Over the past decade, the ideal leadership style demanded in Japanese working place have been shifting from Leader-centered to Follower-centered (Sasame et al., 2025). Under this changing working circumstances, compounded by issues like harassment, many leaders confused their own management behavior and struggling with interpersonal relationships with subordinates, and in worse case, their mental health is deteriorated.
In this presentation, the results examining leadership styles that are beneficial for Japanese managers' own mental health are discussed. To conduct the study, Japanese translated version of HCSLS was used, in anticipation of future comparative researches across nations where desirable leadership styles are varied. The data provided from 527 Japanese individuals, who held a position of section manager or higher, were extracted from a WEB-based screening survey conducted on 6,604 respondents.
The original four-factor structure was confirmed adequately, although Japanese specific factor structure was also emerged statistically. Concurrent validity of the HCSLS-J was also affirmed. Current level of happiness and Present life satisfaction were statistically expected by high scores of Sustainable and/or Servant leadership styles, while high Ideal happiness and low scores of Depression and Stress mindset were related with Ethical leadership style. Mindful leadership style showed somewhat low relations to those scores of mental health compared with other three styles.
These results indicated that managers could keep their own present positive mental state by providing supports contributing to the future of his/her organization and subordinates, by empowering good workplace relationships and creating a more comfortable working environment. Moreover, it was also suggested that being correct and maintaining ethical manner was necessary to pursue future own happiness without becoming depressed. These managers' satisfactory and stable mental health, based on their attempted own attitudes, will bring more comfortable working environment and higher subordinates' productivity, thereby contributing to the organization's sustainable development.