Well-being at the Frontlines: Leadership Strategies for Building Up Strong Resources Among Emergency Responders: Online Supplement

This is the online supplement for a mixed-methods article on resource-oriented leadership in emergency organizations.

Abstract: Repeated exposure to extreme events and other demanding missions can erode protective resources among emergency responders, causing health problems that, in turn, jeopardize their readiness and performance. Using a mixed-methods approach, this article examines how leaders of emergency responders can systematically maintain and even enhance their subordinates’ well-being. To identify effective leadership strategies, we conducted in-depth interviews with 25 fire chiefs, 25 platoon leaders, and 26 subordinates from the German fire services. Employing the critical incident technique, we explored leadership processes both during emergency situations and during interim phases (training, standby time, etc.). Person-oriented leadership (developing, group-serving, and caring behavior) was described as fostering various resource gains, while task-oriented leadership (directive and problem-solving behavior) was reported to mitigate resource threats. Moreover, the interviews underscore the importance of interim phases in enhancing well-being. A cross-sectional survey with firefighters and members of a technical relief organization (N = 459) supported the qualitative findings. We integrate our results into a framework that links leadership in emergency organizations to subordinates’ well-being and readiness in demanding work contexts. Moreover, we discuss the generalizability of our results to other high-risk work contexts. 

The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Faculty of Psychology & Sports Science of [institution anonymized for review].

This online supplement includes

• STUDY1_GermanFireServices.pdf: Description of the organizational differences between volunteer and professional firefighters in Germany
• STUDY1_InterviewGuides.pdf: All interview guides used in Study 1 (English translations)
• STUDY1_CI-summaries.pdf: Short summaries of all critical incidents collected in Study 1
• STUDY1_AnalysisDetails.pdf: Supplementary material on the qualitative analysis of the interviews conducted in Study 1
• STUDY2_Codebook.xlsx: a codebook describing all instructions and items of Study 2
• rawData_Study2.csv: raw data of Study 2 (anonymised; the raw data contains only the information of persons who were included in the analysis and have agreed to it.)
• STUDY2_AnalysisScript.R: An analysis script based on R
• STUDY2_Supplemental-Analyses.pdf: supplemental analyses including comparisons between final sample and dropout, comparisons between subgroups, detailed descriptive analyses