Managers’ social support: Facilitators and hindrances for seeking support at work

1.1 Literature review

Resources received from people in social relationships that directly or indirectly help an individual regarding a certain problem are defined in this paper as social support. This definition is consistent with previous definitions [6–9] which have theoretical roots in social exchange theory [10, 11]. Social support is also regarded as a broader concept for several qualitatively different types of resources. This is consistent with House [7], who defined social support “as an interpersonal transaction involving one or more of the following: (1) emotional concern (liking, love, empathy), (2) instrumental aid (goods or services), (3) information (about the environment), or (4) appraisal (information relevant to self-evaluation)” (p. 39).

The term social support originates from health research [3, 7], and has mostly been studied using health-related outcomes. Studies of managers’ work situations often show that they have a large workload [12–16], their work tasks are fragmented [12, 15–18] and they are often subjected to conflicts between upper management and subordinates [14, 20], which they are dependent on for the accomplishment of their work [15, 21]. Availability of social support has been suggested to mitigate the resulting strain of such work situations. In managers, social support has been associated with decreased stress and strain [22–24], fewer symptoms of burnout [25], higher self-rated health [26], lower physiological stress [27], and less sickness absence [28]. Recent studies have also shown that managers’ social support is positively related to other work-related issues besides stress and health, such as leadership development [29–31], workplace learning [33], work-life balance [22, 34] and performance [35, 36]. However, several studies suggest that managers perceive less support in their workplace than non-managers [37–40].

When studying social support, it is important to distinguish between the type of support, or resources, being exchanged; who provides the support; and why the support is given or what problems the support addresses. This was pointed out by House [7] when he said that in order to fully understand the concept of social support we need to know “who gives what to whom regarding which problems” (p. 22). Different types of social support may have different effects. Lingard and Francis [41] found that emotional support had a direct effect on managers’ burnout, and instrumental support had a buffering effect between work/family conflict and burnout. In addition, different sources of support may differ in importance. Love and Edwards [42] showed that supportive sources outside the workplace were better predictors of managers’ health and job satisfaction than supportive sources within the workplace. These kinds of results have given rise to the optimal matching hypothesis [4, 43], which states that, for social support to be effective, the right type of support must be provided by the right source for a certain problem. How contextual factors influence the exchange of social support have however not received much attention [1–6]. One reason might be the considerable focus on the effects of, rather than circumstances around, social support [3–4].

The whole support chain, i.e. types of social support, sources of support, and the problems for which the support is provided, has rarely been studied in managers. An exception is Lindorff’s [4] cross-sectional study, in which she showed that emotional support was more often provided by sources outside managers’ workplace, whereas instrumental and informational support were provided by sources in the domain in which the stress occurred.

Different aspects of work have further been investigated to explain where managers’ seek support and whether this support is accessible to them [2, 3]. The organizational work space, in terms of arrangement of the physical environment [44], and access to informal arenas for communication [23, 46], as well as the degree of control over the job [5], may act as facilitators and influence how people make contact and establish relationships. Organizational practices, such as managers’ access to executive education [31, 46–48] and mentorship [48–50] have also been shown to facilitate the provision of social support to managers.

Hindrances at work that prevent managers from seeking or gaining support, has been much less researched. Aspects that have been described to facilitate support in managers may possibly be reversely conceived as hindrances, that is, lack of arenas for communication, low degree of control over the job etc. Previous research has found that managers thought it was hard to ask for support from people they worked with, particularly when it was concerned with feeling stressed and exhausted or having too much to do [45, 52]. Maintaining an image of being a competent and able manager is important for being accepted as an authority, maintain the trust of the organization and for the managers to be able to carry out their work [53–59]. Managers’ perceived threats to their image have been shown to have consequences for their willingness to propose changes to top managers [60–62]. This perception may hence be relevant as a potential hindrance for their support-seeking.

Receiving social support may not always be a good thing; research has shown that it may also be associated with increased stress [4, 64]. Two hypotheses have been formulated to explain such conflicting findings [6, 65–67]. One hypothesis suggests that receiving support may create a sense of being in debt to the person who provided the support and being obligated to reciprocate (the inequity hypothesis). The other hypothesis suggests that receiving support harms a person’s self-esteem and lowers a person’s social status (the esteem threat hypothesis). Thus, these hypotheses imply that the perceived consequences of the support may hinder the managers from seeking support.

