Hassan Ali
Professor, University Utara Malaysia, Malaysia.
Jenny Hooi Sin Soo
University Utara Malaysia, Malaysia.
Faridahwati Mohd Shamsudin
University Utara Malaysia, Malaysia.Leadership and Stress among Bank Employees in
Malaysia
Stress is a major issue and is common occurrence to the employees
in the workplace. The impact of stress on employees has attracted
considerable attention from organization as well as academia.
Leadership can be a significant influencing factor on subordinate
motivation, attitudes and behaviors. However this influencing power of
the leader may transmit negative emotion e.g. stress to employees.
Therefore this paper examines the relationship between leadership and
stress. The study is undertaken in nine commercial banks in Malaysia.
Leadership is measured by transformational leadership and
transactional leadership. Stress is measured by the symptoms of stress
namely physical stress, psychological stress, emotional stress and
behavioral stress. The result of the study indicates that there is negative
relationship between transformational leadership and stress while a
positive relationship between transactional leadership and stress was
found. The findings of this research suggest that organizations need to
cultivate the proper leadership behavior among the managers and
leaders in order to mitigate its effect on employee stress. Thus leaders
need to be more aware of their attitude and behavior when they interact
with subordinates.