Leaders: Scan Your Environment for Burnout Triggers
When the same exhaustion keeps showing up, the conditions are speaking.
When burnout shows up in one person, it’s tempting to treat it like an individual problem. When it shows up across multiple people, over time, it’s usually a system signal. The true cause of this burnout isn't a lack of individual coping skills; it’s the environment.
The Common Mistake: Individualizing a Pattern
When leaders notice someone burning out, they may send them on leave, offer flexible Fridays, remind them of EAP options in their benefits, etc. These are a great place to start.
If the exhaustion returns or shows up in others, however, it’s not because these individuals failed to solve their individual “problem.” It’s because the environment never changed. Burn victims can go to the best hospital with brand new burn treatments available, but when they reenter a fire that was never put out, they’re going to get burned again.
Why Burnout Seems to Hit High-Performers First
When the environment creates burnout, it can be surprising to find that it hits high performers first.
This happens because these are the people who are particularly “committed” - the ones who say yes when they aren’t sure they have capacity, who step in to cover a process gap over and over again, who absorb ambiguity without raising their hands for clarification.
They have learned to carry more, for longer, and to hide signs of exhaustion…until they hit a breaking point.
Unfortunately for leaders, this breaking point may signal conditions that have been in place for a while. To add insult to injury, this can trigger a downward spiral when the team loses the power of high performers and scrambles to cover the gap, further increasing their own burnout. Leaders help themselves by proactively monitoring the environment for signs of burnout.
Conditions to Watch For
So how do you stay ahead of the curve and address burnout at the root? First, it’s important to understand common conditions that create chronic burnout when unaddressed:
Priorities are shifting faster than recovery happens
Changes happening on top of one another
Unresolved conflict that people carry internally
Stalled decisions with leaders stepping in to fill execution gaps
Any new process efficiencies are immediately filled with more work
SPACE: Your Secret to Mitigating Burnout
We’ve developed a helpful mnemonic to remind leaders how to keep burnout low - create SPACE:
Safety: psychological and personal safety to speak up, take risks, admit mistakes, and still be met with respect
Purpose: connect why people’s work matters to their individual impact
Agency: allow individuals meaningful influence in how they do their work (if it’s not clear what would be meaningful, ask the individual!)
Connections: ensure people feel genuinely seen and part of a community. Belonging is a powerful force driving productive human behaviors and greater satisfaction
Empathy: allow people to bring their experiences to the table and work to understand the situations and frustrations that are closest to them
When there is no SPACE, people carry burdens internally, and burnout accelerates. People try to adapt to what is not normal or sustainable, and a predictable overwhelm eventually stops humans in their tracks. As leaders, you have to create space for yourself and your people.
Your Leadership Move: Read the Pattern, not the Symptom
Instead of asking “who is struggling?” and addressing individuals, consider other crucial angles:
Where is the environment asking for too much?
Where is there ambiguity that people have to navigate alone?
What tensions are unresolved (in relationships, change, strategy, etc)?
This is where you find your leverage and begin tackling burnout at the root.
Looking for more team support? Consider the working genius, check out our free webinar recording here: