"Should I Tell My Leader or Not?"-Health-Oriented Leadership and Stigma as Antecedents of Employees' Mental Health Information Disclosure Intentions at Work.

Abstract

To investigate how health-oriented leadership and stigma facilitate or impede employees' disclosure intentions to leaders. In two studies-an experimental vignette (n = 73) and a cross-sectional study (n = 220)-we manipulated or measured health-oriented leadership, transformational leadership, and organizational stigma and compared different reasons for disclosure (mental health problems and severe error) to separate general and specific disclosure decisions. Health-oriented leadership fostered disclosure above and beyond transformational leadership. High organizational stigma was associated with lower disclosure. Health-oriented leadership had a stronger effect on disclosing mental problems than on disclosing a severe error and slightly mitigated the negative relationship between stigma and disclosure in study 1. Findings were not influenced by employees' current mental health status. Our findings highlight the importance of health-oriented leadership as a facilitator and organizational stigma as a barrier to disclosure intentions.