Being a leader can be a lonely job. Whether you are a small business owner, a project leader, a team leader, or a parent, being responsible for all the decisions, the results, and the overall health and productivity of the team can be both lonely and draining. On top of this responsibility, you likely don't have many colleagues around who can empathize with you or share the burden of your position.
In the short term, this can be hard, but over the long term, it can lead to burnout and all its unhappy symptoms—depression, decreased productivity, a diminished sense of purpose and joy, anxiety, and more.
If you are in a leadership position, you'll face the pressure, responsibility, loneliness, and drama of managing projects, clients, customers, and teams. So, what can you do to prevent or at least curtail burnout?
Burnout—What Is It?
Let’s first define what burnout is. It’s not the occasional stress that accompanies particularly busy times of the year or the increased pressure to meet a deadline. Burnout is the accumulation of stress, pressure, and responsibility from leading a team over months and years, which leads to extreme exhaustion, apathy, procrastination, and a lack of motivation. Those suffering from burnout can’t muster enthusiasm for the job (or maybe anything) anymore, become short-tempered with issues that arise, and ultimately feel like nothing they do matters anymore.
Employees pushed to perform under constant pressure can certainly feel burnout (and do), but add the loneliness that leaders frequently experience from the added burden of managing a team, and the likelihood of leaders feeling burnout is even greater.
Quick Check-in: How many of those symptoms are you experiencing right now? Can you remember a time before you felt this way? How did you feel?
Curtailing Burnout
All is not lost if you are a leader experiencing burnout. You can break free of this cycle, and it’s worth it. Remember those questions I just asked you? They’re to remind you that life can be good. You can feel motivated, excited, joyful, and ready to take life on. You’ve just been beaten down by the pressure of work and leading.
So, as a leader, what can you do to decrease feelings of burnout?
Get Support
It is lonely at the top, so get support—and lots of it. Go to therapy, get a coach, spend time with your friends, and find professional groups that can help you feel heard and understood. Isolating yourself may feel nice in the moment (who wants to deal with more people after a long day, am I right?), but it just adds to your loneliness and feelings of being stuck. Life is bigger than work, and spending time with people and getting support helps you see that. Also, many of these avenues can help you identify specific areas that are draining you—team conflict, business elements, customer service, etc.—and help you navigate, understand, or delegate them.
Delegate What You Can
Let me guess, the first thing you thought was, "I can't. I'm the only one who can do this properly." I totally get it. You're protective of your process, and maybe you're right that you can't delegate everything, but I bet you could delegate something. Do it. Now. Let it be done 80% of the way you like it and call it good. Perfectionism and control are your enemies when it comes to leading a team. You need to spend your energy only on the things you can do. Everything else can be done 80% of the way to good and let it go. You never know—maybe you'll find someone who does it better than you or loves doing it!
Disconnect From the Drama
Is Suzy from accounting unhappy because she and Clarice are fighting over copy-machine time? Is Cheryl throwing another fit about the choice of paper towels? Did Tristan microwave fish again, and now Candace has sent a passive-aggressive email about her sensitivity to smells?
Let them. I get it. It's super annoying, and you wish people would just get over it. You can have all the team meetings you want to improve communication, understanding, and harmony, but you will never make everyone on your team happy at all times. Someone on your team will be dissatisfied with life at all times and will blame it on your office as the reason. It’s not. There’s a huge host of other stuff they’re upset about, and Tristan and his fish are just the easiest thing to complain about. Take appropriate action if needed, find the humor in it if you can, and let it go. Don’t bring the emotions home with you.
This takes conscious practice and probably a lot of coaching, but just being aware that you cannot make someone happy who does not want to be happy and you cannot fix problems for people that they have to fix for themselves will help.
You’re a great leader, even if Cheryl is upset about the paper towels. You’re doing your best, even if Tristan brings fish again. You’re succeeding, even if everyone is annoyed that the toothbrush colors are green now and not yellow. Their happiness levels, 90% of the time, have nothing to do with you. Breathe. You’re okay. Go take a nap.
Give Yourself a Break--Frequently
I mean this in a couple of ways. Give yourself a break—acknowledge that you’re doing your best—and give yourself a literal break. Move your body, get enough sleep, do something fun with some-body (see what I did there? 😉), and nourish your body with good food. You cannot outrun your anxiety, unhappiness, and burnout by overworking. Believe me, I know. You have to rest. And this will feel like you’re dying (because, hello, anxiety). But do it enough times, and your body will start to relax. You’ll realize that Cheryl’s paper towel problems are not that big of a deal and that you’re exhausted. Good. Take a nap. You’ll be a better leader, I promise, if you can rest every once in a while (kidding, once a day feels like the ideal norm).
If you’re feeling burned out and need help starting your resting journey, contact me at enneagramreflections@gmail.com.
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