Amber Brizar

Leaders play an important role in supporting employees’ mental health, but many feel unprepared to deal with mental health problems at work and may hold negative views about employees with such problems. Research suggests that workplace culture can influence how well leaders provide this support. In this research, we study how Masculinity Contest Culture (MCC), a work culture that values competition and toughness, affects leaders’ ability to support employee mental health. Using a cross-sectional study and an experiment with managers in the United Kingdom, we examine leaders’ confidence and supportiveness, their stigmatizing attitudes toward mental health conditions, and their own self-care. Results from the cross-sectional study (N = 291) show that stronger MCCs are linked to lower confidence and supportiveness, more negative attitudes, and less self-care among leaders, especially among older managers, women, and lower-ranked managers. Furthermore, an experiment with 800 managers tests whether MCC directly causes these effects by comparing strong versus weak MCC scenarios. Together, these studies examine whether competitive and tough workplace cultures influence leaders’ ability to support employee mental health.