Part 4: When protecting employees puts leaders at risk and how to fix it
Beyond any shadow of doubt, leaders’ wellbeing is under sustained pressure, and the very frameworks designed to protect employees may be adding to it.
Across a GLWS benchmark dataset of 9,986 working professionals, leaders and people-managers report significantly lower work and life wellbeing than individual contributors.
Group | Overall Work Wellbeing | Overall Life Wellbeing |
Individual Contributors | 3.78 | 3.81 |
Senior Executives | 3.63 | 3.71 |
People Leaders / Managers | 3.49 | 3.62 |
Statistical significance: p<0.00001 (work), p<0.0002 (life).
A deeper cut of the data reveals the detail we need for a sharper picture:
Leaders and managers report significantly
- more work-life boundary violations,
- higher burnout risks from workload,
- more frequent experiences of their workday as a “race against the clock,”
- greater spillover of work into personal life,
- more distraction by work issues when with family and friends, and
- higher work-related stress and anxiety than their non-managing peers.
(Statistical significance: p<0.001)
This links to the “leadership wellbeing shadow” discussed in a feature published by the Australian HR Institute (Stapleton, 7 July 2026): leader wellbeing isn’t only a downstream result of organisational pressure. It functions as an upstream variable that shapes culture, performance, engagement, retention and organisational risk.
Hold that thought for now.
PSH: A well-intentioned framework, problematic implementation
Contemporary psychosocial health risk management (PSHRM) standards have come about in response to real workplace risks. But the way these obligations have land on the leaders responsible for implementing them is starting to be called into question out of concern they are compounding the very problem they’re meant to solve.
The research literature already treats managers as a distinct occupational at-high-risk group. A qualitative study across management levels and sectors found universal reports of irritation, exhaustion, fatigue and sleep disturbance, and called explicitly for targeted prevention strategies because leadership activity itself carries mental health risk (Zimber et al., 2017). How is this reflected by organisations within the context of their psychosocial risk management (PSRM)? Or has understanding how leaders’ own demands and strains affect their capacities for self-care and staff-care been overlooked in their rush to comply with more stringent codes of practice? Or is that a closed, leading question?
The accountability paradox
PSH obligations introduce a further complication: enacting psychosocial risk management can itself be a source of strain for the person doing the enacting.
In a study tracking 342 employee “critical events,” people leaders experiencing time pressure and psychological distress were significantly more likely to find their own risk-management actions stressful (Jimmieson & Bergin, 2025a).
A related study of 435 Australian supervisors found that low job control and role ambiguity increased the odds of having a lower self-care and lower staff-care profile, and leaders experiencing more psychological strain were nearly three times more likely to be classed as showing low staff-care (Jimmieson & Bergin, 2025b).
In other words, the three big callouts are:
- Pre‐existing features of leaders’ own psychosocial work environments shape their psychological responses to PSHRM
- Leader psychological strain, job dissatisfaction and poor general health predict sub-optimal people leadership behaviours
- Leader psychological strain is the single most potent predictor of poor staff-care by leaders.
Insights from adjacent research offers two possible explanations for why increasing the PSHRM accountability of leaders can be problematic:
- Simply adding more KPI pressure backfires if it feels surveillance driven (Vats et al., 2021; Decramer et al., 2015).
- Regulatory pressure creates corrosive feelings of inadequacy when leaders are unclear what they are accountable for, with what authority, and with what support (Leo et al., 2020).
The behavioural fallout
When a leader’s own capacity is already compromised, the evidence points to a narrowing, not a strengthening, of their leadership repertoire. One experimental study found that leaders’ own stress mindset – their belief about whether stress is enhancing or debilitating – biases how they perceive employee wellbeing, and in turn shapes whether they lean into supportive leadership or step back from it (Kaluza et al., 2021).
A synthesis of more recent research goes further: exhausted managers are more likely to adopt laissez-faire leadership as a form of self-protection (akin to detachment component of burnout), but in seeking to conserve their own resources, this style of leadership response reliably reduces team psychological safety and readiness for change (Gilbert et al., 2024).
The academic evidence base is in alignment with what’s turning up anecdotally among HR practitioners and executive coaches: leaders pulling back from direct conversations, performance management and ordinary interpersonal candour, because they’re no longer sure what’s reasonable, and because the personal cost of getting it wrong, or simply of being accused of getting it wrong, has become significant enough to change behaviour.
And the best way to build that understanding?
A sophisticated, accurate assessment of all the demands and resources – and the interplay between them – is the foundation. And that can only be achieved through a valid and reliable measurement instrument.
