How Mixed Signals Impact a Team's Mental Health
Research from Heidelberg University, Brigham Young University, and the University of Amsterdam.
What happens when team members have mixed emotions towards their leader? Better defined as ambivalence - this is when some carries both positive, and negative, feelings towards someone or something.
There has been quite a bit of research around ambivalent relationships in other spheres of life, like personal relationships. However, the researchers wanted to explore its impact on work relationships, which until then, was not explored in-depth.
The researcher team (Raphael M. Herr, Wendy C. Birmingham, Frenk van Harreveld, Annelies E. M. van Vianen, Joachim E. Fischer & Jos A. Bosch) wanted to understand how what they call "ambivalent leadership" – essentially, when employees perceive their supervisor's behavior as both positive and negative – relates to mental health outcomes like depression, anxiety, fatigue, and burnout. They hypothesized that this push-and-pull dynamic could create stress and negatively impact well-being. The corresponding paper was published in Scientific Reports.
The Methodology
To investigate this, they analyzed data from nearly 993 employees across 27 workgroups in a large manufacturing company. They used questionnaires to measure employees' perceptions of their supervisors' positive and negative behaviors, as well as their own mental health. Importantly, they looked at both individual-level and group-level perceptions of ambivalent leadership to get a more complete picture. This multi-level approach is key because it helps control for potential biases and provides a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon.
The Findings
The results were eye-opening. Ambivalent leadership was consistently associated with higher symptoms of mental ill-health across all four indicators.
Employees who experienced more mixed signals from their supervisors reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and exhaustion. What's even more interesting is that this relationship held true at both the individual and group levels. Meaning, not only does your individual experience of ambivalent leadership matter, but the overall perception within your team also has a significant impact.
It seems like a shared sense of confusion and conflicting expectations can create a toxic environment for everyone. The strength of this relationship was notable, with standardized beta coefficients of 0.17 or higher for all outcomes, indicating a moderate effect size.
Individual-Level Effects
Employees who reported experiencing higher levels of ambivalence from their supervisors also reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and exhaustion. This suggests a direct link between the experience of mixed signals from a leader and an individual's psychological well-being.
Group-Level Effects
Even more compelling is the finding that the collective perception of ambivalent leadership within a work group also predicted poorer mental health outcomes for individuals within that group.
The group-level effects were even stronger than the individual-level effects, with standardized beta coefficients of 0.34 or higher. This finding suggests that the collective experience of ambivalent leadership within a work group may have an additional impact on employee mental health beyond individual perceptions.
This means that even if an individual employee doesn't personally perceive high levels of ambivalence from their supervisor, they can still be negatively affected if their team, as a whole, perceives high ambivalence. This points to a powerful contextual effect, where the overall climate of uncertainty and conflicting expectations within a team can create a toxic environment for everyone.
Contextual Effects and Unconfounded Association
The presence of both individual-level and group-level effects strengthens the argument for a genuine relationship between ambivalent leadership and mental health. It suggests that the observed association is not merely due to individual biases or reporting errors.
In practical terms, this suggests that even employees who don't personally perceive high levels of ambivalence from their supervisor may still be negatively affected if their colleagues in the same work group generally perceive high ambivalence. This contextual effect highlights the importance of considering the broader social environment when examining the impact of leadership behaviors.
Differential Effects Across Mental Health Indicators
While the study found significant associations between ambivalent leadership and all four mental health indicators, there were some variations in the strength of these relationships. The strongest associations were observed for vital exhaustion and fatigue, followed by depression and anxiety. This pattern suggests that ambivalent leadership may have a particularly pronounced impact on employees' energy levels and overall sense of vitality.
The Reasons Why This Happens
Although the study did not directly investigate the mechanisms through which ambivalent leadership affects mental health, the researchers suggest several possibilities based on existing theories:
Internal Inconsistency: The ABC model of ambivalence posits that people are motivated to be internally consistent. Ambivalence violates this desire for consistency, leading to psychological discomfort and distress.
Stress Enhancement: Ambivalent relationships may enhance the negative impact of stressors, as proposed by the Stress Enhancing Hypothesis.
Lack of Social Support: The Social Ambivalence and Disease (SAD) model suggests that ambivalent relationships provide little social support and are ineffective in helping individuals cope with stress.
Unpredictability and Anticipated Stress: Based on emotions as social information (EASI) theory, ambivalent leadership may induce perceptions of unpredictability and anticipated stress in employees, leading to reduced engagement and increased mental health symptoms.
What Can We Learn From This as Leaders?
As a leader, your actions and your communication can have both a direct and an indirect effect on your team’s mental health. You have to choose your words carefully, and make sure you “walk the talk”.
Clarity and Consistency in Communication
Often some leaders communicate in such a way that they assume others can read their minds, or forget that others may not have the same context that they have. Providing as much context as possible, and creating clarity in your communication, is the first step in making sure that people understanding you better.
As mentioned in my course “Understanding Stress”, one of the biggest causes of stress is unpredictability. Making sure whatever you are saying is being backed up with your actions, creates predictability for others. Toxic bosses also tend to be unpredictable in their feedback and response to certain situations - sometimes showering praise, sometimes being indifferent and sometimes giving negative feedback for the same kinds of efforts. This understandably creates stress for others, as people may not know how a leader might respond and constantly feel like they are “walking on eggshells”.
Self-Awareness and Feedback Mechanisms
Leaders need to know how their behaviors are perceived by their teams. Regular feedback mechanisms, including anonymous surveys and one-on-one check-ins, can provide valuable insights into how leadership styles are impacting employee well-being. This awareness allows leaders to adjust their approach and address any potential sources of ambivalence.
Pro-tip: Voohy has innovative tools specifically for leaders to generate insight via self-reflection.
Addressing Ambivalence at Both Individual and Group Levels
Given the significant contextual effects observed in the study, interventions aimed at reducing ambivalent leadership should target both individual leader-employee relationships and broader group-level processes.
This might involve team-wide discussions about leadership expectations and experiences, coupled with individual coaching for leaders to develop more consistent and supportive leadership styles. Team-building activities and workshops focused on communication and conflict resolution can also help to create a more positive and supportive work environment.
Concluding Thoughts
As a leader, you might have a bigger impact than you might think on others. Your words and actions can have a big impact on others’ mental health. Consider the weight of your words and actions. Perhaps it's time to ditch the mixed messages and focus on fostering a clear, consistent, and positive leadership approach. What do you think?