As smartphones have become embedded in leadership work, leaders increasingly manage communication, coordination, and responsiveness through a device that is constantly within reach. Yet research has not fully examined how difficulty regulating this engagement shapes leaders’ well-being. Drawing on self-determination theory, we focus on compulsive smartphone use as a form of difficult to control smartphone engagement and examine how it relates to leaders’ job satisfaction, work engagement, and goal progress through autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction. We also consider smartphone use interruption as a work context that may strengthen these costs. We conducted a 10-day experience sampling study with 153 leaders in the United Kingdom, using surveys at lunchtime and at the end of the workday. We found that compulsive smartphone use was associated with lower need satisfaction during the workday, which in turn related to poorer end of day well-being. These negative associations were generally stronger on days characterized by more frequent smartphone use interruptions, with competence emerging as the most consistent pathway. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding not only how much leaders use smartphones, but how well they regulate their use in everyday work contexts and offer theoretical and practical insights for workplace technology research, self-determination theory, and leader well-being.

Authors:

Ryan Cheng, The University of Sydney (Presenting Author)
James Donald, The University of Sydney
Helena Nguyen, The University of Sydney
Wiebke Doden, King's College London
Jiesi Guo, Australian Catholic University
Anya Johnson, The University of Sydney
Karyn Wang, The University of Sydney