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When leaders burn out: The causes, costs and prevention of burnout among leaders
Abstract
What happens when leaders are unable to keep leading? Leaders are often expected to be enthusiastic, innovative and help lead their organization forward. However, sometimes they can find themselves so emotionally and physically depleted that they are unable to function, even at the most basic level. Years of stress, heavy responsibilities, personal issues and unhealthy work hours can take a toll in the form of 'burnout'. The battery is flat and the car cannot start. There are many contributing factors to burnout. It comes at a high cost to the leader, his family and his organization. This chapter will look at the nature of burnout and examine how the leader's personality, work role, leadership style and life experiences can all contribute to the development of this condition. The impact of burnout, pathways to recovery and some preventative measures will also be examined combining current research findings with the author's own experience of burnout. This chapter aims to highlight the need for leaders to look after themselves and for organizations to help support their leaders in an effective way. Although recovery from burnout may be a difficult and long journey, leaders can regain their strength and motivation and return to the role stronger and with more effective coping strategies.
... Even if line-managers may have a strong impact in creating psychologically healthy workplaces (Nielsen, 2014), the levels of organisational constraints and support matter (Day et al., 2019) and could make it practically impossible to be perceived as a supportive leader. Being expected, as a supervisor, to be a role model and create safe and trustful social work conditions when the very organisational structures and conditions are poor, and when senior management maybe does not care about the situation "on the floor" (so to say), could possibly instead pose a risk for ill health-for the line-managers themselves (Bagi, 2013). This is also addressed in the conservation of resources theory with arguments that so called resource depleted leaders may withdraw from giving support to their subordinates in order to protect themselves (Hobfoll et al., 2018). ...
The aim was to investigate how supportive leadership affects workplace bullying—both in terms of risk factors that may lead to bullying but also in terms of the effects of bullying. The thesis includes three survey studies based on different Swedish cohorts and using different research design in terms of the number of data collection waves and timeframes.
Based on the association between workplace bullying and poor health—and drawing on the social learning theory, the theory of social information processing, the social identity theory, and the self-categorisation theory—a circular and multilevel interaction model was created. It is presented together with six hypotheses and an open research question.
The summarised and combined results can be divided into two major parts concerning (a) two studied risk factors (role ambiguity and individual poor health), and (b) the investigated moderator (supportive leadership).
The results showed that role ambiguity is a long term predictor of being exposed to bullying behaviours at work, and that a hostile work climate is a mediator for that association. The results also showed that poor general health is a predictor of future bullying exposure.
The results additionally showed that a supportive leadership fully moderated the effects on exposure to bullying behaviours by (a) ambiguous roles, mediated through a hostile work climate, and (b) poor general health. The result furthermore showed that a supportive leadership have an effect on the association between exposure to bullying behaviours and health. The effect was in terms of a moderated moderation also including co-worker support.
Finally, the results also pointed to direct positive effects of both supportive leadership and co-worker support on individual health as well as to a direct mitigating effect of a supportive leadership on workplace bullying.
Altogether, the thesis points to very important moderating effects of a supportive leadership and especially the fundamentally destructive effects in association with nonsupportive leadership.
... It puts the organization's effectiveness at risk, which leads to losing gifted people who are not substituted quickly [47]. Toxic culture destroys a team's morale and the entire environment of the organization [48]. When a leader attacks employees' self-esteem, the employees experience a decrease in self-efficacy, self-worth, and low morale, resulting in performance deterioration [15] and, thus, diminished project success [49]. ...
Project success is the backbone of competitiveness and sustainability. The study aims to examine the role of cronyism in the relationship between toxic leadership and project success while taking information technology projects as the study context. Cross-sectional data (n = 240) was collected through closed-ended survey questionnaires to record the responses of IT project employees. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used for analyzing the collected data. Results revealed a negative relationship between toxic leadership and project success, while cronyism positively and significantly mediated the relationship and converted the negative relationship between TL and PS to a positive relationship.
... Similarly, IN as a subscale of sense of homeliness is not significantly associated with burnout and work engagement. Although there is currently limited research regarding variables such as GG or IN, these results are consistent with other studies (e.g., Maslach and Leiter, 2008;Brown, 2012;Bagi, 2013;Adriaenssens et al., 2015), which show that burnout and reduced work engagement can also occur in professions that seem to have an impact on GG (e.g., physicians, nurses, and teachers), or that have IN within an organization/ a community (e.g., supervisors). ...
Apart from biological, psychological, and social factors, recent studies indicate that spirituality and work culture also play an important role in the onset of burnout. Hence, the commonly applied bio-psycho-social model of health and disease might not be sufficient to comprehensively explain and describe burnout. This study empirically investigates the relationship between spirituality (operationalized by perceived meaningfulness of work) and work culture (operationalized by sense of homeliness of the working environment) with burnout risk and work engagement. For this purpose, an anonymous cross-sectional data collection with fully standardized questionnaires and selected socio-demographic and work-related items was conducted among working adults ( n = 439) from different industries via social media and local health service centers. For all scales and subscales, we found significant moderate to strong correlations. Furthermore, positive meaning within the perceived meaningfulness of work scale was the largest beta coefficient for burnout (β = −0.65) and work engagement (β = 0.62). Within sense of homeliness, the largest beta coefficient for burnout was needs fulfillment (β = −0.34) and work engagement emotional connection (β = 0.36). The strong associations suggest that the current health and disease model needs to be expanded to a bio-psycho-socio-spirito-cultural model to be able to sufficiently describe burnout. The perceived meaningfulness of work and a sense of homeliness should be adequately considered when examining the onset of burnout, describing burnout as a concept, and explaining work engagement.
