When do leaders feel stressed by their followers? An examination of face-to-face, virtual and written interactions

Abstract

This study examines in which interactions and why followers’ behaviors can be perceived as stressful by leaders. Therefore, leaders were interviewed about particularly stressful interactions with a follower in face-to-face, virtual and written interactions. We find leaders’ stressors at work to fit three categories: leader’s loss of control, (potential) loss of the leader’s valuable resources, and threats to leader’s role. Moreover, we identify diverse daily as well as prototypical patterns of how leaders deal with some of them. Additionally, we identify undesirable work-life events and find a prototypical resilient leader characterized by feeling nearly no stress. Our study reduces the current research gap of mostly considering only leader behavior to be stressful (for followers).