The cost is not hypothetical
Australia’s Fair Work Commission is struggling with a sharp rise in its caseload. Its president, Justice Adam Hatcher, has said the Commission’s total workload is on track to grow by more than 70% over three years, a trend he attributes substantially to generative AI tools lowering the barrier to filing claims. Separately, In Davitkov v Woolworths Group Limited [2026] FWC 1655, Fair Work Commission Deputy President Alan Colman dismissed a speculative claim and observed that unmeritorious applications are “unfair to respondents who have no case to answer” and “unfair to applicants with cases of substance waiting their turn to be heard”, while contributing to the Commission’s “burgeoning caseload”.
From the perspective of the typical leader, given the ease of AI-assisted litigation and rise in unmeritorious claims, choosing to manage (or avoid) performance and conduct issues on the assumption that any interaction could become a formal complaint seems like a sensible logical adaptation. But if the net effect is a lessening of leader agency, leader presence, leader support and activation, it’s going to drive PSH risk and other performance metrics the wrong way.
Why a systems lens matters
Leadership capability has been identified in the research as both a driver of psychosocial risk and one of the most effective remediating factors organisations have available (McFarlane & Karabitsios, 2012). So doesn’t it follow suit that measuring and developing that capability, rather than only regulating around it, is the more durable and effective lever.
A sophisticated, valid and reliable measurement of the demands, resources and systemic conditions surrounding leaders, not just their compliance behaviour is the foundation for getting this right. This is the systems lens the GLWS was built to provide: an assessment of leaders’ psychosocial health and wellbeing in the full context of their role, team, organisation and personal circumstances, so that PSH strategy can account properly for leaders themselves as well as the employees they lead and are responsible for protecting.
GLWS accredited practitioners already have the tools to bring this thinking to their organisations and clients, including how GLWS links directly to PSH programs. If you’re accredited, this might be a good frame and moment to use it.
From the perspective of the typical leader, given the ease of AI-assisted litigation and rise in unmeritorious claims, choosing to manage (or avoid) performance and conduct issues on the assumption that any interaction could become a formal complaint seems like a sensible logical adaptation. But if the net effect is a lessening of leader agency, leader presence, leader support and activation, it’s going to drive PSH risk and other performance metrics the wrong way.
Want to explore how? Book a call with us or reach out via return email.
Audrey McGibbon
Chartered Coaching & Occupational Psychologist, CEO EEK & SENSE, Author Global Leadership Wellbeing System (GLWS)
References
ACS Information Age: AI floods Fair Work claims (24 Feb 2026) [ia.acs.org.au]
Decramer, A., Audenaert, M., Van Waeyenberg, T., Claeys, T., Claes, C., Vandevelde, S., van Loon, J., & Crucke, S. (2015). Does performance management affect nurses’ well-being? Evaluation and Program Planning.
Fair Work Commission. (2026). Anthony Davitkov v Woolworths Group Limited [2026] FWC 1655 (7 May 2026). Fair Work Commission.
Gilbert, M-H., Dextras-Gauthier, J., St-Hilaire, F., & Lerouge, L. (2024). Editorial: Understanding managers’ mental health: the cornerstone for better organizational performance and workers’ health. Frontiers in Psychology.
GLWS® 9,986 working professionals, (July 2026)
Jimmieson, N., & Bergin, A. J. (2025a). Health Leadership for Supervisors: A Cluster Analysis Approach to Self-Care and Staff-Care. Academy of Management Proceedings.
Jimmieson, N., & Bergin, A. J. (2025b). Supervisor Actions for Supporting Employees Through Stressful Work Situations: A Critical Events Approach. Human Resource Management.
Kaluza, A. J., Junker, N., Schuh, S. C., Raesch, P., Rooy, N. K., & van Dick, R. (2021). 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. Applied Psychology.
Leo, U., Persson, R., Arvidsson, I., & Håkansson, C. (2020). External Expectations and Well-Being, Fundamental and Forgotten Perspectives in School Leadership.
McFarlane, M., & Karabitsios, J. (2012). The missing link in occupational health and safety: managing psychological injury risks and developing organisational health in Australian workplaces. Injury Prevention.
Stapleton, D. (2026, July 7). How is the ‘leadership wellbeing shadow’ affecting your organisation? Australian HR Institute.
Vats, P., Wadhawan, P., Dixit, A., & Arora, S. (2021). Performance Appraisal: Appraiser’s Discomfort and Stress.
Zimber, A., Hentrich, S., & Meyer-Lindenberg, A. (2017). Mental Health Risks Among Managers — Results of a Qualitative Study and Implications for Stress Prevention. Psychiatrische Praxis.
