Day 3B Plenary I Keynote address I conference close
Tracks
Track A | Ball Room 1 (recorded for In-person & digital)
Track B | Ballroom 2 (recorded for In-person & digital)
Track C | Ballroom 3
Track D (Wattle Level 2)
Track E (Cassia Level 1)
| Saturday, October 26, 2024 |
| 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM |
| Grand Ballroom |
Overview
Michael Leiter | Burnout as a Relationship Crisis
Presenter
Professor Michael Leiter
Professor Emeritus
Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Burnout as a Relationship Crisis
4:30 PM - 5:30 PMAbstract
While there has been progress in helping people to better tolerate stressful workplaces, there has been too little progress creating, implementing, and evaluating methods for improving workplaces. Framing burnout as a crisis in relationships of people with their workplaces shifts the focus from managing inevitable stress reactions to resolving mismatches. Workload is an area with a great potential for mismatches with fuzzy boundaries between work and personal lives as well as greater ambiguity in evaluating productivity. Additionally, workplaces may be misaligned with the core psychological motives people bring to their careers. For example, poor workgroup cultures are mismatched with belonging. Micromanagement is mismatched with autonomy. Sparse appreciation or recognition is mismatched with efficacy.
Contemporary workplaces are characterized by diversity across a variety of indicators, reducing the possibility that consensus on core values goes without saying. Individual careers are more value driven than previous generations, yet few workplaces have developed the capacity to accommodate this quality of their workforces.
The full burnout syndrome goes far beyond feeling overextended from too much to do with too few resources. It is driven as well by mismatches on control, recognition, community, justices, and values. As a relationship problem, burnout calls for relationship solutions.
Contemporary workplaces are characterized by diversity across a variety of indicators, reducing the possibility that consensus on core values goes without saying. Individual careers are more value driven than previous generations, yet few workplaces have developed the capacity to accommodate this quality of their workforces.
The full burnout syndrome goes far beyond feeling overextended from too much to do with too few resources. It is driven as well by mismatches on control, recognition, community, justices, and values. As a relationship problem, burnout calls for relationship solutions.
Learning outcomes
- Distinguish burnout from one-dimensional states, such as being overextended.
- Identify the advantages of workgroup interventions over individual interventions in addressing burnout.
- Identify potential mismatches between people and their workplaces that may contribute to job burnout.
- Identify the advantages of workgroup interventions over individual interventions in addressing burnout.
- Identify potential mismatches between people and their workplaces that may contribute to job burnout.
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Professor Michael P. Leiter has focused his research on job burnout throughout his career in Canada, the UK, the USA, and Australia. At Acadia University he held the Canada Research Chair in Occupational Health and Wellbeing and at Deakin University he was Professor of Organisational Psychology. He has conducted numerous research projects in organisational psychology, much of it in the healthcare sector. His collaborations, most notably with Professor Christina Maslach of University of California, Berkeley, have produced definitive publications including The Truth About Burnout and The Burnout Challenge.
While at Deakin University, he partnered with the Steople consultancy to implement Strengthening a Culture of Respect and Engagement as a workgroup intervention to improve civility and reduce burnout. He currently works as a consultant to workplaces on challenges pertaining to burnout, work engagement, and the quality of collegial relationships.
