The Relationship between Leadership behaviors of Managers and Employees Burnout in Iranian Public Organizations: A Meta-Analysis

In recent years, various researche has been done on the relationship between leadership behaviors of managers and burnout of employees in Iranian public organizations but the academic community is faced with scattered information about this relationship. Reviewing the academic literature, researchers of the current study obtained various results. Some studies consider leadership style and behavior as effective factors in reducing burnout of employees in public organizations, some regard such factors as less important, and some consider them effectless. This paper, using the meta-analysis method, aggregated the findings of articles that previously examined the relationship between leadership behaviors of managers and burnout of employees in Iranian public organizations. In this regard, the relationship between various leadership behaviors and burnout of employees in Iranian public organizations in various studies was initially identified and investigated. Then using the principles and rules of meta-analysis, the total effect size was calculated. Next, the behaviors with the greatest impact on employee burnout in Iranian public organizations were studied.

The research was performed using a meta-analysis method and CMA2 software. In this regard, all articles published in Persian scientific research journals, done by one of the Iranian public organizations were reviewed using keywords such as managers' behavior, leadership style, and employee burnout. After reviewing and considering the input and output criteria, 12 studies were chosen to enter the meta-analysis process.

The achieved results from the meta-analysis indicated the fixed effect size to stand at -0.339 and the random effect size at -0.371 i.e. there was an average relationship between leadership behaviors of managers and burnout of employees in Iranian public organizations. In a separate study to examine the effect size of each behavior or leadership style of managers, it was observed that among the behavior or leadership styles affecting burnout of employees in Iranian public organizations, ethical leadership style with a total effect size of -0.57, relationship-oriented leadership style with a total effect size -0.43and transformational leadership style with a total effect size -0.42 have the highest effect size and the relationship is above average.

Due to the identified levels of relationship (from important and effective to insignificant and ineffective) between leadership behaviors of managers and burnout of employees by earlier studies and the findings of the current one, it can be inferred that some mediator or moderator variables may influence the relationship, leading to different results in various studies. However, the important issue which is also among the finding of the present study is that leadership behaviors and styles are among the critical factors which should be taken into account to reduce employee burnout in Iranian public organizations. Also, the results indicate that ethical and transformational leadership are behaviors and styles the application of which in organizations can have a great impact on reducing the burnout of employees in Iranian public organizations.