Identity leadership, employee burnout and the mediating role of team identification: Evidence from the global identity leadership development project

van Dick R. Cordes B.L. Lemoine J.E. Steffens N.K. Haslam S.A. Akfirat S.A. Ballada C.J.A. Bazarov T. Aruta J.J.B.R. Avanzi L. Bodla A.A. Bunjak A. Černe M. Dumont K.B. Edelmann C.M. Epitropaki O. Fransen K. García-Ael C. Giessner S. Gleibs I.H. Godlewska-Werner D. González R. Kark R. Gonzalez A.L. Lam H. Lipponen J. Lupina-Wegener A. Markovits Y. Maskor M. Molero F. Monzani L. Leon J.A.M. Neves P. Orosz G. Pandey D. Retowski S. Roland-Lévy C. Samekin A. Schuh S. Sekiguchi T. Song L.J. Story J. Stouten J. Sultanova L. Tatachari S. Valdenegro D. van Bunderen L. Van Dijk D. Wong S.I. Youssef F. Zhang X.-A. Kerschreiter R.
November-2 2021 MDPI

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
2021 #18 Issue 22

Do leaders who build a sense of shared social identity in their teams thereby protect them from the adverse effects of workplace stress? This is a question that the present paper explores by testing the hypothesis that identity leadership contributes to stronger team identification among employees and, through this, is associated with reduced burnout. We tested this model with unique datasets from the Global Identity Leadership Development (GILD) project with participants from all inhabited continents. We compared two datasets from 2016/2017 (N = 5290; 20 countries) and 2020/2021 (N = 7294; 28 countries) and found very similar levels of identity leadership, team identification and burnout across the five years. An inspection of the 2020/2021 data at the onset of and later in the COVID-19 pandemic showed stable identity leadership levels and slightly higher levels of both burnout and team identification. Supporting our hypotheses, we found almost identical indirect effects (2016/2017, b = −0.132; 2020/2021, b = −0.133) across the five-year span in both datasets. Using a subset of N = 111 German participants surveyed over two waves, we found the indirect effect confirmed over time with identity leadership (at T1) predicting team identification and, in turn, burnout, three months later. Finally, we explored whether there could be a “too-much-of-a-good-thing” effect for identity leadership. Speaking against this, we found a u-shaped quadratic effect whereby ratings of identity leadership at the upper end of the distribution were related to even stronger team identification and a stronger indirect effect on reduced burnout.

Burnout , Cross-cultural study , Exhaustion , Identity leadership , Team identification

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Institute of Psychology, Goethe University, Frankfurt, 60323, Germany
School of Psychology, University of East London, London, E15 4LZ, United Kingdom
ESCP Business School, London, NW3 7BG, United Kingdom
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4072, Australia
Psychology Department, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, 35390, Turkey
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, De La Salle University, Manila, 1004, Philippines
Department of Social Psycholog, Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 125009, Russian Federation
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Rovereto, 38068, Italy
Faculty of Business and Management, Information Technology University, Lahore, 54700, Pakistan
Institute for Leadership and HRM, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, 9000, Switzerland
School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia
Department of Psychology, University of South Africa, Pretoria, 0003, South Africa
Department of Movement Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, 3000, Belgium
Durham University Business School, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LB, United Kingdom
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, 28040, Spain
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 3062 PA, Netherlands
Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics, London, WC2 2AE, United Kingdom
Institute of Psychology, University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, 80-309, Poland
School of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, 7820436, Chile
Department of Psychology and the Graduate Gender Studies Program, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 5290002, Israel
Business School, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, United Kingdom
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1001 NK, Netherlands
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, 00014, Finland
School of Engineering and Management Vaud, HES-SO, Yverdon-les-Bains, 1401, Switzerland
Independent Authority of Public Revenue, Thessaloniki, 57001, Greece
Ivey Business School, Western University, London, N6G 0N1, ON, Canada
Nova School of Business & Economics, Carcavelos, Lisbon, 2775-405, Portugal
Pluridisciplinary Research Unit Sport, Health and Society (URL), Sherpas, Universite Artois, Lievin, 62800, France
Faculty of Management, Bhairahawa Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University, Rupandehi, 32900, Nepal
Faculty of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sopot, 81-745, Poland
Department of Psychology, University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, 51097, France
School of Liberal Arts, M. Narikbayev KAZGUU University, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan
Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Shanghai, 201206, China
Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
Sao Paulo School of Business Administration, Fundação Getulio Vargas, Sao Paulo, 01313-902, Brazil
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, 3000, Belgium
Department of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Branch of Tashkent, Tashkent, 100060, Uzbekistan
Human Resources, Organizational Behaviour and Communications Area, T A Pai Management Institute, Karnataka, 5761004, India
School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
Department of Health Policy and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, 8410501, Israel
Department of Communication and Culture, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, 0484, Norway
Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Science, Giza, 12311, Egypt
Antai College of Economics and Management, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, China
Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, 14195, Germany

Institute of Psychology
School of Psychology
ESCP Business School
School of Psychology
Psychology Department
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology
Department of Social Psycholog
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science
Faculty of Business and Management
Institute for Leadership and HRM
School of Economics and Business
Department of Psychology
Department of Movement Sciences
Durham University Business School
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Rotterdam School of Management
Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science
Institute of Psychology
School of Psychology
Department of Psychology and the Graduate Gender Studies Program
Business School
Department of Psychology
Faculty of Social Sciences
School of Engineering and Management Vaud
Independent Authority of Public Revenue
Ivey Business School
Nova School of Business & Economics
Pluridisciplinary Research Unit Sport
Faculty of Management
Faculty of Psychology
Department of Psychology
School of Liberal Arts
Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Graduate School of Management
Leeds University Business School
Sao Paulo School of Business Administration
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
Department of Psychology
Human Resources
School of Politics and International Studies
Department of Health Policy and Management
Department of Communication and Culture
Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Science
Antai College of Economics and Management
Department of Education and Psychology

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