Burnout is often seen as a combination of personality and work environment factors. Like other professions in burnout research, clergy have been treated with little consideration for what might be unique about or vital to the vocation or its adherents. The present study examined the incremental validity of spirituality in predicting burnout in United Methodist clergy over and above both personality and work environment variables. Burnout was measured using a composite index consisting of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996), the Situational Shift Scale (Rodgerson & Piedmont, 1998), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that spirituality showed incremental significance in predicting burnout even when controlling for personality and work environment, although the contribution was small.
Burnout is a global concern, and work-related stress is recognized worldwide as a major challenge to workers' health and the functioning of their organizations. Epidemiological studies performed in western and developing countries have found a high prevalence of burnout syndrome and associated mental illness among health workers, teachers, caregivers, other professionals, and others. Unsatisfactory work may lead to long-Term emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low levels of personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion is considered to be the most important dimension of burnout syndrome. Work-related stress can affect employee satisfaction, work productivity, and mental and physical health; it also can increase rates of absenteeism and affect family roles and function. Professional distress can provoke serious mental manifestations such as anxiety and depression disorders, leading to divorce, alcoholism, substance abuse and suicide. Perception of adverse psychosocial factors in the workplace may be related to an elevated risk of subsequent major depressive disorder. Burnout rates in society range from 2.4 to 72 %, whereas the prevalence of depressive symptoms is variable and may affect between 3 % and one third of workers. High staff turnover, increased absenteeism, and decreased productivity cause an elevated financial cost. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013. All rights are reserved.
This research study investigated the possible relationship between two spirituality variables (religious coping styles and spiritual well-being) and two psychological variables (anxiety and depression). Also studied were differences between those who self-disclosed a spiritual/religious identify and those who did not. Although a relationship was not noted between religious coping styles and the psychological variables, significance was reported in the relationship between spiritual well-being and both psychological variables. Overall, this study finds that individuals reporting higher levels of religiosity and spiritual well-being may also experience a reduction in mental and emotional illness.
The road to burnout is paved with good intentions. It is a condition that occurs when a susceptible person encounters a situation of overload. This results in emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and a reduced sense of one's self and one's accomplishments: a state of fatigue or frustration brought about by good intentions. It happens when people try to reach unrealistic goals and end up depleting their energy. The type of person most prone to burnout generally has high expectations of what can be accomplished. As time passes and all the goals aren't achieved, the enthusiasm dies and listlessness sets in. Instead of lowering the objectives or accepting reality, frustration is bottled up and the individual tries even harder. This leads to feelings of alienation, cynicism, impatience, negativism and of not being appreciated. Eventually there may be feelings of detachment to the point that the individual will begin to resent the work involved and the people who are part of it.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) provide counselling and consulting services that focus on the prevention and/or remediation of personal problems experienced by employees, or members of their families. EAPs are currently considered one of the main vehicles for occupational stress management and are rapidly evolving into providers of holistic wellbeing programs in the workplace. This form of service delivery has, however, been criticised for focusing interventions at the individual rather than at the organisational level. This review examines the history and development of Australian EAPs, discusses issues unique to the delivery of psychological services in a workplace environment, and considers evidence for the effectiveness of EAPs. While research evidence is not fully supportive of the effectiveness of EAPs, data suggests that these programs do impact positively on employee mental health, and are perceived by employees as a desirable workplace resource.
The objective of this study is the assessment of the association of burnout syndrome with adrenal exhaustion specific symptoms and signs among 116 patients who were exposed to violence or mobbing at workplace and who were treated during 2005 to 2008 in Department of Occupational Pathology and Toxicology Tuzla; to detect symptoms and signs of adrenal exhaustion differences between patients who were exposed to act of violence as acute catastrophic event and patients who were long-term exposed to mobbing or chronic distress at workplace.
Data of 86 employees who were exposed to mobbing > 1 years (chronic distress syndrome) and data of 30 employees who were exposed to act of violence as acute traumatic crisis situation (evaluation in first week after acute stress situation and post control observation 6 months later). TOOLS FOR ASSESSMENT WERE CLINICAL EXAMINATION AND QUESTIONNAIRES: Occupational stress questionnaire (OSQ short version), self-constructed Questionnaire about symptoms and signs of Adrenal exhaustion; self-constructed mobbing questionnaire; and Maslach--Burnout Inventory.
The patients expressed their traumatic experiences during exposure to stress more than 1 year (long-term exposure) which were compared with acute stress experiences (mostly high level of stress intensity.
when workers constant expose to repeat mobbing behavior or have perception of extended distress reaction after act of violence at workplace they are suffering of Syndrome burnout and clinical picture of adrenal fatigue.
