Managing burnout as a leader

Burnout among leaders can have cascading effects throughout an organization, impacting team morale, productivity, and overall business performance.

The big picture: As a leader, recognizing and addressing your own burnout is crucial not just for your well-being, but for the health of your entire team and organization. As you’ll see below, your team feels your burnout too.

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Spotting the signs

What's happening: Leaders often miss early warning signs of burnout, pushing through exhaustion and stress. These signs manifest in different ways for different people, so there’s not necessarily just a list of checkboxes you mark to say “yes, I’m burned out”.

Here are some of the possible indicators for burnout:

• Physical symptoms: Chronic fatigue, insomnia, frequent headaches, GI issues (the latter being one I more recently learned about!)

• Emotional indicators: Irritability, cynicism, lack of motivation. You’re either short-tempered or you just don’t care.

• Behavioral changes: Procrastination, isolation from team members, disengagement from meetings, doing the bare minimum when you’re typically a higher performer

The ripple effect

As I said in the intro, burnout doesn't just affect you—it impacts your entire team and organization. This typically manifests in:

• Decreased productivity and creativity: Your work (or their work) may be technically correct, but it’s certainly not anything special and it may not be done on time.

• Higher turnover rates: If you start to see more people on your team leaving, take some time to understand why.

• Lower team morale and engagement: This one’s the real sticking one. As previously mentioned, cynicism is an emotional indicator of burnout. As a leader, your team is modeling your behavior, and if they see you being cynical, they may inadvertently become the same.

The bottom line: Addressing your burnout is a critical leadership responsibility.

Strategies for recovery

How to tackle it: Here are some of my go-to strategies for tackling burnout:

1. Boundaries: Set clear work-life boundaries and stick to them.

   • Designate "no-work" zones in your home. I don’t work from the bedroom ever.

   • Use technology to automate what you can, and block yourself from accessing company resources (e.g. Slack) when you’re supposed to be off work.

2. Delegation: Trust your team with more responsibilities.

   • Identify tasks that can be delegated. I’ve written on this topic previously.

   • Provide support and mentorship during the transition. They’re not going to nail it the first time or do it exactly as you would, and that’s okay.

3. Self-care: Prioritize your physical and mental health.

   • Do whatever you consider to be self care. For me that’s running, cycling, or reading. Schedule time for this so you make sure it’s prioritized.

   • Practice mindfulness or meditation.

4. Connections: Nurture relationships inside and outside of work.

   • Find your people. This may be a local community (I’m part of our local Junior League chapter), a virtual community (I’m also a part of a few Discord/Slack groups), or a combination of the two. Attend meetups if any are close by and of interest.

   • Make time for family and friends. Sometimes this requires putting time on my calendar or a reminder on my phone to remember to text someone. We all get busy, but when we’re burned out we are much more likely to pull away from loved ones.

5. Purpose: Reconnect with your personal and professional mission.

   • Reflect on your core values. If you don’t have them, now’s the time to define them!

   • Align daily tasks with long-term goals

Now what?

• Immediate action: Choose one strategy from the list above and implement it this week.

• Long-term planning: Schedule a team meeting to discuss creating a more burnout-resistant culture.

• Continuous improvement: Set a recurring calendar reminder to check in with yourself about burnout symptoms and recovery progress.

The bottom line: Addressing burnout is an ongoing process, not a one-time fix. And it’s not going to happen overnight. Your commitment will pay dividends in your personal well-being and organizational success. And remember: you don’t need to do this alone.