From birds to people, research demonstrates that leadership roles can be really stressful. In this post, let’s explore the physiology of stress and how it affects such relationships.

Stress as defined by the founder of Stress Theory, Dr. Hans Selye (1907-1982), is the “nonspecific response of the body to any demand” (Tan and Yip, 2018). Our bodies were designed to deal will short bouts of stress by releasing special stress hormones, mainly cortisol. While cortisol helps us deal with acute stressors, like a predator or accident, long term stress can lead to a whole host of diseases including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, headaches, depression and anxiety, gastrointestinal disease, Alzheimer’s disease, worsening of asthma symptoms, as well as accelerated aging and premature death (For review: WebMD).

Leaders face stress from many sources and some leaders may take out their stress on their subordinates. A meta-analysis published in 2017 found that employees were more stressed and likely to experience burnout if their leadership utilized an authoritarian, hostile, negative, or otherwise destructive or abusive style (Harms et al., 2017). Anyone who has worked with a stressed employer can probably relate.

If leaders took a transformational leadership approach, on the other hand, then the employees were found to have lower stress and risk of burnout (Harms et al., 2017). Transformational leaders inspire subordinates by providing a vision and positive messaging about the future. They also engage subordinates in creative thinking and personalized interactions, as well as provide resources to their employees on how to deal with stress (Harms et al., 2017; Montano et al., 2023). In addition, a recent meta-analysis found that stress management interventions that target the leadership of an organization improves the occupational health of leaders (Dannheim et al., 2025).

Humans are not the only species that experience stress when taking on leadership roles. In fact, a new study published in Current Biology found that wild vulturine guineafowls had increased heart rates and measures of stress when they attempted to lead collective movements, especially when their attempts failed (Brandl et al., 2025). A leader in this scenario is a bird that moves away from the group and either the rest of the group chooses to follow, or not.

Sources

HB Brandl, JA Klarevas-Irby, D Zuniga, CH Wheat, C Christensen, F Omengo, C Nzomo, W Cherono, B Nyaguthii, DR Farine. The physiological cost of leadership in collective movements. Current Biology. 2025. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.06.065

I Dannheim, H Ludwig-Walz, H Kirsch, M Bujard, AE Buyken, KM Richardson, A Kroke. Effectiveness of leader-targeted stress management interventions: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Scand J Work Environ Health. 51(4): 265-281, 2025. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.4219

PD Harms, M Crede, M Tynan, M Leon, W Jeung. Leadership and stress: A meta-analytic review. The Leadership Quarterly. 28(1): 178-194, 2017. doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.10.006

D Montano, JE Schleu, J Huffmeier. A meta-analysis of the relative contribution of leadership styles to followers’ mental health. J Leadersh Org Stud. 30(1): 90-107, 2023.

SY Tan, A Yip. Hans Selye (1907-1982): Founder of the stress theory. Singapore Med J 59(4): 170-171, 2018. doi: 10.11622/smedj.2018043.

WebMD

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Categories: Comparative Physiology, Illnesses and Injuries, Stress

Tags: animals, behavior, bird, employee, health, leadership, medicine, mental-health, nursing, nutrition, Stress, wellness