What’s Causing Burnout in Leadership? | A Short Read

“Leaders who insulate themselves from others and choose to bear their burdens single-handedly are destined for loneliness and burnout. Leaders, like everyone else, need friends and perhaps in the light of the load they carry, even more so.”

- Richard Blackaby

Most Prominent Causes of Leadership Burnout

Feelings of Isolation

The phrase "It is always lonely at the top" may be true, but it is also fatalistic. The most important factor in isolation is not the number or frequency of contacts but a lack of meaningful connection with other people.

Multitasking

Research shows that multitasking can add up to a 40% loss of productivity in a day. This decrease in productivity is called task switch cost, and it almost always results in burnout.

Continuous Partial Attention

Leaders can get into the mental trap of constantly searching for the next best possibility and spending nearly all their time doing so. When this happens to a leader, they will fail to focus on the most important tasks at hand and get further behind on mission-critical issues. Then they rush to finish their most critical tasks on a tight deadline, contributing to chronic stress and burnout.

Allostatic Load

Leaders often work long hours and are expected to be available at all times. This significantly impacts their health. Long exposure to this environment can cause heart problems, weight gain, impaired immunity, decreased memory due to brain cell atrophy, and diminished brain functioning.

Power Stress

Senior leaders can become trapped in a vicious cycle of unhealthy sacrifice for others, which leads to burnout because they feel unduly responsible for the success of their businesses. Leaders also may feel more pressure to not burn out in the first place as they are supposed to set an example for the rest of the employees. This denial of burnout symptoms makes those burnout symptoms worse.

We'll return next week with more information on tips for preventing leadership burnout.

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