Transformational leadership and burnout: the role of thriving and followers’ openness to experience

Kristin Hildenbrand, Claudia Sacramento, Carmen Binnewies

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Grounding our research in conservation of resources theory, we set out to shed light on the relationship between transformational leadership (TFL) and employee burnout. Specifically, we considered both thriving at work, a personal resource, and employees’ openness to experience (OTE), a key resource, to uncover whether all employees benefit equally from TFL (a contextual resource). In detail, we argued that the negative effect of TFL on employee burnout is mediated by employee thriving at work, and that employees’ OTE constitutes a boundary condition of this process. Our moderated mediation model was tested with 2 waves of data from 148 employees from a midsized German manufacturing company. The results supported our hypotheses and revealed that employees’ thriving at work mediated the link between TFL and reduced burnout. As predicted, these relationships were moderated by employees’ personality in such a way that TFL affected thriving and hence burnout of employees high on OTE, but not of employees low on OTE. Taken together, our findings suggest that TFL serves as a resource that protects employees from burning out, but also highlights the need to consider employees’ personality in perceptions of and reactions to leadership. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31-43
JournalJournal of Occupational Health Psychology
Volume23
Issue number1
Early online date15 Sept 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2018

Bibliographical note

© APA. This article may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.

Keywords

  • transformational leadership
  • burnout
  • conservation of resources theory
  • thriving
  • openness to experience

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