Transformational leadership, teacher burnout, and psychological empowerment: A mediation analysis

Since the 1990s, teachers have become more prone to job burnout as education reforms worldwide have intensified their workload. We examined the relationships between teacher burnout, transformational leadership, and psychological empowerment among 339 primary and secondary school teachers in China. Results show that transformational leadership and psychological empowerment negatively predicted teacher burnout, and the transformational leadership–teacher burnout relationship was mediated by psychological empowerment. Of the four dimensions of psychological empowerment, the meaning, self-determination, and competence dimensions significantly mediated the transformational leadership–teacher burnout relationship. Thus, transformational leadership alleviated teacher burnout because it enhanced teachers’ sense of work meaningfulness, self-determination, and competence.