Most leaders embrace practices that will inevitably lead to burnout. Fortunately, most of these habits can be changed. Here are three essential steps to take to avoid leadership burnout.
Dreaming of a Deserted Island
Burnout does not always look like a heart attack, high blood pressure or weight gain. It is not only increased stress, loss of sleep or a caffeine requirement.
While these physical symptoms may be the easiest to recognize, many of us have figured out ways to incorporate exercise and healthier habits into our routines thereby reducing the physical issues most commonly associated with burnout.
In such cases, burnout may show up as a strained relationship, reduced free time or downtime, or daydreams of an off-the-grid escape vacation. The key is to understand what burnout looks like for us.
While it may be easy to see weight gain or feel stress, it may not be as easy to link burnout to more fights with our spouse or less patience with our children. It can be even more challenging to recognize a sign of burnout could be thinking a hobby is a luxury in which we cannot indulge.
Yet, all these things are signs that we have little or no control of our lives which in turn will increase the likelihood of a crash.
The Oasis Mirage
After recognizing the different signs indicating an inevitable crash, it is critical to understand the leadership paradox.
In many cases, leaders are leaders because we constantly push ourselves. We live at our limits. This results in amazing things, but it also means we do not stop pushing. In other words, as soon as work becomes easier, we fill that mental room with another challenge.
The easiest way to recognize and avoid the associated burnout is to prioritize appropriately and avoid bargaining priorities. For example, thinking that pushing hard for a certain amount of time so we can go offline at the end of it can be a flawed approach for strong leaders because it is counter to the way we act: most leaders cannot just turn their brains on and off.
In other words, the idea that taking a week off sometime in the future after working 60+ hour weeks for months is unrealistic. It will be difficult to let go of a habit (working hard, long hours) that has been reinforced for so long.
Further, by constantly telling ourselves (and loved ones or co-workers) that this is our preferred approach, it shows that work is the priority not time off. And if the time off is not completely off (no checking emails, voicemail or professional reading) then our actions further reinforce that work is our true priority.
Own It
Finally, it is imperative that we recognize the power inherent in our roles. As leaders, if something is not sustainable, logical or productive, it is up to us to change it.
In this case, driving full force such that we will inevitably burnout is a bad business practice and we cannot expect anyone else to change it; and not changing is a failure on our part. We must own our role and manage ourselves to account for the higher standard of productivity, creativity and leadership that we expect and want to show others.
The bottom line is, recognizing the variety of signs of burning out, understanding the impact our drive to push ourselves has on our life priorities, and then owning our roles as leaders to use our power to change will help us lead more sustainably.
