Relationships of Leadership Style and Burnout to Counselors' Perceptions of their Jobs, Themselves, and their Clients

Abstract

Professional burnout and factors related to the burnout phenomenon are issues that frequently appear in the current literature. Empirical studies to establish the relationships between perceived burnout and pertinent personal or organizational characteristics are difficult to find, however. This exploratory study sought to investigate relationships between counselors' felt degree of burnout and their perceptions of school leadership style, themselves, their job, and their clients. It was found that leadership style in the school was related to counselor's perceptions of themselves and their jobs, but not to their views of their clients or their own potency. Further, it was found that self-reported burnout was strongly related to counselors' perceptions and that self, job, and clients were all perceived more negatively as burnout increased.

Symptoms of professional burnout: A review of the empirical evidence.

“…Pines and Kafry (1978) found that burnout was associated with the development of negative attitudes toward clients among social service workers (r=.48), as did Gillespie (1980) for protective service workers (r = .43) and Maslach and Jackson (1981) for mental health workers as assessed by coworkers (r=.33 with Emotional Exhaustion). In a sample of school counsellors studied by Cummings and Nall (1983), high burnout subjects attached more negative meanings (as measured by the Semantic Differential technique) to concepts of client, job, and self, than did low burnout subjects. Negative attitudes toward work in general have been demonstrated among burned out mental health workers in an exploratory study by Pines and Maslach (1978), and by Pines and Kafry (1978) among social service workers (r=.46 between burnout and positive work attitudes).…”

Intrapersonal and Organizational Factors Associated With Burnout Among School Counselors

“…Burnout among school counselors has been correlated with demographic variables (Hansen, 1967;Moracco et al, 1984;Parker, 1982;Sears & Navin, 1983;Stickel, 1991), individual personality attributes (Cummings & Nall, 1983;Wiggins, 1984), and organizational issues Kendrick, Chandler, & Hatcher, 1994;Pierson-Hubeny & Archambault, 1987;Stickel, 1991;Thompson & Powers, 1983). However, no existing study of school counselors has attempted to examine all of these correlates simultaneously.…”

Occupational Stress Within the Counseling Profession: Implications for Counselor Training

“…Researchers have discussed the relationship between stress and counseling effectiveness (Cummings & Nall, 1983), burnout (Maslach, 1982), and coping strategies for counselors including individual and group supervision for support (Davis. 1989;McAuliffe, 1992).…”