The Incremental Association of Implementation Leadership and School Personnel Burnout Beyond Transformational Leadership

Successful implementation of school-wide interventions (i.e., delivered to all students by a wide array of school personnel) is key to promoting students' academic achievement and psychosocial development. Yet, the implementation of school-wide interventions is complex and can be psychologically taxing for implementing personnel. If evidence-based practice and program (EBP) implementation goes unsupported, implementation challenges might result in chronic stress among school personnel that leads to burnout. While generally effective leadership tends to decrease educator burnout, implementation-specific leadership may also decrease burnout through its strategic supports for EBP implementation. A series of linear regression and path models were used to examine the concurrent association between transformational (e.g., general) and implementation (e.g., strategic) leadership and burnout and its component parts (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment). In a sample of 338 school personnel, we found transformational and implementation leadership were each significantly associated with decreased burnout. However, transformational leadership was not significantly associated with any of the three burnout components, whereas implementation leadership was significantly associated with increased personal accomplishment. These results suggest both general and strategic forms of leadership are key supports for school personnel burnout and as such, leaders may benefit from training to improve each. Additional implications for schools and future directions to understand how best to support school personnel are discussed.