Emotional Exhaustion

On a scale of one to 10, how concerned are you as a leader about your employees’ emotional well-being?

A psychologically safe leader cares about their employees’ experience in the workplace. They also know they can play an important role in reducing employees’ risk of mental harm and promoting mental health. From working and doing research with organizations over the past 12 months, it’s become clear to me that the average employee’s level of concern about their mental health has increased.

SENDING SIGNALS

Employees watch leaders closely, as this signals how safe it is to share concerns about how they are feeling. Employees notice:

? What leaders say (“We just need to keep pushing.”)

? What leaders know (email traffic clearly shows employees working after hours)

? What leaders do (rarely show concern about employees’ experiences)

• Leaders who don’t pay attention to such behaviours miss opportunities to be mindful as to how their behaviour can be an emotional drain on employees. While many factors are outside leaders’ control, they can control how they show up for employees and what they do to reduce their risk of emotional exhaustion.
• Pay attention to signs of emotional exhaustion. Employees experiencing emotional exhaustion are more likey to be irritable, lack motivation, display apathy, be forgetful, present as being fatigued, moody, nervous or increasingly cynical, and appear to not enjoy their role.
• Monitor your own mental and physical health. Reduce your risk of emotional exhaustion by making your health a priority through regular activity, healthy nutrition, sleep and lifestyle choices, and maintaining social connections. Instead of rushing all the time, be mindful of the importance of self-care. This provides more capacity to support employees.
• Design and implement a game plan for supporting employees. You don’t need to be a psychologist. Just be aware that you can do a few things to support employees’ experience and reduce their risk of emotional exhaustion.
• Instead of assuming employees are fine and not mentally or emotionally tired, show that you care and are aware of how they’re feeling so you can explore options within your control.
• Set boundaries on times to plug in and out with all employees on your team to remove assumptions. By regularly telling employees it’s important to take time for themselves, you demonstrate that you understand they need time to charge their emotional batteries.
• Implement a tap-out rule. Encouraging them if they need to take a break during the day indicates they are trusted to do so. If they need an extension because they are exhausted, let them know it’s safe to talk about it.
• Create “red zone” plans with your team. Encourage them to have a plan to get out of the zone when they’re struggling. This can involve taking a few days off, seeing a psychologist or working with you to explore their work plan and priorities to determine what can be done to reduce the strain.

The urgency for leaders to prioritize their employees' emotional well-being cannot be overstated. As leaders, we have a responsibility to foster psychologically safe environments and actively support our teams' mental health. By paying attention to signals, monitoring our own well-being, and implementing thoughtful strategies for support, we can mitigate the risk of emotional exhaustion and create workplaces where individuals thrive.