Life in Israel is very stressful. Since Us establishment in 1948 Israel has gone through five major wars, and even during times of peace civilians live with the constant threat of terrorist activity. Despite this and other stresses, Israelis report consistently lower levels of burnout than Americans. This paper proposes an existential perspective in an attempt to explain this curious phenomenon. According to the existential perspective, the root cause of burnout lies in people's need to believe that their lives are meaningful. It is suggested that Israelis are less burned out, not despite, but because of the constant reminders to the threat to their existence. The low levels of Israeli burnout are demonstrated using a cross-cultural Israeli-American comparison in three occupational groups: teachers, nurses, and managers. In addition, interviews with a teacher a nurse, and a manager who worked in both countries are presented. These data provide tentative support for the existential perspective and point to the importance of a cross-cultural study of burnout. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Abstract The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that vacation relief decreases psychological and behavioral strains caused by job stressors. We examined the impact of job stress and vacation on strain on 87 blue-collar employees in an industrial enterprise in central Israel. Whereas former respite research focused on the impact of vacation only on psychological strains such as burnout and job and life satisfaction, the current study also examined a behavioral strain, absenteeism. The employees completed questionnaires before and after vacation and again four weeks later. Our findings show that vacation alleviated perceived job stress and bumout as predicted, replicating findings that a respite from work diminishes levels of strain to lower than chronic, on-the-job levels. We found declines in burnout immediately after the vacation and a return to prevacation levels four weeks later, and a similar pattern with regard to absenteeism.
Abstract In recent years, the issue of occupational stress and burnout have received increasing research attention. Given the amount of time people spend on work-related activities and the central importance of work to one's sense of identity and self-worth, it is not surprising that occupational stress is regarded as a central area of study. Although burnout is linked to the extensive literature on occupational health, burnout goes beyond occupational health by focusing on specific stressors in the workplace to emphasize total life and environmental pressures affecting health.
Hardiness, which is a multidimensional personality trait that is hypothesized to protect people from the effects of stress, has attracted considerable research attention during the last 30 years. The current study provides a meta-analytic review of hardiness. Specifically, we examined the relationships between the hardiness facets, the relationship between hardiness and other personality variables, as well as the relationships between hardiness and several hypothesized criteria, including stressors, strains, social support, coping, and performance. Our analyses generally suggest that hardiness is: (a) positively related to other personality traits that are expected to protect people from stress, (b) negatively related to personality traits that are expected to exacerbate the effects of stress, (c) negatively related to stressors, strains, and regressive coping, and (d) positively related to social support, active coping, and performance. Regression analyses suggest that hardiness is significantly related to important criteria after the effects of other personality traits (e.g., the Five Factor Model traits) are controlled.
Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job, and is defined by the three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. The past 25 years of research has established the complexity of the construct, and places the individual stress experience within a larger organizational context of people's relation to their work. Recently, the work on burnout has expanded internationally and has led to new conceptual models. The focus on engagement, the positive antithesis of burnout, promises to yield new perspectives on interventions to alleviate burnout. The social focus of burnout, the solid research basis concerning the syndrome, and its specific ties to the work domain make a distinct and valuable contribution to people's health and well-being.
A scale designed to assess various aspects of the burnout syndrome was administered to a wide range of human services professionals. Three subscales emerged from the data analysis: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Various psychometric analyses showed that the scale has both high reliability and validity as a measure of burnout. Since the publication of this article in 1981, more extensive research was done on the MBI, which resulted in some modifications of the original measure. The present article has been re-edited to reflect those modifications. However, it does not include other new additions (which are contained in the MBI Manual distributed by the publisher, Mind Garden).
This study aimed to investigate the role of sleep physiology in recovery from burnout, in particular the relation between sleep and changes in fatigue and whether those changes would be related to return to work.23 white-collar workers on long-term sick leave (>3 months) due to a burnout related diagnosis and 16 healthy controls were subjected to polysomnographic recordings at baseline and after 6–12 months’ rehabilitation. Occupational status, subjective sleep quality, fatigue, anxiety and depression were assessed. Recovery from burnout was accompanied by improved sleep continuity. Significant interaction effects were seen for number of arousals, sleep fragmentation, sleep latency, sleep efficiency and time of rising. The burnout group improved significantly on all symptom variables although the post-treatment levels did not reach the levels of the controls. Recovery from fatigue was related to a reduction of the arousal from sleep and was the best predictor of return to work.
As the job climate continues to change, many perfusionists are faced with high employee turnover rates, working longer hours, and increased stress related to more complex surgeries. Understanding the sources of professional burnout and stress may allow the formulation of a strategy to help prevent such negative outcomes. The purpose of this study was to determine the current level of stress and burnout among perfusionists.
A questionnaire was constructed with the use of SurveyMonkey®. Invitations requesting participation in the survey were distributed by electronic mail to members of PerfList and PerfMail. To assess burnout, components of the well-established Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) tool were used.
At p<0.05, job demand variables such as stress level, conflict, call duties, hours worked, and case load were all shown to have a statistically significant relationship to burnout.
The study found that, among the various factors, job demands were the most likely culprit contributing to burnout. Stress level and conflict, in particular, had the strongest association to burnout.
