The relationship of the marital status of managers with the peculiarities of the need-semantic sphere

Lebedeva Elena Aleksandrovna PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor; Department of Economic Theory and Applied Sociology; Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education 'Ural State University of Economics' 620076, Russia, Sverdlovsk region, Yekaterinburg, ul. 8 Marta, 62 838557@list.ru Other publications by this author

The personality of the ruler, leader, and leader is a subject of sustained interest in psychology of both the scientific and pre–scientific periods ^[1,2]. Family and professional activity are the key basic areas in every person's life. That is why studying the relationships and interrelations of these aspects of a modern manager's life is important for understanding their impact on his personality and professional effectiveness ^[3].

In the modern, rapidly changing business world, it is increasingly difficult for managers to combine the requirements of professional activity and personal life ^[4,5]. The role of a leader includes many functions and responsibilities, often leading to long working hours, high levels of mental stress and possible neglect of family and loved ones. This imbalance between work and personal life can lead to increased stress, poor health and lack of satisfaction with these areas.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance is essential for maintaining long-term career success, physical and psychological well-being, and sustained managerial productivity.

Family life affects the behavior and psychological characteristics of the leader, since the peculiarities of the home environment and interaction within the family have a significant impact on the emotional state of the individual, on motivation and the ability to make decisions. In addition, a leader who maintains positive relationships with loved ones experiences a higher level of overall vitality and life satisfaction.

In our extensive study of the semantic characteristics of the head, one of the key aspects of the analysis was the comparison of subjective assessments and characteristics of current managers and persons who did not hold managerial positions at the time of the study. This study revealed differences between single and married people in both groups.

The empirical study was conducted on the basis of organizations and enterprises of the state and non-state sector in the Siberian Federal District: in the Altai Territory, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo regions and is part of a large-scale work to study the specifics of the need-semantic sphere of managers ^[6]. In total, more than two thousand people were examined, of whom the "Leaders" and control groups were identified, identical in gender and age. The total number of respondents was 587 people, including a group of managers (directors, managers, managers, heads of settlements, heads of workshops and departments, deputy heads, etc.) 285 people: 201 men, 84 women, and a control group: 210 men, 92 women.

Three classical methods of semantic sphere research were applied: the Y.M.Orlov-B.A. Sosnovsky questionnaire "Motivational and semantic formations" (hereinafter – MSO), the D.A.Leontiev test "Life Orientations" (hereinafter – SOE) and the "Semantic Differential" of Ch.Osgood.

1. Questionnaire of the MSO Y.M.Orlov – B.A.Sosnovsky (1993) on the measurement of basic sociogenic needs, or rather, motivational and semantic formations of achievement, cognition, dominance and affiliation. This tool is reliable, standardized and validated, which makes it possible to study individual psychological characteristics of a person in the professional field, his general cognitive potential, degree of interest in social interactions, attitude to leadership ^{[7, 8]}.

Table 1.

Statistically significant differences in the motivational and semantic formations of the respondents' personality

Table 1 shows statistically significant differences between respondents of different marital status in the management and control groups. The analysis of the leadership group revealed significant differences in the indicators of the need for affiliation among married/married respondents. This indicates that family managers are more acutely in need of establishing and maintaining good relations with people. For them, human relationships play an important role and are one of the meanings of life. At the same time, the control group revealed a higher need for dominance among married people. This may indicate that the family environment of "non-leaders" plays an important role in satisfying the need to establish their power and control over the surrounding reality.

2. To study the general meaningfulness of life, a version of the Purpose-in-life (PIL) test adapted by D.A. Leontiev was used James Crambo and Leonardo Maholik - the test of life orientations (hereinafter referred to as the SOE test)^[9].

The method of life orientations is a psychological technique aimed at studying and analyzing value aspirations, meaning and goals that determine a person's life orientation. This method allows you to understand what factors and motives stimulate an individual in his activities, and how they affect his emotional state and self-esteem.

The method is based on the concept of the meaning of life, which was developed on the basis of the basic ideas of V. Frankl and his principles of logotherapy. According to this concept, the main feature of a person is the desire to search for meaning and significance in his life, and meaning can be most fully realized through moral and spiritual values. The theoretical basis of the technique was largely the provisions of logotherapy about an existential vacuum (a feeling of loss of meaning) and noogenic neuroses (a special class of mental illnesses caused by failure to find the meaning of life). The authors of the methodology define "purpose in life" as experiencing the ontological meaning of life.

The basic concepts used in the method of life orientations include: the meaning of life, values, life goals, subjective well-being and well-being. The study of these categories and their interrelationships allows for a deeper understanding of the psychological nature of personality and human motivation, as well as the development of practical methods of counseling and psychotherapy. The SOE methodology is an important tool for understanding (describing and measuring) the inner world of a person and his psychological adaptation to the environment.

Table 2.

Statistically significant differences in the respondents' life orientations

The analysis of statistically significant differences (Table 2) in the studied indicators of both managers and in the control group showed that in both categories of subjects according to the subscales of the SOE "Locus of control – Life", single people have higher indicators than married ones. This may indicate that single people have a more pronounced sense of control over their lives and focus on their own decisions and actions. Perhaps the absence of a family and additional obligations allows them to more freely influence their fate and realize their personal goals and aspirations.

According to all test indicators, significant differences were identified exclusively in the group of managers. In general, this indicates a greater degree of expression of the basic processes of pragmatic meaning formation.

