Sponsor
The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, 820 Chandler Street, Fort Detrick MD 21702-5014 is the awarding and administering acquisition office. This work was supported by Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, through the Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program -Comprehensive Universal Prevention/Health Promotion Interventions Award, under Award No. W81XWH-16-1-0720. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense. This work was also partly supported by the Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences at Oregon Health & Science University via funds from the Division of Consumer and Business Services of the State of Oregon (ORS 656.630). Additionally, work on this article was supported by the Grant #T03OH008435 awarded to Portland State University, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIOSH, CDC, or HHS. Finally, this research was supported by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the NIOSH Education and Research Center training grant 2T42OH008414.
Published In
Occupational Health Science
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-10-2025
Subjects
Work -- Psychological aspects, Sleep quantity and sleep quality indicators
Abstract
Although research has documented the relationship between sleep and work outcomes among employees, less research has focused on the role of sleep among workplace leaders. We investigate the link between leader self-reported and actigraphic sleep quantity and outcomes of positive leader support behaviors (i.e., family supportive supervisor behaviors [FSSB], and sleep leadership supportive behaviors [SLSB]) reported by both the leader (N = 178) and their direct reports (N = 393). Additionally, we examine the interaction between leader sleep quantity and sleep quality indicators (i.e., insomnia symptoms, sleep dissatisfaction, and actigraphic wake after sleep onset [WASO]) on FSSB and SLSB. No main effects were found; however, the results suggest that the relationship between leader sleep and downstream support behaviors is more intricate and nuanced than formerly theorized. Surprisingly, the relationship between leader sleep duration and employee reports of FSSB and SLSB was positive under conditions of high leader insomnia symptoms, yet negative under conditions of low leader insomnia symptoms. A similar pattern emerged for actigraphic total sleep time and employee reports of SLSB which were positive when leaders had increased WASO, yet negative when leaders had lower ratings of WASO. In addition, the relationship between leader sleep duration and leader reports of SLSB was negative when leaders were dissatisfied with their sleep, yet positive when leaders were satisfied. These results inform workplace interventions aimed at promoting leader support behaviors as well as public health campaigns focused on improving sleep health among the general population.
Rights
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Locate the Document
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-025-00242-1
DOI
10.1007/s41542-025-00242-1
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44195
Citation Details
Leslie, J. J., Crain, T. L., Brossoit, R. M., Hammer, L. B., Bodner, T. E., & Mohr, C. D. (2025). Sleeping To Support? The Interactive Effects of Leader Sleep Quantity and Quality on Leader- and Employee-Reported Support Behaviors. Occupational Health Science.