This study examined the associations of job control, organizational justice and bullying at the workplace with emotional exhaustion. This was done by adjusting firstly for age and occupational class, secondly physical work factors, thirdly mutually adjusting for the three psychosocial factors and fourthly adjusting for all studied variables simultaneously.Data were derived from the Helsinki Health Study baseline surveys conducted in 2001 and 2002, including 40-60-year-old employees of the City of Helsinki (n = 5819, response rate 66%). Exhaustion was measured with a six-item subscale from Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Psychosocial factors included Karasek's job control, organizational justice and bullying at the workplace. Logistic regression analysis was used.
Among women 23% and among men 20% reported symptoms of emotional exhaustion. Among women all psychosocial factors were associated with exhaustion when adjusted for age and occupational class as confounders. When physical work factors were additionally adjusted for, the associations slightly attenuated but remained. When psychosocial work factors were simultaneously adjusted for each other, their associations with exhaustion attenuated but remained. Among men all psychosocial factors were associated with exhaustion when adjusted for confounders only. When adjusted for physical work factors the associations slightly attenuated. When psychosocial factors were simultaneously adjusted for each other, associations of organizational justice and bullying with exhaustion attenuated but remained whereas job control lost its association.
Identifying risk factors for emotional exhaustion is vital for preventing subsequent processes leading to burnout. Psychosocial factors are likely to contribute to exhaustion among female as well as male employees. Thus management and occupational health care should devote more attention to the psychosocial work environment in order to be able to prevent exhaustion and burnout at the workplaces.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to focus on the career of the burnout concept itself, rather than reviewing research findings on burnout.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper presents an overview of the concept of burnout.
Findings
– The roots of the burnout concept seem to be embedded within broad social, economic, and cultural developments that took place in the last quarter of the past century and signify the rapid and profound transformation from an industrial society into a service economy. This social transformation goes along with psychological pressures that may translate into burnout. After the turn of the century, burnout is increasingly considered as an erosion of a positive psychological state. Although burnout seems to be a global phenomenon, the meaning of the concept differs between countries. For instance, in some countries burnout is used as a medical diagnosis, whereas in other countries it is a non‐medical, socially accepted label that carries a minimum stigma in terms of a psychiatric diagnosis.
Originality/value
– The paper documents that the exact meaning of the concept of burnout varies with its context and the intentions of those using the term.
The experience of role stress has been linked to burnout as an important job stressor, but the impact of this stressor in the context of engagement (characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption) has not yet been sufficiently studied among nurses. Personal resources also appear to influence the process of burnout and engagement.
This study examines the influence of role stress and personal resources (optimism, hardy personality and emotional competence) in nursing on burnout and engagement dimensions.
Cross-sectional data from 508 nurses from general hospitals in Madrid (Spain) showed that both role stress and personal resources were related to burnout and engagement dimensions, although role stress was more closely related to nursing burnout, whereas personal resources were more closely related to nursing engagement. In addition, optimism as a personal resource, showed a moderator effect on exhaustion and the three dimensions of engagement.
The study provides additional support about role stress as an important predictor of burnout and engagement in nursing, even after controlling for personal resources and socio-demographic variables.
Sick-leave because of mental and behavioural disorders has increased considerably in Sweden since the late nineties, and especially in women. The aim of this study was to assess the level of burnout in the general working population in northern Sweden and analyse it's relation to working conditions and gender.
In this cross-sectional study the survey from the MONICA-study (Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease) in northern Sweden 2004 was used. A burnout instrument, the Shirom Melamed Burnout Questionnaire (SMBQ), was incorporated in the original survey which was sent to a random sample of 2500 individuals with a response rate of 76%. After including only actively working people, aged 25-64 years, our study population consisted of 1000 participants (497 women and 503 men). ANOVA and multiple linear regression models were used.
The prevalence of a high level of burnout (SMBQ >4.0) was 13%. Women had a higher level of burnout than men with the most pronounced difference in the age group 35-44 years. In both sexes the level of burnout decreased with age. Demand and control at work, and job insecurity were related to burnout. In women the level of education, socioeconomic position, work object, and working varying hours were of importance. Interaction effects were found between sex and work object, and sex and working hours. In a multiple regression analysis almost half of the gender difference could be explained by work related and life situational factors.
Working life conditions contributed to the level of burnout in this actively working sample from the general population in northern Sweden. Especially in women, socioeconomic position was associated with burnout. The high level of burnout in women compared to men was partly explained by more unfavourable working conditions and life situational factors. Efforts to level out gender differences in burnout should probably focus on improving both working and socioeconomic conditions for women.
In the present study the effect of a workplace-oriented intervention for persons on long-term sick leave for clinical burnout, aimed at facilitating return to work (RTW) by job-person match through patient-supervisor communication, was evaluated. We hypothesised that the intervention group would show a more successful RTW than a control group.
In a prospective controlled study, subjects were identified by the regional social insurance office 2-6 months after the first day on sick leave. The intervention group (n = 74) was compared to a control group who had declined participation, being matched by length of sick leave (n = 74). The RTW was followed up, using sick-listing register data, until 1.5 years after the time of intervention.
There was a linear increase of RTW in the intervention group during the 1.5-year follow-up period, and 89% of subjects had returned to work to some extent at the end of the follow-up period. The increase in RTW in the control group came to a halt after six months, and only 73% had returned to work to some extent at the end of the 1.5-year follow-up.
