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Age-Differentiated Leadership and Healthy Aging at Work: Evidence from the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic
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Description: Little is known about the relative influence of age-differentiated leadership on healthy aging at work. Likewise, the age-conditional influence of age-differentiated leadership is understudied, and especially so in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a three-wave longitudinal study, we examined the role that age-differentiated leadership plays in the prediction of work ability measured three times over six months (n = 1,130) during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany (i.e., December 2019, March 2020, and June 2020). Results suggest that although there were no systematic changes in work ability on average, there was notable within-person variability in work ability over time. Additionally, we find that a balanced approach to age-differentiated leadership that considers the needs of both older and younger employees matters most and complements the positive influence of leader-member exchange for predicting within-person variability in work ability. We also find that older employees’ work ability benefits from an approach to age-differentiated leadership that considers older employee’s needs, whereas younger employees’ work ability especially benefited from leader-member exchange and a balanced approach to age-differentiated leadership. Overall, these results provide initial support for the idea that an age-differentiated approach to leadership matters with regard to healthy aging at work.