Will You Take Care of Me so That I Can Care for Others?

Abstract: While the effectiveness of health-oriented leadership (HoL) – consisting of SelfCare (caring for one’s health) and StaffCare (leaders supporting employees’ health) – is well established, less is known about antecedents and contextual conditions. In particular, it remains unclear how leaders in “sandwich positions” – those reporting to a supervisor while leading their own team – are influenced by their supervisor’s HoL. Drawing on the job demands–resources model and social information processing theory, this study examines how the perceived HoL of higher-level leaders affects lower-level leaders’ HoL. We also consider perceived stigmatizing attitudes toward workplace health promotion as a boundary condition. Two-wave survey data from lower-level leaders show that higher-level leaders’ SelfCare indirectly influences lower-level leaders’ StaffCare via higher-level leaders’ StaffCare and lower-level leaders’ SelfCare. Stigmatizing attitudes had a moderating influence on some transmission effects. These findings extend the HoL model, reveal mechanisms beyond simple trickle-down assumptions, and underscore the importance of contextual factors.