Veterans Health Administration mental health providers (MHPs) report high levels of burnout and describe leadership as a source of burnout. The present study investigated Veterans Health Administration MHPs' perspectives on the relationship between provider burnout and management practices employed by different levels of leadership. Qualitative interviews were conducted between August 2021 and May 2022 with 51 frontline psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers from nine Veterans Health Administration sites stratified into different burnout and staffing levels as part of a larger mixed methods study of burnout. Content analysis of interview transcripts revealed three overarching themes related to leadership's effects on burnout emerged: supportive practices of direct supervisors which could alleviate burnout, the limited power of middle management, and MHPs' concerns with facility and service-line leadership. Key findings include that MHPs experienced less burnout when supervisors effectively communicated, advocated for MHPs, and recognized MHPs' accomplishments. MHPs also described supervisors as lacking power. MHPs conveyed that leaders at higher organizational levels were less likely to recognize MHPs' needs, efforts, and perspectives and less likely to communicate with them in a bidirectional manner. Implications for systems-oriented organizational efforts to ameliorate MHPs' burnout within health care systems are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Ortolan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.