It is often thought that managers generally experience higher levels of stress than their subordinates during their everyday workplace tasks.

Researchers from Denmark have assessed whether this commonly-held belief reflects reality.

The researchers compared questionnaire responses from just over 2,000 employees at 48 different workplaces, specifically looking for differences between stress levels in managers and employees.

Although the survey showed that managers experienced more demands, greater conflicts and less social support from their colleagues, the answers to their questionnaires generally showed lower levels of emotional stress.

While experiencing greater demands, managers were more likely to report that their work gave them greater levels of job satisfaction, a sense of job control and influence over others, giving greater meaning to their work and mitigating feelings of stress.

The researchers suggest a number of measures can be taken to reduce workplace stress, including giving employees quality management, a sense of meaning in their work and the ability to influence others within their work environment.

The study indicates that while managers have higher work demands, they experience significantly lower levels of emotional stress as the demands on them are counterbalanced by a sense of control and contribution.

Authors

Skakon J. Kristensen TS. Christensen KB. Lund T. & Labriola M. 

Institution

Institute of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Title

Do managers experience more stress than employees? Results from the Intervention Project on Absence and Well-being (IPAW) study among Danish managers and their employees.

Source

Work. 38(2):103-9, 2011 Jan 1.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether managers' perceived stress and work strain is higher than perceived stress and work strain among employees.

METHODS AND PARTICIPANTS: The study is based on questionnaire responses from 2052 respondents (128 managers and 1924 employees) at 48 worksites. Bi-variate and multivariate analyses were used to explain possible differences in stress levels and related mediators.

RESULTS: Managers experienced higher demands, higher level of conflicts, and lower degree of social support from peers. They tended to experience significantly lower emotional stress, whereas this trend was insignificant with regards to behavioural, somatic and cognitive stress. The difference was partly explained by higher scores in the psychosocial work environment factors; job satisfaction, perceived management quality from their managers, influence, degrees of freedom at work, possibilities for development and meaning of work. For behavioural stress, 41% of the difference was explained by the preventive factors, 20% for somatic stress, 39% for emotional stress and 56% for cognitive stress.

CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that the preventive psychosocial factors explain parts of the managers' lower stress level. These results contradict the lay perception of managers being under higher pressure and experiencing more stress than employees. Interventions aiming at reducing employee stress levels, especially regarding behavioural and cognitive stress, could benefit from focussing on psychosocial work environment exposures such as skill discretion, meaning of work, psychological demands, information flow and management quality.

Publication Type

Journal Article.

PubMed Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21297280