We conclude that the present study demonstrated an improvement of long-term RTW after a workplace-oriented intervention for patients on long-term sick leave due to burnout.
Current Controlled Trials NCT01039168.
Purpose
The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between leadership styles and burnout among hospitality managers currently working in the industry of Cyprus. Specifically, transformational, transactional and passive/avoidance are to be investigated in order to establish which leadership style is more prone to burnout effects.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting a quantitative approach, the multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ 5X‐Short) was utilized to allow research participants to describe their leadership style as they perceive it. In addition, the most widely acknowledged tool for measuring burnout, the Maslach burnout inventory (MBI), was also incorporated in the questionnaire, which was then distributed to 500 hospitality managers in Cyprus. A number of hypotheses, reflecting the primary objective of the study, were postulated.
Findings
The findings suggest that transformational leadership has a significant positive association with personal accomplishment and is negatively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. In addition a positive relationship exists between passive avoidance leadership and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Finally, individuals with a passive avoidance leadership style exhibited higher levels of burnout.
Research limitations/implications
It is well documented in the literature that surveys measuring sensitive issues, such as leadership styles and burnout levels, have inbuilt limitations. With regards to leadership, the authors acknowledge that they were not able to replicate the original nine‐factor solution of the MLQ 5X, therefore, findings should be viewed with caution. The second limitation is the small sample size ( n =131) and the homogeneity of the sample, which limit the generalizability of the findings.
Practical implications
The findings have a practical relevance to both hospitality stakeholders and academic scholars who wish to further explore the leadership‐burnout association. In addition, human resources practitioners could utilize the findings when developing strategies for recruiting and developing leaders.
Originality/value
The paper adds to existing knowledge by investigating an issue presented in just a few hospitality‐related studies. While burnout and leadership separately have captured the attention of hospitality researchers, studies investigating their association are ubiquitous by their absence. The insights derived from this paper are of value to academic scholars wishing to build on this exploratory investigation.
Junior doctors face specific pressures related to their professional stage and development and can be at risk of poor health. A confidential survey conducted in 2008 by the Australian Medical Association Council of Doctors in Training investigated the health and wellbeing of junior doctors. There were 914 completed surveys: 71% of junior doctors were concerned about their own health, and 63% about the health of a colleague. A majority of junior doctors met well established criteria for low job satisfaction (71%), burnout (69%) and compassion fatigue (54%). The early stages of a medical career are demanding, and the health and wellbeing of junior doctors must be a personal priority, as well as the responsibility of the medical profession in general, to ensure a healthy medical workforce in the future.
This study examined the direct and buffering effects of mentoring on the relationship between adverse working conditions and positive (i.e. intrinsic job satisfaction and career satisfaction) and negative (i.e. the burnout dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment) employee outcomes. Moderated regression analyses on the data of 1,320 faculty members showed direct effects of mentoring on both positive and negative employee outcomes. Moreover, from the results of testing the buffering hypotheses, it appears that mentoring is possibly not only an important career development and psychosocial resource in prosperity, but also maybe an important tool to improve positive employee outcomes and to reduce burnout when employees are confronted with adverse working conditions. Implications of results and directions for future research are discussed.
Happiness-a composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions-predicts desirable life outcomes in many domains. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that this is because positive emotions help people build lasting resources. To test this hypothesis, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students (N = 86) and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Positive emotions predicted increases in both resilience and life satisfaction. Negative emotions had weak or null effects and did not interfere with the benefits of positive emotions. Positive emotions also mediated the relation between baseline and final resilience, but life satisfaction did not. This suggests that it is in-the-moment positive emotions, and not more general positive evaluations of one's life, that form the link between happiness and desirable life outcomes. Change in resilience mediated the relation between positive emotions and increased life satisfaction, suggesting that happy people become more satisfied not simply because they feel better but because they develop resources for living well.
This chapter describes why it is imperative for the economy as well as for the individual to counter the burnout syndrome by prevention. To establish a case for the preventive potentials and possible approaches of communication, the salutogenic concept-The close relationship between the burnout syndrome and the symptoms of stress-and the individual as well as the context-related course of the process will be described and explained in detail. The chapter closes with an urgent appeal to make an interdisciplinary effort (disciplines in the cognitive, psychological, and physiological areas) to analyze the burnout syndrome and derive prevention strategies from the results so that their effective and lasting success may be assured. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013. All rights are reserved.
Burnout is a syndrome caused by chronic stress, mostly at work. The syndrome consists of three components: emotional exhaustion (a state of losing mental and psychological resources that causes depletion of mental energy), cynicism or depersonalization (a negative attitude toward relationships in a workplace), and diminished professional competence (feeling of reduced sense of personal accomplishment or by a negative view of self-efficacy). Individuals with burnout may present with either or all of the physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and motivational symptoms. Burnout shares some symptoms with chronic stress, depression, neurasthenia, or adjustment disorder. Nevertheless, the core emotional and cognitive symptoms are different. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013. All rights are reserved.
Because emotional exhaustion is the key component of burnout, it is important to recognize the factors that may promote emotional exhaustion. According to recent studies, psychosocial work factors are likely to generate emotional exhaustion among employees. The central aim of this chapter is to analyze the associations between emotional exhaustion and psychosocial work factors among middle-aged employees. This chapter includes some ideas on what kind of studies and information are required on this issue in the future, as well as some guidelines on how to prevent emotional exhaustion in the workplace and improve employees' health and well-being. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013. All rights are reserved.
