Ethical Burnout

High-Performance Executive Newsletter: Greater success with less stress.

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The three essentials for high performance are neuroregulation (to get and stay calm), clearing negative self-talk and the beliefs that create it (including imposter syndrome), and creating new success habits.

This week, we're looking at ethical burnout.

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Ethical Burnout

This intriguing phrase was the subject of a recent Harvard Business Review article, made even more enticing by the gripping title ‘4 Warning Signs of Ethical Burnout in Your Team.’ The authors suggest that excessive workplace stress can erode someone’s commitment to ethical behaviour.

They state, ‘When stress destabilises people’s ethical compass, they may inadvertently overlook the heightened risk of ethical lapses. And when employees focus solely on achieving their targets, deadlines, or personal financial goals at the expense of ethical considerations — when doing the right thing feels burdensome compared to seemingly less-costly shortcuts — they can teeter on what we refer to as “ethical burnout.” To prevent this, it’s crucial to spot the signs and root out the contributing forces early.’

Does this sound like a cop-out for white-collar crime? ‘The stress made me do it, Gov!’

Let’s take a look at these four warning signs first, and the suggested solutions. Then we'll go deeper into why this happens in the first place.

1.?????? Excessive Commercial Targets and Pressures

Stretch goals are a classic means of motivating high performance in the corporate world. But more is not better. When the stretch is too great and the goal becomes unrealistic, people may cheat to achieve it. For example, Wells Fargo’s aggressive sales goals led some employees to create millions of fraudulent bank accounts and credit card charges. Similarly, Volkswagen’s stringent environmental goals led some engineers to design software to cheat the emissions test.

This first warning sign is unrealistic, unachievable goals. Cue the Mission Impossible theme tune!

The solution here is to set goals that promote high performance and ethical behaviour, leaving employees enthusiastic but not exhausted.

Communication and feedback are the keys to this delicate balance. Consulting everyone on the goals, validating their achievability, and highlighting bottlenecks, potential difficulties, and compromises leads to transparency in decision-making, reducing the risk of ethical breaches.

2.?????? Decision-Making Overload and Speed

Commercial pressures, economic volatility, and the race to capture market share can lead to hasty decisions and decision-making overload. Too many decisions, especially in a short space of time, can lead to poor judgement and ethical lapses. This is situational ethical fatigue, where someone decides that the only way to solve the problem is to break the rules.

This appears to be a more conscious form of ethical breach, for example, loyalty to the company and taking ethical risks on its behalf.

The solution is to remain mindful that high-speed, high-pressure decision-making may create risky conclusions. Don’t mistake the urgency to move quickly and outpace the competition as permission to cut corners or bypass rules. Communicate to employees that if they're feeling confused about balancing success and integrity, they should take a moment to discuss it.

3.?????? Envy of Unhealthy Status Symbols

Pay attention when you notice people in your organization are competing with their peers rather than collaborating, or if they start to feel envious of others' status. This focus on self can lead to thoughts like, "Why do they get all the recognition when I'm the one doing the work?"

Interestingly, it's often the highest achievers who are the least satisfied and most likely to make these comparisons. Factors such as attending high-visibility meetings, the size of one's office, access to exclusive perks, or high-profile assignments can foster a zero-sum mindset, where employees measure their worth against others. When high achievers feel unrecognized, they may be more inclined to skirt the rules.

When you lean too much on your top performers in an excessively competitive environment, the thrill of success and the subsequent crashes can push them toward unhealthy risk-taking to maintain their streak. This intense focus can speed up ethical burnout.

The sub-conscious assessment of such competition is that ‘better at’ means ‘better than’, and so any perceived failure threatens a person’s sense of their own worth. Perfectionism, comparing and defensive lying are common imposter syndrome patterns that directly come from a threat to someone’s worth, for example.

The solution is to make it clear within the work culture that ‘better at’ does not mean ‘better than’ and to avoid setting up unhealthy competition.

