Relationship between organizational leadership style and musculoskeletal injuries among workers of an Iranian process industry

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The organizational leadership style can be considered as an important psychosocial factor that may affect workers’ health, safety, and productivity. The current study aimed at investigating the relationship between organizational leadership style and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among workers. Methods: The current descriptive, cross sectional study was conducted on 188 employees, including 10 leaders and 178 followers of an Iranian process industry. Nordic MSDs questionnaire (NMQ) and leadership style questionnaire (MLQ) were used as data collection tools. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 19. Results: Totally, 71.7% of the participants reported experiencing the symptoms of MSDs during the last 12 months. The highest prevalence of MSDs was in lower back (47.2%), shoulder (34.8%), and neck (32.4%), respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that the mean scores of transformational and laissez faire leadership styles in the two groups of with and without MSDs were significantly different. Conclusions: MSDs had high prevalence among workers of the studied process industry. Higher rate of MSDs was observed among the workers with higher scores of laissez faire leadership style. In contrast, the employees under transformational leadership style as the dominant management method, reported lower rate of MSDs complaints. As a conclusion, a relationship was observed between the leadership style and MSDs occurrence in the studied industry.