The Role of Employee Self-Efficacy in Top-Down Burnout Crossover: A Longitudinal Study.

Burnout has been a prominent topic in the management research for over 30 years. Yet few studies have explored the conditions that foster burnout from managers to employees (indirect crossover). Based on the principle of behavioral plasticity, we propose that self-efficacy is an adaptive resource that enables employees to counter the potentially crossover effects of burnout (ie, emotional exhaustion and cynicism). This proposal is partially supported by the results of a longitudinal analysis of educators (principals and teachers): a moderating effect of employee self-efficacy was found, but only for emotional exhaustion, which is considered the basic individual stress dimension of burnout. More specifically, managerial emotional exhaustion was associated with lower emotional exhaustion over time in employees who reported higher self-efficacy, with the inverse association for employees with lower self-efficacy. This suggests that managers' emotional exhaustion can indirectly affect the experience of a congruent emotional state in their subordinates. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]