We live in a genuinely volatile and uncertain world that is causing a new level of pressure permeating all aspects of life. The impact of this volatility in the work context is resulting in some significant challenges: increased levels of burnout, rising levels of mental health, ongoing issues around psychological safety in the workplace, the great resignation, quiet quitting (people doing the minimum requirements of their job), increased claims of bullying and harassment and many more workplace challenges.
In this context, leaders are experiencing heightened levels of pressure to deal with these challenges while still needing to ensure their businesses deliver sustainable outcomes. To do this, they often have to work harder and are under a significant level of pressure on a daily basis. They must maintain business continuity while dealing with increased challenges in retaining employees, maintaining staff engagement levels, and finding replacements for workers when they leave. This pressure on leaders has significantly increased their risk of burnout.
Dimensions International’s Global Leadership Forecast (2021) reveals that nearly 60% of leaders reported feeling exhausted at the end of the workday, a strong indicator of burnout. Research has also shown that 96% of senior leaders are experiencing moderate to extreme levels of burnout, and it is estimated that burnout costs the global economy $323.4 billion annually (Lindner, 2024).
What is leadership burnout?
Burnout is a state of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion that affects a person’s ability to function normally. Physical symptoms can include headaches, stomach-aches, fatigue, changes in appetite, and difficulty sleeping. Emotional symptoms include helplessness, cynicism, a sense of failure or self-doubt, decreased satisfaction, and unstable emotional reactions. Behavioural symptoms can consist of reduced performance, low motivation, withdrawal or isolation, procrastination, outbursts, or substance use to cope.
Leaders in the current pressured context are highly vulnerable to burnout. With the fast-paced culture dominating organisations, busyness is seen as the new normal, and leaders feel pressured to work harder to keep up. Companies are often under-resourced for various reasons, and leaders are asked to do more with less. If this is not managed, it can come at a significant cost to leadership well-being.
Leaders in the present pressurized context are highly vulnerable to burnout. With the fast-paced culture dominating organisations, busyness is seen as usual, and leaders feel pressured to work harder to keep up. Companies are under-resourced, and leaders are asked to do more with less. If this is not managed, it can come at a significant cost to the leader’s well-being. Research has shown the negative impact of burnout on a leader’s ability to deliver transformational leadership, which undermines their ability to effectively lead their team through disruption (Folan, 2021; Risambessy, Swasto, Thoyib, & Astuti, 2012). If leaders are going to learn to thrive and flourish in this volatile and uncertain context, they must develop strategies to maintain their mental, emotional, and physical health. If they don’t, they are highly likely to burnout or develop mental health challenges.
The antidote to burnout: Resiliance
Research has consistently shown that individuals with high levels of resilience have an enhanced ability to bounce back from adversity and an increased capacity to thrive in turbulent times (Lipsitt & Demick, 2011; Wagnild & Young, 1993). A substantial volume of research shows a strong positive correlation between high resilience levels and enhanced well-being (Farber & Rosendahl, 2018). Leaders who build their resilience will be able to process the pressure, flourish in this contemporary world of work and maintain a transformational leadership style (Folan, 2019).
The foundations of leader resilience
Building leader resilience requires the development of the three determinants of resilience (Folan 2019).
Self-concept, well-being
Self-awareness and effective emotional management. There are four critical areas of focus for enhancing self-concept well-being.
- Understanding who I am and what matters to me.
- Building a realistic and healthy evaluation of self
- How is your self-concept structured?
- Building emotional intelligence
Internal focus of control
Ownership of outcomes and the capacity to separate reactions from external pressures and stimuli.
Three key areas require focus to develop an internal locus of control:
- Learn to accept responsibility for outcomes – when things go wrong, accept responsibility for the outcome and take action to bring about a change.
- Take ownership of reactions to external stimuli regardless of the severity of the challenges. The only thing we have control over is our reaction to the situation, not the situation itself. Maintaining an internal locus of control requires selecting an optimistic response to external stimuli.
- Develop strategies to monitor your actions and reactions. Strategies include feedback and reflection so that you can monitor your responses to ensure they stay optimistic
Constructive thinking
Observe and manage your thinking, unpack destructive (unconscious and conscious) mental processing, and manage the processing of experiences in the brain. There are two critical aspects to developing constructive thinking:
- Clean up and continue to clean up our unconscious mental processing
- When destructive thinking happens, we become conscious and change our thinking to constructive as quickly as possible.
Practical strategies to build resilience
A range of practical strategies can be used for each of the determinants. But some valuable strategies that support all aspects of resilience are:
Manage boundaries
Leaders need to become more discerning about the work they take on and learn to communicate what they can realistically achieve. They also need to push back on unrealistic expectations and requirements.
Regularly unplug from technology and devices
Research has shown that leaders who unplug entirely from technology at night are much more likely to look forward to going to work in the mornings and feel more fulfilled at their jobs (First, 2015).
Get clear about your life purpose and the things that matter to you
Stephen Covey’s work, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (2020), clearly articulates the importance of having a purpose and being clear about the important things in life. This is a critical piece of work that individuals should do annually to maintain resilience.
Invest in building healthy personal relationships
Contrary to what many people think, it’s not career achievement that enhances life satisfaction. The longest-running longitudinal research shows that human connection is the most important thing for healthy development and life satisfaction(Solan, 2017). The research also indicates that workaholics who didn’t pay any attention to their relationships were some of the saddest people in the study and were filled with regret.
Journaling
Exploring your emotional reactions, destructive thinking and actively working through unhealthy mental processing is incredibly important for mental health and overall well-being. Dr Andrew Huberman (2024), a top neuroscientist, details the scientific evidence of the importance of journalling for improved mental health and well-being.
Seek out mentoring and coaching
Finding a mentor or coach who will support you in enhancing your emotional intelligence, building your optimism and supporting you in improving your mental processing is essential for your well-being and resilience (Thomas & Lankau, 2009)
Meditation and mindfulness activities
Meditation is crucial for maintaining resilience in a volatile and uncertain world. There is now a significant body of research on the importance of meditation in maintaining well-being and resilience levels (Kwak et al., 2019).
Burnout is now a significant issue in organisations, and leaders are at high risk due to the pressure they are experiencing. It is now time to take action to deal with this; organisations and individual leaders need to build resilience to counteract the risk of burnout.
