Crossover of burnout from leaders to followers: a longitudinal study

Abstract

The primary purpose of this 6-month two-wave longitudinal study among 104 Chinese leader–follower dyads is to investigate whether burnout could cross over from leaders to followers, and if so, whether this crossover process could be mediated by changes of followers’ job and personal resources. As expected, the structural equation modelling results show that after controlling for follower burnout at T1, leader burnout at T1 is negatively related to changes of followers’ job and personal resources over a period of 6 months, which in turn are negatively related to follower burnout at T2. Our longitudinal study has demonstrated that resource loss plays a mediating role in the crossover of burnout from leaders to followers. The implications of these findings for the intervention of burnout in the work context are discussed.