A question for you to consider – are your behaviours contributing to the burnout of people in your organisation?
It’s a powerful question to reflect on. Most leaders I work with care deeply and role-model plenty of positives, but often there are a couple of small habits that quietly send the opposite signal.
How Leaders (Accidentally) Normalise Burnout
A few of the most common patterns I see from leaders exhibiting behaviours contributing to burnout include:
- Promising to be available at all times: This is usually intended to be supportive, but it can imply that you also expect your team to be available at all times in return.
- Sending emails out-of-hours: You may be sending emails outside of operating hours because it suits your daily routine; however, other members of staff – particularly newer or more junior members – may feel pressure to reply at these times. Making it clear this was your choice or adding ‘no need to reply’ can help, but consider whether the information you’re sharing may unsettle an employee and whether it’s better to wait until they’re in work mode.
- Celebrating ‘work ethic’ more than rest: As a leader, if it becomes a habit for you to praise behaviour like early starts, late nights and last-minute pushes, more than steady, sustainable delivery and periods of rest, this can tell your teams that you prioritise delivery over employee wellbeing.
- Blurring boundaries: If you regularly work through your lunch break – or book over other peoples’ – skip your leave, or work whilst you’re supposed to be off, team members are likely to feel they should mirror what you are modelling.
- Booking back-to-back meetings: Time to rest and reset between calls is crucial. If you book your teams into back-to-back meetings, everyone’s nervous systems will remain in red.
The knock-on effect can be that your team feel they need to mirror these behaviours, you could unintentionally be encouraging them to sign up to working patterns that ultimately lead to burnout.
The Culture You Model Is the Culture You Make
Teams don’t generally take their cues from posters on the wall – they model their behaviour based on what they see others around them doing.
If you genuinely want your teams to prioritise sustained performance, it’s important they are also given permission to rest – and that they see you giving yourself permission too.
Some ways you can adapt your existing habits to become a more positive role model include:
- Scheduling emails to send during work hours: If you do choose to write emails out-of-hours, utilise the ‘schedule send’ feature so they land within office hours.
- Reviewing your meeting habits: By default, make your meetings 5-10 minutes shorter to build in time to recover ahead of the next call.
- Introducing daily slivers of recovery: Whether you prefer movement, meditation or a moment to sit still, schedule a couple of short breaks into each day to get away from your screen. Importantly, let your teams know you’re doing this, so they feel they can too.
- Setting boundaries: Make your non-negotiables (sleep, school run, gym) clear and honour them.
- Showing visible rest: Use your holiday, and when you’re off, don’t ‘check in’. Recovery fuels results, and it’s important that your team knows that when they are off, there is no expectation for them to still have an eye on work.
Protect Your Teams’ Wellbeing
Leading others well starts with how you manage yourself. Care isn’t something you should only give outwardly – it’s a practice you must also extend inwardly if you want your organisation to thrive long term.
Are your behaviours contributing to burnout in your team? Think about how you can adapt them to show a more positive way of working.
If you’re unsure of what to look out for for signs of burnout in yourself or within your teams, our 12 Stages of Burnout is a guide to signs and symptoms, both active and passive. But also, more importantly, tips at each stage of things you can do for yourself and do to help others.
I support organisations to build resilience without burnout through my wellbeing keynote talks and webinars on sustained high performance. If you’re interested in discussing how I can support your business, book a free exploration call.
