Abstract
The present study critically examines the promise of transformational leadership as a cure for followers' burnout. Adapting an achievement motivation perspective to conservation of resources theory, we suggest that the impact of transformational leaders on burnout depends on followers' level of fear of failure. In a study with 249 employees, we demonstrate that transformational leaders affect followers low versus high in fear of failure differently, with diverging consequences for burnout as captured by its core component, emotional exhaustion. For followers with low fear of failure, we primarily find an indirect effect, such that transformational leaders encourage them to engage in two opposing types of behavior—that is, exhaustion-reducing cooperative and exhaustion-enhancing competitive behavior. By contrast, followers high in fear of failure overall benefit from transformational leadership due to a strong direct negative impact on their emotional exhaustion. At the same time, followers high in fear of failure avoid engaging in both cooperative and competitive behavior. Our research provides important implications for the managerial practice. It reveals that transformational leadership is not a panacea for preventing burnout in the workforce. Instead, managers should be aware of the opposing effects that their leadership behavior can have and pay more attention to their followers' characteristics and needs.