Burnout: How Leadership Impacts Worker Productivity - Essay Sample

Burnout is caused by a prolonged state of stress, which results in physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. When this occurs, the people concerned will suffer from a lack of motivation, which results in reduced productivity in the people concerned. The leadership of an organization plays a critical role in the output provided by the workers. Leadership in organizations is supposed to provide the employees with the needed positive work environments, which will, in turn, provide the workforce with the motivation they require to succeed in their endeavors. In turn, adverse environments will create instances where the employees will be demotivated, experience burnout and, produce little output, which is also of low quality. For this reason, this paper will examine the effects the leadership styles applied by principals have on the existence of burnout in the employees under them.

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Demirhan and Yucel (2016) pose an unusual situation when they discuss the effects of management style on the commitment and possibility of burnout in an institution's teachers. Leadership is linked to the performance and motivation of employees. Therefore, if a principal develops a definite leadership style, they are likelier to experience instances where the teachers under them will perform better than those under teachers who have a negative leadership style. When positive leaderships are in place, the institution employees will become committed to their jobs, since they will be motivated to work hard in their tasks.

Motivated and committed employees are not likely to experience burnout since they will develop systems through which they can adapt to the situations that they face. When employees are motivated, they will be vigorous in addressing the issues they face. They will also develop systems through which they can repel the possibility of burnout affecting their performance. When employees are committed and motivated, their output quality is excellent, hence encouraging the principals in place to continue with the leadership style that was working, giving room for the employees a chance to continue working even harder towards achieving the goals that have been set for them. Achievement of goals has also been found to reduce the possibility of burnout happening in the employees.

Jing et al. (2017) posit that the principals and employees' coping styles in the institutions that they work in determine their mental health, which in turn leads to the development or reduction of the possibility of burnouts. Leadership styles are responsible for setting the mood under which the workforce operates. Therefore they are responsible for the motivation or lack of it thereof in the employees of the organizations. It is therefore for this reason that Jing et al. (2017) argue that the mental health of the employees are directly linked to the work environments that they operate in, partly because of the ability or inability to cope with the conditions that they find themselves in and also because of the existence or lack of burnout in them.

Principals in institutions are under pressure to deliver the organizations' requirements that they lead, and they are required to adjust to the expectations. When they effectively adjust, they will be able to formulate policies in the workplace that will provide the employees with the necessary environments and conditions under which they can effectively execute their tasks. If they do not, they will end up using negative leadership styles, which will then lead to the employees having to adjust and adapt to the pressure, lest they end up experiencing burnout during their stay in the organizations in question.

Kelly and Hearld (2020) argue that burnout comes from the outcomes of the activities that the employees have been assigned. Therefore, this means that the employees in an organization will only be able to operate without experiencing burnout when they can get positive results, which will, in turn, provide them with the motivation that they need to excel in their endeavors. The leadership is responsible for the possibility of the workforce overcoming the challenges in their activities and getting the positive results that they need to motivate them. The leadership is also responsible for ensuring that the work environments are positive enough for the employees to get the required outcomes in their endeavors.

Principals and their leadership styles are responsible for the outcomes in the institutions that they lead. When the institutions are headed by principals who recognize the need for positive and advanced leadership styles, then the employees under them will enjoy the benefits associated with positive leadership, which reduces the possibility of experiencing burnout. On the other hand, when the principals have negative leadership styles, then they will create detrimental work environments, which will, in turn, create room for the workers to experience burnout. Burnout will reduce the employees' productivity, which will worsen the outcomes from the duties they are assigned to do.

Morkeviciut and Endriulaitiene (2017) present an argument that ethical leadership could unintentionally lead to burnout in the employees. When employees are under ethical leadership, their motivation to work towards achieving organizational goals is increased, and therefore, the organization's prosperity is assured. However, out of enthusiasm and adoration for the management, some employees may end up overworking themselves, creating an instance whereby they will be under excessive pressure to perform and achieve that they will experience burnout. Burnout is the stress that has been built up over time. Therefore, the employees' continued stressing of themselves to achieve the goals set for themselves apart from those set by the management will lead to burnout, which significantly reduces their performance.

Despite having positive effects on the employees, a reward system may also create a situation whereby the employees develop burnout. When employees are rewarded for outstanding performance, competition arises between them to see which one of them will be rewarded next, creating a situation whereby they will go the extra mile in work assigned to them, resulting in the building up of stress eventually results in burnout. Therefore, despite the positive effects of rewards, the resulting competition may build up burnout in the employees, resulting in unwanted effects.

Widjaya and colleagues (2020) argue that the leadership style of management in institutions is responsible for the workforce's job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is associated with the way an institution is run, since the positive behaviors applied in the process of leadership create an aura of positivity, which in turn encourages the workforce to work harder towards achieving positive outcomes from their duties, compared to the employees in workplaces where they are under negative leadership styles which will lead to the reduction of productivity. When productivity is lost, the employees lose motivation, which in turn leads to burnout. Burnout also affects the employees' productivity, which leads to further possibility of the employees losing their productivity.

Burnout in employees in institutions where the leadership does not provide favorable environments for their performance is common. When this happens, the employees lose the satisfaction they had been previously enjoying from their jobs, resulting in burnout. The leadership styles applied by the principals in institutions will determine the institutions' practices, which will, in turn, set the environment in which the workforce will be operating in. Therefore, when the leadership in the said institutions takes up positive leadership styles, the possibility of burnout is minimized, compared to when the principals operate with detrimental leadership styles, which will undermine the work environments, reduce job satisfaction, and end burnout in the employees concerned.

Burnout in employees is an eventuality that may be caused by the leadership styles that the management may take up. Therefore, the principals in institutions must adopt positive leadership styles that will enable the employees under them to produce the best outcomes from the tasks assigned to them. The motivation to work that comes from the leadership styles employed will result in employees' motivation to work even harder to meet the organizational goals, which gives them more motivation, reducing the possibility of them experiencing burnout.

References

Demirhan, G., & Yucel, C. (2016). A prediction for teacher commitment; Effects of managerial style, burnout and demographics. Research in Social Sciences and Technology, 1(1).

Jiang, X. R., Du, J. J., & Dong, R. Y. (2017). Coping style, job burnout and mental health of university teachers of the millennial generation. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 13(7), 3379-3392.

Kelly, R. J., & Hearld, L. R. (2020). Burnout and Leadership Style in Behavioral Health Care: a Literature Review. The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 1-20.

Morkeviciute, M., & Endriulaitiene, A. (2017). The role of a perceived ethical leadership style in the relationship between workaholism and occupational burnout. Tarptautinis psichologijos zurnalas: biopsichosocialinis poziuris= International journal of psychology: a biopsychosocial approach. Kaunas: Vytauto Didziojo universitetas, 2017, Nr. 20.

Widjaya, O. H., Budiono, H., & Wiyanto, H. (2020, June). The Effect of Leadership Style on Job Satisfaction Among HWI Lindeteves Shops, With Burnout as Mediating Variable. In 8th International Conference of Entrepreneurship and Business Management Untar (ICEBM 2019) (pp. 282-287). Atlantis Press.