This chapter presents an overview of factors related to burnout. In terms of environmental risk factors, which are external to the individual, working conditions such as human-computer interaction, involvement with people, daylight, shift work, ambient noise and overcrowding, and job settings such as work overload, lack of control, insufficient reward, lack of fairness, conflicting values, and job insecurity are investigated. Individual risk factors are internal risk factors consisting of personality features such as neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, alexithymia and Type A behavior, demographical features, and neurobiological features. Psychiatric disorders such as depression and post-Traumatic stress disorders can be precursors to burnout as well as consequences of burnout. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013. All rights are reserved.
Burnout prevention is a growing market. The systematic review of burnout intervention studies (1995a to 2011) gives an overview of the effectiveness of different approaches. Using three databases, 34 primary studies were identified. Twenty-four are person-centered, ten are combined individual–organizational interventions. Seventy-six percent show a positive effect on burnout. Five studies were followed for periods ranging from 1 to 3 years. In three of these studies, the intervention is effective with regard to burnout outcome measures. To conclude, the effects of the studies can be enhanced in refresher courses. Future research should focus on combined (person-centered and organization-based) interventions, include different risk groups, and provide long-term follow-up.
Burnout is not an automatic process that is dependent only on occupational stressors, but the result of the interaction between the person and the occupational context. Burnout is an emotional consequence of coping with the stressors. For this purpose, a model of emotional personality variables was established that constitutes the model of emotional resilience (MER): hardiness, optimism, and emotional competence. People with these characteristics of resistance do not avoid situations or just passively bear negative events; they are capable of making decisions for their own benefit and for that of the organization, as well as pointing out unfair situations or situations that generate distress.
This study examined the efficacy of an evidence based supportive leadership program to address psychosocial hazards identified in an organisational health review of a pastoral care organisation. Participants were employees and volunteers identified as having supervisory or management roles (N = 24; M = 11, F = 13; Age Range = 24 to 68), including the Senior Leadership Team (SLT; n = 7). The supportive leadership program was implemented over a 12-month period with follow-up over another 12-month period. Organisational health was measured through the use of the Health and Safety Executive Indicator Tool (HSE, 2004b) and qualitative interview data at pre-intervention and at 12- and 24-month follow-up. The results of the HSE Tool were compared over time, utilising the comparison benchmarks provided by the HSE (2004b). Results indicated notable improvements in organisational health within the SLT with reductions in risk status at 24-month follow-up across the domains of Control, Managerial Support, Peer Support, Relationships, Role and Change. Supportive leadership is a key predictor in organisational health and burnout, and importance in improving organisational health across managers.
Using multiple theoretical perspectives (stress, conservation of resources, and deviance), we investigated the relationship between burnout and personality. Burnout is measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishments), and personality is captured with the Mini-Marker Inventory (extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, and emotional stability). Regression analyses controlling for demographic characteristics, based on 265 instructors of a large state university, indicated that emotional exhaustion is negatively related to extroversion and emotional stability and positively related to openness to experience. Depersonalization is negatively related to agreeableness and emotional stability. Personal accomplishments are positively related to extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability. Implications of the results are discussed.
Job burnout is a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job and is defined here by the three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and sense of inefficacy. Its presence as a social problem in many human services professions was the impetus for the research that is now taking place in many countries. That research has established the complexity of the problem and has examined the individual stress experience within a larger social and organizational context of people's response to their work. The framework, which focuses attention on the interpersonal dynamics between the worker and other people in the workplace, has yielded new insights into the sources of stress, but effective interventions have yet to be developed and evaluated.
Effective schools research gave birth to a new role for principals: instructional leader. Recent studies have suggested the relationship between strong school instructional leadership and higher student achievement. Skeptics question whether the principal’s job is realistic and reasonable, with its emphasis on instructional leadership, multiple managerial responsibilities, and conflicting time demands. A more crucial question is, can the job allow the principal more time for instructional pursuits to provide greater impact on student learning? The answer to which this article explores.
New principals may find that the school and the community will judge them by the way they act during the early days of their appointment. Some hints from a principal who is no Longer entirely a beginner may help smooth the path.
Clinician educators are uniquely positioned to enjoy the benefits of a career in patient care and teaching. They are also at risk of increasing levels of stress and potential burnout. Factors contributing to burnout in clinician educators include the work environment, the type of work the individual is performing (patient care, teaching, etc.), personality characteristics being female, insufficient social support, and mismanaged responsibilities. Individuals experiencing increasing stress and burnout may present with physical, emotional, and mental warning signs. Clinician educators, their supervisors, and their mentors must work together to prevent burnout. Strategies to prevent burnout include reducing stress, keeping personal health strong, building a strong social network, obtaining clear expectations in all facets of one's professional life, improving time management, participating in a mentoring program, and self-reflecting on personality characteristics that may be contributing to stress and burnout.
