How the Pandemic Exacerbated Burnout

Michael Leiter and Christina Maslach have been at the vanguard of burnout research for over three decades, including writing influential books and creating a widely used burnout assessment. In this conversation with HBR, they explain how the Covid-19 pandemic has intensified the conditions that lead to burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy in the workplace. They discuss new data on the growing prevalence of burnout among medical professionals, what mistakes and ethical lapses organizations make when measuring burnout, how leaders can help employees bounce back after the pandemic, and how we should apply what we’ve learned about healthy and unhealthy working environments when the crisis ends.