Leaders can cure burnout in a heartbeat

One survey I read recently said that 91% of respondents felt burned out, working through the pandemic. Another survey said that more than half the respondents were either making a job change or considering it, with burnout being the main reason. What, exactly, is “burnout”?

I think there are two reasonable definitions. One is exhaustion, simply reaching the end of one’s physical and mental abilities to continue to exert effort. If you’ve ever pushed your body beyond its abilities, you’ve experienced this. You can’t get enough oxygen to the hard-working cells, creating the condition of hypoxia, using the body’s own tissue for energy, literally eating oneself alive. Working long hours, not getting enough sleep, not enough exercise, taking care of the kids first–all of these things create exhaustion.

Another definition of burnout that makes sense is chronic stress, when the sympathetic nervous system (the one that causes fight-flight-freeze responses in a condition of perceived threats) dominates for too long. Deadlines, urgent messages, last-minute requests, demands for response, long lists of action items and the uncertainty in which we all now live cause our sympathetic nervous system to run hot, all the time. Chronic stress is a well-known cause of many physiological problems.

The global events of the last couple of years have dramatically increased the demands on all of us, while at the same time increasing the perceived tenuousness of our futures. We’re getting better at living through such times, if only because repetition of stimuli becomes attenuated in humans. We get used to a constant state, even if that constant state is ambiguity. But the toll on our minds and bodies is substantial. That’s why people are making choices to change their lives, quit a toxic job, move to a new location, engage in a way of earning a living that is less stressful and find meaning in their work somewhere else.

Leaders have a direct impact on whether or not the conditions within their companies reduce burnout or increase it. I was talking with a senior vice president of an organization that is responsible for $130 million in revenue. She was asking how she could improve the value and experience of the countless meetings that have become the norm during the pandemic, video call after video call after video call. I asked, “Do you really need all those meetings?” After a week or two of reflection, checking in with others, she found that she could cancel a significant number of the standing meetings and make others less frequent, thereby gifting her entire organization with the blessed luxury of time. Now they could devote more of their normal working day to producing results, rather than sitting in meetings discussing why the results hadn’t yet been produced. Everyone was hugely relieved, and their stress diminished immediately. Their work hours went down while their performance went up.

I was talking with the COO of another company, who was bemoaning the fact that he was experiencing increased resistance to his directives and initiatives. He felt that people were becoming oppositional to what he believed were important actions that needed to be taken. I asked him, “How much of your work week is creating tangible results, versus meeting with others, setting direction, getting reports, making decisions and spending time thinking about the future?” He said, “In my role, I don’t produce the results. My job is to lead.”

“Exactly”, I said. “You create work for others by calling meetings, asking for information, giving out assignments, sending emails that require responses, etc. What have you done lately to actually reduce the work loads of others, who are likely underwater and have been for a long time? When have you taken a task off the desk of one of your direct reports and done it yourself, to help them catch up?”

I had a mentor and boss early in my career who taught me this leadership lesson which has been one of the most important in my life. It was at a big aluminum factory, with 2,000 employees, 40 acres under roof. One day, he explained to me that an unexpected physical audit was necessary, to do an inventory of every product and all material in the entire plant. It had to be done by the next Monday, and today was Thursday. He said all of the people in the “Head Shed” (non-production employees), including the General Manager of the plant, were going to help out, which meant working through the weekend. I asked him why, and he said, “A leader shows they care about their people by sharing the same pain.”

So I said to the COO, “If you want to help your hard-working team not burn out, resign, become ill, etc., figure out how to reduce their work load, even if that means stepping in to do some of the actual work.”

If leaders don’t actively reduce the demands on others in these incredibly challenging times–and there are plenty of ways to do it that would actually enhance performance–they won’t have anybody left to lead.