A growing body of literature has focused on the influence that organizational leaders have on employee well-being. Most of this literature has focused on leadership style – the way leaders treat employees – and there is clear evidence linking both negative (e.g., abusive) and positive (e.g., transformational) leadership styles to employee well-being. Leaders can also serve as a health resource in organizations and interventions teaching leaders supportive behaviors have been effective. Finally, we conclude with a consideration of leaders’ own well-being and how it might influence employees.

American Psychological Association’s psychologically healthy workplaces model includes five organizational practices: (1) employee recognition; (2) employee involvement; (3) employee growth and development; (4) healthy and safety; and (5) work–life balance. Although these practices are recommended to organizations, only leaders have a unique position and power to implement them. This chapter discusses how different leadership models influence employee health and well-being in relation to these five practices. The first section presents the role of effective leadership models (i.e. transformational, R.I.G.H.T, positive, authentic and ethical leadership) and the second section presents the role of ineffective leadership models (i.e. passive and abusive leadership) on employee health and well-being.

Transformational leadership is a leadership model often discussed in occupational health psychology (OHP). Transformational leadership is associated with a plethora of employee outcomes (for example, performance, well-being and safety performance). Transformational leaders can help counteract the negative consequences of job stressors, act as a resource for employees, instil a positive safety climate and act as a role model for safety behaviours. This leadership style is trainable, and interventions can be used to help improve employee health and safety outcomes. Transformational leaders can also play a critical role in the effectiveness of OHP interventions.

The nature and extent of members’ commitment to their labor union has been a topic of research interest for approximately 75 years. Although the rationale for studying member commitment has varied across the years, union commitment has emerged as a central variable in understanding union_member relations and, by extension, the process of unionization. The purpose of this chapter is to: (1) provide a brief review of the history and development of the construct of union commitment; (2) examine the current state of knowledge regarding the predictors, consequences, and correlates of union commitment; and (3) to re-evaluate the operational measures of union commitment and offer the outline of a research agenda that is intended to reinvigorate the study of union commitment.