The Incremental Association of Implementation Leadership and School Personnel Burnout Beyond Transformational Leadership

• Published in: School psychology Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 269 - 279
• Main Authors: Corbin, Catherine M., Lyon, Aaron R., Collins, Vaughan K., Ehrhart, Mark G., Goosey, Roger, Locke, Jill
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Educational Publishing Foundation 01-05-2024
• Subjects: Adult; Burnout; Burnout, Professional - prevention & control; Burnout, Professional - psychology; Educational Personnel; Evidence-Based Practice; Female; Human; Humans; Leadership; Male; Middle Aged; School Based Intervention; School Teachers; Schools; Transformational Leadership; school personnel; school-wide interventions; burnout; transformational leadership; implementation leadership
• ISBN: 9781433897726; 1433897725; 9781433897733; 1433897733
• ISSN: 2578-4218; 2578-4226
• DOI: 10.1037/spq0000577

Successful implementation of school-wide interventions (i.e., delivered to all students by a wide array of school personnel) is key to promoting students' academic achievement and psychosocial development. Yet, the implementation of school-wide interventions is complex and can be psychologically taxing for implementing personnel. If evidence-based practice and program (EBP) implementation goes unsupported, implementation challenges might result in chronic stress among school personnel that leads to burnout. While generally effective leadership tends to decrease educator burnout, implementation-specific leadership may also decrease burnout through its strategic supports for EBP implementation. A series of linear regression and path models were used to examine the concurrent association between transformational (e.g., general) and implementation (e.g., strategic) leadership and burnout and its component parts (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment). In a sample of 338 school personnel, we found transformational and implementation leadership were each significantly associated with decreased burnout. However, transformational leadership was not significantly associated with any of the three burnout components, whereas implementation leadership was significantly associated with increased personal accomplishment. These results suggest both general and strategic forms of leadership are key supports for school personnel burnout and as such, leaders may benefit from training to improve each. Additional implications for schools and future directions to understand how best to support school personnel are discussed.
Impact and Implications
Little is known about how to support the well-being of all school personnel responsible for implementating evidence-based school-wide interventions. School leaders can generally support professional tasks and do things that specifically target intervention implementation. Results from this study suggest that both general and implementation-specific leadership are associated with lower levels of school personnel burnout. Thus, investing in strategic leadership approaches may lead to improved well-being among school personnel.