Abstract
This research investigates how a leadership position with supervisory responsibility impacts two labor-market related health behaviors – sickness absence and presenteeism, i.e. working while being sick. Drawing on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, this article argues that supervisory responsibility as both a job resource and a job demand increases an employee’s work engagement. This, in turn, reduces sickness absence but increases presenteeism behavior. Thus, this study identifies two aspects of a leadership position with supervisory responsibility, i.e. permanent availability and time pressure, as two underlying mechanisms that account for the reduced sickness absence but increased presenteeism behavior. Using German linked employer-employee data, the empirical results show that while having supervisory responsibility reduces the number of sickness absence days, it increases the probability of engaging in presenteeism. Furthermore, the results show that both relationships are partially mediated by a leader being permanently available as well as by the time pressure experienced in a leadership position with supervisory responsibility. Finally, the results reveal that the reduced sickness absence among leaders is not attributable to the higher rates of presenteeism but to increased work engagement and better health. Briefly, this study enriches our understanding of job characteristics of leadership positions by showing that job demands can also result in desirable consequences.