Leaders Enhance Group Members' Work Engagement and Reduce Their Burnout by Crafting Social Identity

Abstract

Previous research has examined burnout and work engagement as a function of demands and resources at work. Yet we know little about the ways in which these are determined by people's social experience as a member of their workgroup as shaped, in particular, by leaders' management of shared identity. To address these issues, we propose a model in which leaders' identity entrepreneurship (the degree to which the leader promotes understanding of shared group identity) impacts on group performance through burnout and work engagement. We tested our model in a field study with 641 participants from the US working population who responded to their workgroup leader and indicated their health. Results indicated that when leaders acted as identity entrepreneurs, group members not only reported higher group performance but also experienced less burnout and were more engaged at work. Moreover, the relationship between identity entrepreneurship and group performance was mediated by an increase in work engagement and a reduction in burnout both of which in turn facilitated group performance. These findings suggest that what it means for healthprotective leaders to be 'transformational' is being capable of facilitating the development of a special sense of 'us' that they and group members share.

Leaders promote attendance in sport and exercise sessions by fostering social identity

“…Our findings indicate that, with regard to promoting higher rates of attendance in sport and exercise sessions, leaders are effective when they are perceived to behave in a way that demonstrates their capacity to create , represent , advance , and embed an identity that is shared by the particular group they lead. In other words, our findings extend growing evidence from other domains for the value of leaders engaging in identity leadership . As such, they add to growing evidence for the benefits of favorable group environments for promoting physical activity, and further demonstrate the impact of social factors on individuals' physical activity behaviors .…”

“…Second, the current findings extend the growing body of evidence that highlights the benefits of identity leadership both within and outside the sport and exercise domain. Most notably, findings build upon growing evidence concerning (a) the positive relationship between identity leadership and group members' health and well‐being in organizational settings, and (b) the positive relationship between identity leadership and group members' performance in sporting settings . Bridging the gap between these two lines of research, the current findings are the first to reveal a positive relationship between identity leadership and health‐related outcomes in sport and exercise settings.…”

“…A large body of empirical evidence now supports these ideas. Of particular relevance to the present research, recent studies in organizational settings focusing on leaders' perceived identity entrepreneurship have found this to be positively associated with employees' engagement, and negatively associated with their burnout and turnover intentions . These findings speak to the potential value of identity leadership (particularly identity entrepreneurship) as a means of promoting group members' participation in physical activity settings.…”

Does customer engagement in corporate social responsibility initiatives lead to customer citizenship behaviour? The mediating roles of customer‐company identification and affective commitment

“…Finally, our research contributes to the consumer ethics literature by investigating the linkage between the social identity and social exchange perspectives as shaped by customers' CSR perceptions and customer citizenship behaviour. The findings suggest that a sense of “we‐ness” (i.e., identification) (Steffens, Haslam, Kerschreiter, Schuh, & van Dick, ), such as customer‐company identification generated from a company's CSR, combined with affective commitment toward the company, is relevant in increasing customer citizenship behaviour. This has important implications for the literature on consumer ethics.…”

The Role of Training, Democratization, and Self-Actualization in Addressing Employee Burnout

“…Several studies have confirmed a negative relationship between job satisfaction and employee burnout (Maher & El-Bedawy, 2014;Steffens, Haslam, Kerschreiter, Schuh, & Van Dick, 2014;Wang, Zheng, Hu, & Zheng, 2014). Job satisfaction reflects the degree to which a person's needs, or expectations are met at work and represents the degree of satisfaction with one's work, co-workers, supervisors, promotional opportunities, pay scale, and organizational setup.…”