4.?????? Survival Mode Thinking

When industries and sectors experience downturns and workforce cuts, employees often worry about job security, leading to stress from personal economic concerns. This stress can diminish their loyalty to the organisation, as they may prioritise self-preservation and set aside personal and corporate values to succeed at any cost, hoping to keep their jobs secure.

Again, the solution here is to be mindful of this influence and communicate it as a valid risk to the workforce. Clear leadership and transparency can encourage maintaining high ethical standards.

The Why of Ethical Burnout

These four warning signs and solutions to ethical fatigue are helpful to build awareness? and maintain standards. However there is an underlying mystery as to why stress might cause people to compromise their values and break the rules.

Neuroscience explains the brain’s response to excessive stress. The stress triggers the nervous system’s natural response to a potential threat. That is, the stress itself convinces the brain that there is a threat to survival. It flips the nervous system into the fight, flight or freeze states, which creates many physiological changes to muscle tension, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and especially blood flow. Blood is diverted from less-essential areas of the body to the large muscles in the arms and legs. This readies you to fight or run away. Without this survival response, the human race would have become extinct millennia ago.

One ‘less essential’ area for blood flow in a survival situation is the prefrontal cortex; the part of the brain responsible for logical thinking, strategic planning, emotional regulation, and modulating the fear response.

That is, when your body is in fight-or-flight mode (freeze creates numbness), your brain literally does not have enough resources—oxygen and nutrients—to allow you to think clearly and reasonably. This results in becoming more emotionally volatile, more risk-taking, and feeling more suspicious and aggressive towards others (i.e., less collaborative). Princeton University has measured a temporary decrease in IQ by a whopping 13 points in this triggered state.

No wonder people make poor decisions and suffer ethical misjudgment in this triggered state!

Therefore an additional solution to ethical burnout is to address the stress itself, and get the body out of the triggered nervous system state.

Remove the stress externally, wherever possible and as listed in some of the above strategies for business culture and communication.

Then you can reduce the internal stress that comes from having your sense of worth threatened by a high-pressure, excessively stressful environment.

By changing your brain’s unconscious response to stressors**, you achieve the most potent boost to your resilience and gain protection against all burnout – ethical and otherwise.

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What I’m planning for next week:

At 7pm Wednesday 5th September, I will run an open, online masterclass on Tackling Imposter Syndrome in Your Teams.

It is aimed at executives and senior leaders who want to learn how to defuse imposter syndrome in their team members. I’ll cover what imposter syndrome is, its symptoms, its impact, root cause, and solutions. I’ll provide straightforward, practical ways to reduce it in your team to boost performance, well-being, and job satisfaction.

Click here to register for the masterclass: https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/tacklingimpostersyndromeinyourt7231987913448697856/

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An action step you can do this week …

Assess the risk of ethical fatigue in your organisation and teams. Look for those four warning signs mentioned above: excessive pressure, speed and amount of decisions to make, comparing and unhealthy competition, and survival mode thinking.

If you find the risk is high, it’s time to step in with clear leadership and solve the problem before it becomes an extreme result that nobody wants to happen.

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I’ll take more of a look at all kinds of burnout in future issues.

Do subscribe and share!

** The best internal solution to burnout of any kind is to address the internal brain response to stress, which is the predictable result of my Inner Success programme.

In it, you first develop a personal roadmap to calm your nervous system and quickly get back to a calm, high-performance state. Then we gently go step by step and reprogramme the way your brain responds to false threats to its survival. (Neuroscience process, not therapy!) You develop powerful and effortless resilience, natural authenticity and deep self-confidence.

Message me now to find out more!

I'm Dr Tara Halliday, specialist Imposter Syndrome Coach and best-selling author.

Have an excellent, refreshing and recharging weekend!

Tara

P.S. Thank you for reading to the end of the newsletter, I appreciate your interest and attention!

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