How are you Sleeping? Leadership Support, Sleep Health, and Work-Relevant Outcomes

Employee sleep matters for organizations, but it is less clear what organizations can do to promote sleep health. One potential leverage point is leaders. At present, we know relatively little about the ways leaders might support employees’ sleep health. The current research builds and tests theory suggesting that when organizational leaders display sleep-specific consideration behaviors (which the literature terms “sleep leadership”), employees exhibit positive, subsequent changes in sleep at home as well as goal pursuit and impulse control (loosely indicative of self-regulation) at work. A time-lagged, field-based study of U.S. Army soldiers supports this prediction and shows that sleep health mediates the link between sleep leadership and the two outcomes indicative of self-regulation. These findings suggest that leaders who demonstrate concern about employee sleep may initiate a positive feedback loop spanning work and home, benefiting the employee and organization.