeed, the experimental manip-
ulation of participants' stress mindset (instead of assessing their actual stress mindset) impedes
assumptions about cultural differences in the prevalence of an SID or an SIE mindset; thus,
further research examining cultural influences on the stress mindset in different countries and
cultures would be desirable.
Conclusion
Rising levels of stress in the workplace and the resulting health problems require leaders to take
care of their employees' health and to correctly interpret the first signs of exhaustion and
overwork. Although tentative and in need of further replication, these findings provide initial
evidence that leaders' stress mindset, that is, their belief about the nature of stress, bias the per-
ception and judgment of an employee's well-being, which, in turn, affects the degree to which
leaders intend to show health-promoting support. The results also suggest the crucial role of
leaders' team identification, strengthening this projection process for leaders who strongly iden-
tify with their team. These findings hopefully encourage future studies on the novel concept of
the stress mindset in the workplace, especially within the leader–follower relationship, as well
as helping practitioners, for example, by developing leadership training based on these concepts
and effects.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
ETHICS STATEMENT
The present research is in line with the ethical guidelines of the German Psychological Society.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Data available on request from the authors.
ORCID
Antonia J. Kaluza https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5656-9763
Nina M. Junker https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9446-9413
Sebastian C. Schuh https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0419-1740
Rolf van Dick https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6308-9466
32 KALUZA ET AL.

ENDNOTES
1
To determine the influence of participants being a leader in their current job, we conducted additional analyses
with leadership position as a control variable. The significance of the results did not change.
2
As in Study 1, we examined the influence of leadership experience and ran the model again with leadership
position as a control variable. The results remained the same.
3
As in Studies 2 and 3, we again ran the model with leadership position as a control variable. The results
remained the same and significance did not change.
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How to cite this article: Kaluza, A. J., Junker, N. M., Schuh, S. C., Raesch, P.,
von Rooy, N. K., & van Dick, R. (2021). A leader in need is a leader indeed? The
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intended leadership behavior. Applied Psychology,1–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.
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