Burnout Profiles Among Police Leaders: Examining Individual and Social Environmental Factors

• In Event: Wellness and Leadership in Policing: Understanding Stress, Satisfaction, and Burnout

Abstract

This paper examines burnout among police leaders by incorporating measures of exhaustion, depersonalization, and ineffectiveness in a survey administered to participants in the 2024 FBI National Academy. Prior research has conceptualized burnout on a continuum where employees may fall into one of five profiles (burned out, overextended, disengaged, ineffective, or engaged). One purpose of the current study is to determine the extent to which these burnout profiles apply to police leaders. Additionally, research in the organizational sciences has found burnout to occur when person-job imbalances exist between individual employees and the social environment in which they work. A second purpose of the study is to identify both individual and work environment factors that are associated with police leaders’ burnout profiles. By examining the possibility of different burnout classifications (i.e., profiles), a more comprehensive understanding of how police leaders experience burnout can be determined. In distinguishing these classifications across salient individual and environmental factors, approaches for addressing different types of burnout experienced by police leaders can be offered.

Authors

• Kayla Alaniz, Sam Houston State University

• David White, Ferris State Univerity

• Jason R. Ingram, Sam Houston State University

• Joseph A. Schafer, Arizona State University