Burnout, Psychological Resilience, and Coping strategies during the COVID-19 lockdown

Description

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses worldwide closed their buildings and millions of individuals changed their ways of working - trying to find a balance between professional and personal life - all within the space of their homes. While burnout is traditionally associated with long office days, it isn't limited to that. Burnout represents a progressive loss of idealism, energy and purpose experienced by people in the helping professions due to work conditions (Maslach et al., 2001). The aim was to understand how leaders dealt with the psychological demands of crisis management during a global pandemic and forced lockdown measures and to uncover the protective role of psychological resilience and leadership style on their experience of burnout. A sample of 733 leaders (Mage = 48.2, 521 males) completed an online survey measuring emotions experienced during the lockdown, psychological resilience, burnout, leadership styles, and socio-demographics (e.g., type of business, employment status during lockdown, caring responsibilities). The results show that participants expressed high levels of burnout and psychological resilience and believed that, in times of crisis, the best type of leadership to adopt is democratic, followed by laissez-faire and authoritarian. We found positive correlations between burnout, psychological resilience, and authoritarian leadership styles and a negative correlation with a democratic leadership style. Furthermore, the relationship between psychological resilience and burnout was moderated by age, gender, executive level, and time spent within the current organisation. Finally, the most frequently adopted strategies supporting mental health - low levels of burnout and high levels of psychological resilience - were social interactions (e.g., connecting virtually with others) and physical exercise (e.g., practising yoga, mindfulness).

Period	8 Jul 2022
Event title	17th European Congress of Psychology - Psychology as the Hub Science: Opportunities and Responsibility
Event type	Conference
Location	Ljubljana, SloveniaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International