In summary, previous research has found that social support is important for managers, although they may not experience the same amount of work-related support as non-managers. More knowledge is therefore needed regarding what support managers have, from whom they get it, and why this is important. House’s support chain [7] is useful for gaining such knowledge. To be able to increase managers’ social support at work, more knowledge is needed regarding facilitators and hindrances at work that helps respectively inhibits managers from seeking support.

Therefore, the research questions of this study are: 1) What characterizes managers’ social support at work: what supportive sources do they have, what support does the sources provide, and why is this support important? 2) What do managers perceive facilitates or hinders their seeking of social support at work?

2.1 Research setting and data collection

This study is based on a qualitative approach consisting of interviews with managers. A qualitative approach was chosen for its potential contribution to the understanding of the complex phenomenon that is social support, and its facilitators and hindrances. Interviews were chosen to allow the managers to describe in their own words their perceptions and experiences, and their own thoughts and analyses of the subject could be captured and used [68].

Our material consists of 62 semi-structured interviews with male and female managers at three managerial levels in two organizations. Forty-two of the managers worked in a large Swedish industrial production company, and 20 managers worked in a medium-sized Swedish municipality (Table 1).

The two organizations and the participating managers were selected to ensure variation in the material. The organizations were both situated in the same geographical region, and they each had about 2000 employees. In the private organization, 80% of the employees were men, whereas in the municipal organization 80% were women. The private organization acted in a competitive international market, specializing in products and services in materials handling and logistics. A few years earlier, the company was bought by a larger international enterprise and a new production system inspired by the Toyota Production System [69] was implemented. The municipal organization, on the other hand, was a regional part of the Swedish welfare system and a politically driven organization to secure citizens’ basic rights and services in that region.

The participating managers were selected by the researchers based on the organizational scheme from each organization. Wherever possible, selections were made to include both men and women from all three managerial levels within each division of the organization. All selected managers agreed to participate after they had been informed about the purpose of the study, and told that the information provided would be treated confidentially and that participation was voluntary.

The managers were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide [68] concerning their work, leadership, learning and career development, recruitment and health. Some of the questions specifically dealt with perceived social support from top management, other managers, and subordinates. Examples of interview questions posed to all participants were: “What people do you meet during a working day, and in what contexts do you meet? How do you get support from a) top management b) other managers c) subordinates? How does the organization help you deal with the expectations placed on you as a manager?”

All managers were interviewed face-to-face at their offices or at other suitable places during working hours within each organization. After receiving consent from each manager, all interviews, which lasted between one and two hours, were audio-taped and subsequently transcribed verbatim by a professional transcriber.

The data analysis was performed in accordance with qualitative content analysis [70–72]. The analysis began by focusing on social support, and later on facilitators and hindrances for managers’ social support.

The analysis was inspired by House’s [7] statement that researchers need to investigate the whole support chain. So as not to limit the richness of the material, we chose to let the types of support be generated from the managers’ descriptions, rather than use House’s predefined typologies. House’s four typologies of support were used as comparisons later in the analysis.

In the first step, all transcriptions were read through several times to gain a general impression of the material. In the next step, the coding procedure began. All people or groups of people who were described as providing support or help to the manager were coded under the label “source of support”. The particular type of support or help was coded under the label “type of support”. The manager’s description of why he/she thought the particular type of support was important was coded under the label “importance of support”. Each individual manager described approximately 10–15 different sources of support in their interviews.

This process generated a matrix for each individual manager, in which the whole support chain was preserved (Who-What -Why). These individual matrixes were then combined into two matrixes, one for each organization.

In the next step, the codes for each part of the support chain the managers had described were compared (e.g. types of support), and several descriptions with similar content were found. After returning to the managers’ original statements, suitable codes were combined to reduce their number. These reduced numbers of codes were used to create descriptive categories of the sources of support, the types of support, and the importance of the support.