Purpose
This paper aims to make a contribution to the field of sustainable leadership development. It seeks to explore the positive implications associated with developing a vital leadership team. The paper addresses the rising concerns about leadership burnout and aims to offer a view on how to develop sustainable leaders and vital organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
The views offered come from client work in the field using an action inquiry methodology. The author/consultant takes an appreciative, social constructionist view of organisations.
Findings
Taking an expert‐led, linear approach to the development of leaders' vitality brings with it many limitations. This paper discusses the positive implications surrounding taking a complexity based approach to the vitality of leaders in organisations. It discusses how change occurs in the area of wellbeing, which is an area where change is notoriously difficult and often unsustainable. Finally, it discusses organisational norms that can stand in the way of executives being as vital as they need to be, to do the jobs asked of them.
Practical implications
The paper provides a practical approach for HR, OD and business leaders to begin investigating the relative vitality of their workforce and offers key insights into how to take an integrated approach to leadership development (inclusive of vitality).
Originality/value
The paper offers new insights into the emerging field of sustainable leadership – a relatively untouched performance opportunity for those interested in leadership development.
Purpose
To examine the impact of transformational‐leadership on job stress (JS) and the impact of (JS) on burnout.
Design/methodology/approach
Hospitality industry employees were interviewed regarding the type of leadership used by their managers, the stress they felt due to their jobs, and the degree to which they felt they were “burned out.”
Findings
Degree of perceived burnout is related to degree of perceived stress and degree of perceived stress is related to type of leadership employed by managers.
Practical implications
If employees perceive that their managers are using transformational‐leadership, (JS) is perceived as less than if it is perceived as not being used. Given the costs associated with employee replacement, reduced burnout means a reduction in those costs. And, the social and economic cost to society of treating employees who are “burned out” is reduced.
Originality/value
This paper shows that the relationship between type of leadership, (JS) and burnout is not only the province of “white collar” employees but extends to lower levels in the organizational hierarchy as well. Customer‐contact workers in hotels/motels and restaurants are subject to the same feelings as nurses or other professionals. It may not be the degree of stress that causes burnout. Both higher paid and lower paid workers understand that there is stress associated with their jobs and understand that change, by definition, is stressful; but the methods their managers use to encourage acceptance of change play a large role in how stressful such changes are perceived. The paper also points out how hospitality managers can mitigate stress and burnout of their employees by implementing transformational leadership methods and techniques and the challenges that they might face through this implementation process.
Four papers on burnout appear in this issue of Work & Stress. This commentary gives an indication of how they add to the pool of knowledge regarding the prevalence of burnout and its chronic nature. A lapse common to most papers on this subject is then discussed: the lack of attention to burnout's relationships with other negative affective states, primarily depression. Finally, some of the major similarities and differences among various measures of burnout represented in this special edition are discussed. The concluding comment addresses future theoretical challenges to burnout researchers.
This article seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate on the dimensionality of the burnout syndrome. Specifically, its aims are: (1) to investigate the role of efficacy beliefs using negatively worded inefficacy items instead ofpositive ones and (2) to establish whether depersonalization and cynicism can be considered two different dimensions of the teacher burnout syndrome. The results show that, compared with efficacy beliefs, inefficacy beliefs relate more strongly to the other burnout dimensions considered by the study (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and cynicism). Moreover, using partial disaggregation method, a better fit is found for the four-factor model with separate depersonalization and cynicism dimensions than for the three-factor model in which depersonalization and cynicism are collapsed into one factor. The article concludes that future research on teacher burnout should: (1) use the inefficacy scale as the "third dimension" of burnout, rather than the efficacy scale, and (2) include the cynicism and depersonalization constructs. © Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa, Portugal and Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.
Burnout researchers have proposed that the conceptual opposites of emotional exhaustion and cynicism (the core dimensions of burnout) are vigor and dedication (the core dimensions of engagement), respectively (
[11] and [24]). We tested this proposition by ascertaining whether two sets of items, exhaustion–vigor and cynicism–dedication, were scalable on two distinct underlying bipolar dimensions (i.e., energy and identification, respectively). The results obtained by means of the non-parametric Mokken scaling method in three different samples (Ns = 477, 507, and 381) supported our proposal: the core burnout and engagement dimensions can be seen as opposites of each other along two distinct bipolar dimensions dubbed energy and identification.
The occupational health literature has long been dominated by stress-related topics. A more contemporary perspective suggests using a positive approach in the form of a health model focused on what is right with people, such as feelings of well-being and satisfaction.
Using a positive perspective and multi-source data collection, this study investigated the inter-relationships among emotional intelligence (EI), patient satisfaction, doctor burnout and job satisfaction.
In this observational study, 110 internists and 2872 out-patients were surveyed in face-to-face interviews.
Higher self-rated EI was significantly associated with less burnout (p<0.001) and higher job satisfaction (p<0.001). Higher patient satisfaction was correlated with less burnout (p<0.01). Less burnout was found to be associated with higher job satisfaction (p<0.001).
This study identified EI as a factor in understanding doctors' work-related issues. Given the multi-dimensional nature of EI, refinement of the definition of EI and the construct validity of EI as rated by others require further examination.
Context:
Burnout is prevalent among medical students and is a predictor of subsequent serious consideration of dropping out of medical school and suicide ideation. Understanding of the factors that protect against burnout is needed to guide student wellness programmes.
