How and When Does Inclusive Leadership Curb Psychological Distress during a Crisis?

A three-wave longitudinal study. Questionnaire survey was used to carry out three waves of data collection from 405 nurses employed at five hospitals in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak between the months of January-April 2020. Partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data while controlling for age, gender, education, experience, and working hours.
Results supported the hypothesized relationships where inclusive leadership indicated significant inverse causal relationship with psychological distress and a positive causal relationship with psychological safety. Mediation effect of psychological safety was found significant, while the model explained 73.9% variance in psychological distress.
Inclusive leadership, through its positive and supportive characteristics, can pave way for such mechanisms that improve the psychological safety of employees in the long run and curbs psychological distress.