The contents of the descriptive categories in the two organizations were then compared with each other, i.e. the supportive sources mentioned in each organization were compared; the different types of support from each supportive source were compared, etc. This made it possible to see patterns of similarities and differences in each part of the support chain, but also the relationship between all three parts of the support chain for the two organizations. We also compared our generated categories with House’s [7] four typologies to emphasize the similarities and differences between us. The tables in the results section show our categories and House’s corresponding typologies.

The second focus of our analysis concerned facilitators and hindrances for managers’ social support-seeking. We focused our reading on instances where managers talked about aspects that helped them seek support (coded as “facilitators”) or aspects that made it more difficult to seek support (coded as “hindrances”). We also made notes on whether the managers referred to the type of support, the source of support or the importance of the support in their descriptions.

The analysis was conducted mainly by the first author. To ensure validity and reliability of the results, the codes and categories were continuously discussed with the co-authors until agreement was reached [73]. Quotes were later selected to illustrate the content of the descriptive categories.

3.1 The social support chain

In the managers’ descriptions of their work-related social support, seven different types of support were discernible (Table 2). These types were important as they helped in completing their work tasks, develop their leadership, or maintain their health and well-being, and were sought either from sources within or outside the managers’ workplaces.

3.2 Facilitators and hindrances of social support

In the managers descriptions, four facilitators or hindrances were discernible that helped or prevented them from seeking and receiving social support: The location of the workplace, formal and informal meetings, vocational courses, and the managerial role.

4.1 Work-related support is sought from sources within the workplace

The managers deliberatively sought work-related support from persons that had relevant information and help to give [4]. This frequent and insightful support was important to the managers: Information and help contributed to their work performance and the support gave them discretion and ability to do their work. This in turn allowed the managers to build or maintain their managerial image of being competent, which was important to maintain the confidence of the closest organization [e.g. 53–59].

The exchange of work-related support was facilitated by the arrangement of the organizational work space [44–46]. Geographic proximity, in terms of the location of the managers’ offices in relation to others, as well as the organization of meetings, in terms of frequency and involvement of others, formed social arenas where managers could gain access to relevant supportive sources. When the managers had difficulties gaining access to these arenas, relevant support decreased, e.g. essential information, and they had difficulties to perform their work and they felt stressed [74, 75].

4.2 Sensitive and personal support is sought from sources outside the workplace

The managers expressed concern that asking for certain types of support which was sensitive and personal could potentially harm the confidence of the people they were dependent on, thus jeopardizing their image as managers. When the managers needed support that involved ventilating their own stress, or discussing leadership and difficult personnel issues, they turned to people who were outside their workplace, those who they did not work closely with, and whose confidence they were not dependent on. To get these types of support, the managers had to openly describe a perceived problem, and this made them vulnerable, e.g. to criticism. This openness therefore required mutual trust [67, 76] that the information would not be passed on to people they worked with, and whose confidence they depended on and wanted to preserve. These sources were often old colleagues now working elsewhere, or people they had met at vocational courses, or informal gatherings with colleagues they trusted. By turning to sources outside the workplace, in different arenas than sources within the workplace, the managers could themselves control what information they revealed, and thereby not jeopardize their image and the confidence of the people they worked with.

4.3 Sources within and outside the workplace are deliberately separated

The managers solved the question of potentially jeopardized image and confidence by distinguishing between different sources, based on what supportive function they had and in which arenas they were found. Sources within the workplace were used to build or maintain their perceived image. Sources outside the workplace were used to gain support for sensitive and personal issues and thereby avoid jeopardizing their image and the confidence of sources within the workplace. By distinguishing in this way, they gained personal distance from their managerial responsibilities [51] and maintained the impression of being competent [58]. They kept the confidence of sources within the workplace and kept the sources outside the workplace remote. The practice of such political skills, or impression management, has been shown to be an important part of keeping the confidence of subordinates and thereby being able to perform one’s work [53–59]. Sometimes there were exceptions to this pattern of distinguishing between supportive sources and arenas; for example, when they received support they had not asked for. Receiving feedback from sources within the workplace could make the managers feel stressed and criticized if it was provided in the wrong forum, i.e. in front of people whose confidence the manager wanted to preserve. Such imposed support may question the managers’ competence, which may result in stress reactions [65–67].

