Studies have shown that many factors potentially influence burnout in employees but little research exists on the influence of leadership behaviour on the burnout of their employees. The 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:
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 employees who have reached burnout.
An exploratory strategy was used with a qualitative, case study approach of semi-structured interviews to obtain primary data. Participants had suffered burnout while working for a manager or leader in a work context.
With a constructive-destructive leadership paradigm forming the framework for the study, four destructive leadership behaviours were apparent in provoking employee burnout: a lack of leadership, abusive supervision,
undermining and obstructing, and
unethical conduct.
A fifth behaviour, supervisor support, was evidence of constructive leadership.
The results further indicate that leaders and organisations can positively affect the recovery of employees in burnout through providing humane support, an equitable employee-employer
relationship, and building awareness among leaders and the organisation as a whole of the realities surrounding burnout. The study also categorises individual recovery approaches into six life dimensions.
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