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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of ethical leadership on the burnout process among resident physicians, and the mediating roles of general self-efficacy and perceived supervisor support (PSS) in the relationship between ethical leadership behavior and various aspects of burnout.

A total of 203 residents of three teaching hospitals in the South Atlantic Division of the USA completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and Survey of Perceived Supervisor Support and rated the ethical leadership of their supervising attending physicians on the Ethical Leadership Scale. Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis were conducted to test the measurement and hypothesized structural models.

The results showed that ethical leadership had a negative indirect effect on emotional exhaustion through PSS and a positive indirect effect on personal accomplishment through general self-efficacy. However, PSS and general self-efficacy did not mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and depersonalization.

This study adds to the body of knowledge on the impact of ethical leadership on three aspects of burnout syndrome, i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Moreover, this is the first study to consider PSS and general self-efficacy as intervening variables to the ethical leadership-burnout relationship.