How Leadership Can Reduce the Rate of Burnout Among Law Enforcement Staff

BurnourtResearchCoverImportant new research into police burnout, leadership and stress is being published by Emerald and you can get a copy this weekend.

The report entitled: “An empirical investigation of high-risk occupations – Leader influence on employee stress and burnout among police” by Lisa M. Russell of the School of Business at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, Indiana, USA is being published by Emerald Group Publishing Limited of the United Kingdom.

Emerald, a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society, is making a free copy of this important research available for you until May 27, 2014 at this link: www.emeraldinsight.com/tk/policeburnout

A news release from Emerald stated: “US study published by Emerald analyses the relationship between stress and burnout in high-risk occupations and the role of leadership in moderating this relationship.

United Kingdom, 28 April 2014 – It is no surprise that high-risk occupations such as law enforcement have been associated with… officers suffering high levels of illness, burnout, absenteeism and premature retirement than other fields of work, meanwhile, leaders have been looking for ways to regulate these stressors and manage a happier workforce for years. Exploring the relationship between stress, burnout and leadership is the latest research, thought to be the only one of its kind, in the journal Management Research News from global academic publisher, Emerald Group Publishing.

The research, ‘An empirical investigation of high-risk occupations: Leader influence on employee stress and burnout among police’, developed by Lisa M. Russell, surveyed 379 police officers from nine US agencies and concludes that stress not only affects the individual concerned, but can also have a negative impact on an organization’s performance.

Statistical methods such as hierarchical regression analysis, multiple moderated hierarchal regression analysis and other statistical methods were used to produce findings that have strong implications for leaders in high-risk occupations where policy, bureaucracy and life and death decision making is quite the norm.

Lisa M. Russell, School of Business, Indiana University Southeast and author of the paper, said: “Essentially, officers often work to accomplish tasks and organizational goals in exchange for leader recognition in the form of promotion, pay rises or verbal acknowledgement. But what is evident from the study is that the actual issue is more complex than originally expected. Transformational leadership appears to be effective at reducing burnout at lower levels of stress, but less so at high levels, therefore it is necessary not to just address leadership at this point, but also factors such as home life, interdepartmental practices and physical demands, which all exacerbate the rate of burnout alongside leadership.””

Management Research News is included in Emerald’s Business, Management & Strategy collection, which covers all major disciplines including management science, entrepreneurship, business ethics, strategy and international business. Information about the collection can be found by visiting http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/collections/bms.htm

To read the study, which is available for free access until 27 May visit www.emeraldinsight.com/tk/policeburnout

To learn more about Emerald visit their website at: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com

Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,300 books and book series volumes. It also provides an extensive range of value-added products, resources and services to support its customers’ needs.

Emerald is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. It also works in close collaboration with a number of organizations and associations worldwide.

You can find Emerald Group on Facebook and Twitter at:
Twitter: @EmeraldGlobal | @EmeraldBizMgt
Like us on: www.facebook.com/emeraldgrouppublishing

CopsAlive is written to prompt discussions within our profession about the issues of law enforcement career survival. We invite you to share your opinions, ask questions and suggest topics for us in the Comment Box that is at the bottom of this article.

At The Law Enforcement Survival Institute (LESI) we train law enforcement officers to cope with stress and manage all the toxic effects and hidden dangers of a career in law enforcement.

Our “Armor Your Self™: How to Survive a Career in Law Enforcement” on-site training program is an eight hour, hands-on, “How to” seminar that helps police officers and other law enforcement professionals armor themselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually to survive their careers in police work. To learn more CLICK HERE

The concept of “True Blue Valor™” is where one law enforcement officer has to muster the courage to confront a peer who is slipping both professionally and personally and endangering themselves, their peers and the public. It takes a system of organizational support and professional leadership to support and foster the concept of courage and intervention. We will train your trainers to deliver this program to your agency.
To learn more CLICK HERE

Our “Armor Your Agency™: How to Create a Healthy and Supportive Law Enforcement Agency” Program includes critical strategies that you will need to build a system of support and encouragement for a healthy and productive agency. To learn more CLICK HERE

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CLICK HERE if you would like to contact us to learn more about training for your organization.

I’m John Marx, Founder of The Law Enforcement Survival Institute and the Editor of CopsAlive.com. Connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

CopsAlive.com was founded to provide information and strategies to help police officers successfully survive their careers. We help law enforcement officers and their agencies prepare for the risks that threaten their existence. Thank you for reading!

About Editor

John Marx was a Police Officer for twenty-three years and served as a Hostage Negotiator for nineteen of those years. He worked as a patrol officer, media liaison officer, crime prevention officer and burglary detective. Also during his career he served as administrator of his city's Community Oriented Governance initiative through the police department's Community Policing project. Today John combines his skills to consult with businesses about improving both their security and their customer service programs. John retired from law enforcement in 2002. When one of his friends, also a former police officer, committed suicide at age 38, John was devastated and began researching the problems that stress creates for police officers. He decided he needed to do something to help change those problems and he wanted to give something back to the profession that gave him so much. He started a project that has evolved into CopsAlive.com. Put simply, the mission of CopsAlive is to save the lives of those who save lives! CopsAlive.com gathers information, strategies and tools to help law enforcement professionals plan for happy, healthy and successful careers, relationships and lives.
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