4.4 Sensitive support requires control over information

All the managers in this study considered support important, but it was up to individual managers to create their own support network, especially with reference to the more sensitive types of support. Thus, they did not want the organization to be involved in the creation of their support network [cf. 45], possibly because of the risk of being questioned as a manager. A support network created by and under the organization’s control most likely includes people the managers are dependent on, and whose confidence they want to preserve. In this kind of arena, the managers cannot control what information they reveal or the people they choose to share that information with. Thus, the mutual trust that is necessary for the exchange of sensitive support is inhibited by the worry of losing face and being criticized. The situation may also be perceived as artificial and the support as imposed, which has negative consequences [65]. Arenas that are not created by the organization, and therefore not under its control, become a safe space [76–78] because the exchange of support is under the control of the individual manager.

Vocational courses were described in this study as one such safe space for the exchange of social support. Previous research has shown that managerial courses facilitates the acquisition of social support [31, 46–48]. Management programmes have also been suggested to be safe spaces, separated from managers’ daily work, that allow them to build or strengthen their identity as managers, because they are reluctant to entrust or allow their workplace to be a part of that identity work [48, 77–78]. In this study vocational courses were an important arena for access to social support, as they gave the managers knowledge and information and facilitated valuable discussions. At these courses the managers also made contact with course participants who were often managers in other organizations, and who could potentially be used for future support. The course was therefore an arena for support because it was a safe space detached from their daily work, and the managers dared to open up and be vulnerable [77–78].

4.5 Support is avoided if it is too costly

Participation in arenas that gave the managers access to social support, and safe spaces in particular, demanded a temporal investment, and a spatial move away from the workplace. In the same way as the managers established contacts with potentially supportive sources, they also became a supportive source for others; thus there was a risk of having to reciprocate support. The managers’ work conditions could therefore inhibit their support seeking [5]. They refrained from seeking support if they did not have the time, if their workload did not allow them to be absent from their work or act as a supportive source to someone else. The managers had to choose and prioritize regarding which arenas they should participate in, and when they should do so, based on their work conditions, the support they needed and from whom. Thus, they sometimes waited to seek support or did not seek it at all. The facilitators at work for managers’ support seeking, could therefore also be hindrances to their support seeking. In their efforts to preserve the confidence of the people their work depended on, and maintain the image of being competent and able, the managers risked having this image questioned by these very same people because they did not ask for support when they needed it [79, 80].

4.6 Few organizational differences

This study showed great similarities between managers, regardless of organizational affiliation. Previous research has often focused on differences between public and private organizations [e.g. 81]. These differences have often been assumed to depend on differences in goals, purpose and structure. In this study, the various types of support were described by managers in both organizations, suggesting that they are important resources for practicing leadership in a managerial position. In their descriptions, a division between sources within and outside the workplace were also discernible, suggesting that fear of getting their competence and ability questioned is an issue for managers regardless of affiliation. The organizations differed regarding who the sources outside the workplace were, which seem to be related to how the vocational courses and meetings were organized.

4.7 Limitations and future research

The qualitative design of this study allowed a deeper understanding of managers’ social support and aspects influencing their seeking of support at work. A limitation of this study may be the lack of a developed gender perspective. We chose to focus on differences and similarities between the two organizations. Previous research has shown that male and female managers’ organizational networks differ [e.g. 82, 83], and future research could investigate what consequences such possible differences might have for male and female managers’ social support and support seeking.

A further area for future research might be to investigate managers’ social support from a subordinate perspective. Previous research has shown that managers who are highly politically skilled and who use impression management are considered better managers [e.g. 56]. Previous research has also shown that managers are considered more trustworthy if they are open [e.g. 84]. But how open should they be, and about what? Thus, how much can and should a manager share with subordinates, in terms of both content and amount, without losing the subordinates’ confidence? Such knowledge may be used to create conditions that encourage support-seeking behaviours and reduce unwarranted fear of being considered incompetent or unable to handle a managerial position.