Abstract
Despite decades of research on the issue, the problem of burnout is not decreasing. Instead, it is increasing and with it, the cost to individuals, organisations and medical funds. Studies have shown that many factors potentially influence burnout in employees and a number of causal avenues have been extensively explored, including the individual’s personality, compassion fatigue and organizational factors. Less research exists on the influence of leadership behaviour on follower burnout and this study aimed to provide more understanding of what organisations and their leaders can do to prevent or mitigate the harmful effects of burnout. Four areas were explored, including leadership behaviours that appear to impact burnout, leadership styles that play a role, work environment factors that may mediate the impact, and what approaches leaders and organisations can take to assist the recovery of followers who have reached burnout. The different areas provide a contextual, and to some degree multi-level, study.
An exploratory strategy was utilized in this qualitative study with a multiple case study approach using semi-structured interviews to glean primary data. Participants needed to have suffered burnout while working for a manager or leader in a work context and as such, a purposeful non-probability sample was used and, for selection purposes, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) was utilized to ascertain burnout scores on the measure. Participants experienced burnout in different job profiles and different industries and it is hoped this will provide some value in terms of transferability.
With a constructive-destructive leadership paradigm forming a valuable framework for the study, four destructive leadership behaviours were apparent in provoking burnout in followers, namely a lack of leadership, abusive supervision, undermining and obstructing, and unethical conduct. A fifth behaviour, supervisor support, was evidence of constructive leadership. The leadership styles of destructive, transactional and passive-avoidant elicited negative responses from the followers as did factors such as role overload, role stressors, a personal gain approach of the leader and...
M.Phil.