For idle managers, statistically significant values were obtained by subscales: "Locus of control-I" and "General coolant". This may indicate that high concentration on achieving goals within the framework of professional activity, fixation on a subjective sense of greater integrity and meaning in their actions and results, in some cases prevents single managers from finding a family.

3. The study of generalized subjective attitude to the world, to other people and to oneself, to one's past, present and future was carried out using the classical version of the semantic differential method. Osgood.

This method, developed by the American psychologist Charles Osgood in 1952, consists in the fact that the subject evaluates the proposed word according to a special system of scale characteristics. The application of the semantic differential is based on the thesis that subjects can express their preferences and assessments in conceptual terms through an appropriate scale ^{[10, 11]}.

A semantic differential is a tool used in psychological research to measure subjective assessments and perceptions of the relative properties of specific concepts, objects, or phenomena. It allows you to get quantitative data on how people perceive and evaluate certain aspects of a given concept.

The advantage of the semantic differential is its flexibility and the possibility of using it to evaluate a wide range of concepts, phenomena and objects. It allows you to obtain quantitative data that are subjected to detailed statistical analysis and reliable psychological interpretation.

In our study, the factors of evaluation, strength, and activity of the phrases "My past", "My present", "My future", "The world (environment)", and "Me" were analyzed.

Table 3.

Statistically significant differences in respondents' semantic assessments

When evaluating the semantic differential of the phrase "My past" (see Table 3), single people in both groups score lower on the "score" scale than married people.

According to the rest of the estimates by this method, the differences were revealed only in the group of non-managers. Single people rate the strength and activity of their past, present, future and surrounding reality significantly lower. This may indicate that the absence of a family is reflected in the ideas of single "non-leaders" about their life goals, events, as less energetic, powerful, active, perhaps due to the lack of family support and experience that the family could provide.

Managers do not have such distinctions, and in some cases (the strength of the past and the present) the opposite trend is observed. This may indicate that they rate these aspects as stronger and more dynamic. This is probably due to their active role and responsibility at work, as well as their more positive outlook on life in general.

Thus, according to the results of the survey, there is a fundamentally different relationship between the social factor "family presence" and the need-semantic sphere in the leadership groups and in the control group. The sphere of meaningful attitudes and the need for affiliation is the leading one for managers, while "non–managers" have a self-assessment of their lives and an assessment of the strength and activity of the surrounding reality.

It should be noted that in four subgroups, special psychological characteristics were found in non-family managers. Single managers (and their minority is 30.9% of the total in our study) value the process of life and its emotional saturation more highly. They believe that they lead an active, active life full of interests and self-realization. The high scores of the "Locus of control – I" correspond to the idea of oneself as the master of life, a free, independent and independent person in judgments and actions. They, to a greater extent than their family colleagues, tend to believe that they control their lives and control their fate, purposefully moving towards their intended goals.

Non-family managers are focused on the process of their lives, they are passionate about the opportunity to change it, they find the world rather weak, fragile, unstable, unstable. They creatively self-actualize in their work, through an active attitude to the changing environment, establish a real connection between a person and the world in which they live. They believe that through professional work they influence nature, things, symbols, and other people, realizing and revealing their inner properties, their personality in these actions.

Some single managers consciously or not make work the meaning of their lives, without realizing themselves in the social roles of a spouse and parent.

The majority of managers are family people: in our study, 69.1% of managers are married, and 60.5% have children. In the control group, these figures are lower: family - only 45.8% (1.5 times lower), have children – 52.9% (1.1 times lower).

In the general need-semantic sphere of family leaders, the values of the need for affiliation, friendly communication, and the importance of social contacts are highlighted.

These needs are key to the desire of family leaders to establish and maintain harmonious and kind relationships with other people. They value communication and strive to maintain these positive connections. Family managers consider business and personal interaction and social communication as an important source of social and psychological well-being.

Social contacts provide them with the opportunity to expand their circle of communication, create a sense of support, understanding and cohesion, unity with other people, and allow them to receive additional information, support, and resources that may be important for their professional and personal development. This can become the basis for the formation of effective management strategies.

In summary, we note that the conducted scientific analysis reveals fundamentally different relationships between social factors of marital status and indicators of the need-semantic sphere in the surveyed groups of managers and the control group.

Semantic attitudes and the need for affiliation occupy a central place among managers, while the respondents of the control group find it more relevant to assess their own lives, acceptance of the power and activity of the surrounding reality.

The results of the study emphasize the importance of family status and its impact on the personality and professional activities of both managers and "non-managers". The data of the conducted research can be useful for the development of individual (taking into account their family status and needs) approaches to working with various groups of employees ^[12], and can also be used in the development of programs for the selection, support and development of managers ^{[13, 14, 15]}.

Establishing a consistent balance between professional and personal life is one of the urgent and difficult tasks of current managers. Fulfilling a wide range of responsibilities, constant readiness for unplanned work, a high level of responsibility, striving for success and achieving goals affect the psychological state of the leader, his motivation, general psychological well-being, and his ability to find the optimal balance between professional and personal life.

Neglecting interpersonal relationships in the name of fulfilling production obligations can lead to tension in the family, emotional difficulties at work, and negatively affect both labor efficiency and the psychological health of the manager.

Personal relationships, family, and children significantly affect psychological stability, personal growth, and professional development. Successful family relationships are the key to personal happiness and the "rear" support of the head, which will undoubtedly help him cope with many working difficulties.