Journal of personality
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Journal of personality · Jun 2019
Comparative StudyLeaders' achievement goals predict employee burnout above and beyond employees' own achievement goals.
Burnout has primarily been examined from an individual's perspective without taking the broader environmental context into account. The authors applied an integrative, multilevel perspective and investigated the influence of leaders' motivational strivings on employee burnout. In two multisource studies, we investigated relationships between leaders' achievement goals and employee burnout while controlling for employees' own achievement goals. ⋯ We advance our understanding of the motivational etiology of burnout by examining the top-down effects of leaders' achievement goals on employee burnout over and above employees' own achievement goals. In order to reduce burnout, organizations should take leaders' achievement goals into account as an important contextual factor.