Methods:
A total of 1321 medical students attending five institutions were studied longitudinally (2006-2007). The surveys included standardised instruments to evaluate burnout, quality of life, fatigue and stress. Additional items explored social support, learning climate, life events, employment status and demographics. Students who did not have burnout at either time-point (resilient students) were compared with those who indicated burnout at one or both time-points (vulnerable students) using a Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test or Fisher's exact test. Similarly, the differences between those who recovered and those who were chronically burned out were also compared in students with burnout at the first time-point. Logistic regression modelling was employed to evaluate associations between the independent variables and resiliency to and recovery from burnout.
Results:
Overall, 792 (60.0%) students completed the burnout inventory at both time-points. No differences in demographic characteristics were observed between resilient (290/792 [36.6%]) and vulnerable (502/792 [63.4%]) students. Resilient students were less likely to experience depression, had a higher quality of life, were less likely to be employed, had experienced fewer stressful life events, reported higher levels of social support, perceived their learning climate more positively and experienced less stress and fatigue (all p < 0.05) than vulnerable students. On multivariable analysis, perceiving student education as a priority for faculty staff, experiencing less stress, not being employed and being a minority were factors independently associated with recovery from burnout.
Conclusions:
Modifiable individual factors and learning climate characteristics including employment status, stress level and perceptions of the prioritising of student education by faculty members relate to medical students' vulnerability to burnout.
Describe and interpret the process of help-seeking among human service professionals with burnout.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 participants. Analysis was conducted using principles of grounded theory.
All participants were dedicated and responsible workers, selflessly giving themselves to their work. Work was demanding, and often included some form of organisational change. After a period of time the problems of ill health appeared, since persons were overstretching their resources. However, the symptoms were denied, since the image of the ideal worker has been internalised and persons expected maximum performance from themselves. They kept on working hard and delayed the help-seeking process. Eventually, help was sought for medical symptoms or by talking to the supervisors. If postponed for too long, persons experienced a breaking point.
Human service professionals with burnout internalise the ideal image of their professional role. They strive to keep this ideal image at the cost of their own needs, taking a long time to seek help for the obstacles they encounter.
More awareness raising is needed in order to recognise early burnout symptoms. Particularly crucial in this process are supervisors and doctors, who have an authority role over employees.
The aims of the paper are to examine the role of burnout in the relationship between stress factors related to nurses' work and social environment and intention to leave the profession and to investigate the nature of the relationship between burnout and intention to leave the nursing profession.
A postulate of the job demands-resources model is that two distinct yet related processes contribute to the development of burnout. The energetic process originates from demands and is mainly centered on emotional exhaustion; the motivational process originates from resources and is mainly centered on depersonalization. Moreover, we postulated that the two components of burnout are linked indirectly to intention to leave the profession via psychosomatic complaints, associated with the energetic process, and via professional commitment, associated with the motivational process.
The research model was tested on cross-sectional data collected in 2005 from 1636 registered nurses working in hospitals who responded to a self-administrated questionnaire.
Demands are the most important determinants of emotional exhaustion and indirectly induce depersonalization via emotional exhaustion, whereas resources mainly predict depersonalization. Moreover, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are linked to psychosomatic complaints and professional commitment, which are in turn associated with intention to leave the profession.
The results suggest that a dual strategy is needed in order to retain nurses within the profession: a decrease in job demands, coupled with an increase in available job resources. In particular, nurses' tasks and role should be restructured to reduce work overload and increase the meaning of their work.
In recent years, a growing body of evidence has linked positive emotional health with lower cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, independent of negative emotion. Several potential mechanisms have been posited to account for these associations, including improved health behavior, direct physiological benefits, and enhanced resistance to and recovery from stress among individuals with high versus low positive emotional resources. Links between positive emotion and health have implications for targeted interventions, but no empirical investigations to date have tested the impact of efforts to enhance positive emotion on cardiovascular risk. Nevertheless, some existing data point to the potential value of strategies to increase emotional resources for individuals' functional health and capacity to manage stress.
Stress-related illnesses, such as burnout, have increased over the last decade, but not everyone at the same workplace develops burnout, suggesting that individual factors may contribute to this phenomenon. The aim of this study was to describe patterns of personality traits among two groups of health-care personnel from the same workplaces, one group on sick leave due to medically-assessed burnout, and one group with no indication of burnout, respectively. Fourteen psychiatric- (n = 7) and elderly (n = 7)-care units, located in one specific area in a municipality in northern Sweden, participated in this questionnaire-based study. The participants (n = 40), on sick leave due to medically-assessed burnout (n = 20), and those with no indication of burnout (n = 20), respectively, completed Cattell's 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire between February and December 2004. Conventional statistical methods and partial least square regression were used to analyze data. The results showed that the burnout group had lower scores regarding emotional stability and higher scores regarding anxiety than the non-burnout group, but the results also showed a wide variation of personality traits within groups. The most important indicators for belonging to the burnout group were 'openness to changes' and 'anxiety', and for belonging to the non-burnout group, 'emotional stability', 'liveliness', 'privateness' (i.e. forthright or discreet), and 'tension'. The result indicates complex interactions between personality traits and the context in which the individual lives. It seems to be important to increase our awareness of when personality traits may constitute opportunities versus risks in dealing with one's existing circumstances.