Authentic leadership and job burnout: Mediating effects of positive psychological capitals

Abstract

This study explored methods for reducing job burnout among organizational members working in highly stressful job environments from the perspective of positive organizational scholarship. In particular, we focused on the role of authentic leadership, an alternative leadership concept that has recently received much attention in the leadership literature. To explain the mechanism underlying the effects of authentic leadership on job burnout, the mediating effect of positive psychological capitals (PsyCap), a critical variable of positive psychology, was analyzed. To examine the proposed hypotheses, data were collected through a survey of employees of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration and analyzed. The results of the analyses demonstrate that authentic leadership has positive effects on team members' positive PsyCap, which in turn reduces their job burnout. In particular, in the relationship between authentic leadership and job burnout, all sub-factors of team members’ positive psychological capital revealed partial mediating effects, with the most significant mediating effect being optimism. Based on the results, we propose several suggestions to strengthen both authentic leadership and positive PsyCap within military organizations.