Leadership Burnout Basics: How to Spot It Before It Takes Over

Burnout isn’t just feeling tired after a hard week, it’s the slow, chronic drain that changes how you think, how you react, and how your body recovers. We talk candidly about how many leaders confuse overwork with dedication, and how “wearing commitment like a badge” can quietly push us into an unsustainable rhythm.

We break down the difference between short-term stress and true burnout, then map the three major ways burnout shows up: cognitively (lower capacity, foggier thinking, decision fatigue), emotionally (less regulation, more irritability, that constant “jangly” feeling), and physically (sleep disruption, digestion and immunity issues, and reduced recovery). If you’ve felt detached from work or the people you care about, or you can’t prioritize because everything feels overwhelming, we explain why those signals matter and why other people may notice them before you do.

From there, we dig into what actually drives leadership burnout: unsustainable workload at work and at home, a lack of control when demands exceed resources, boundaries that get crossed over and over, and the isolation that can come with senior roles. We close with practical next steps to prevent and recover, including recovery mode that fits your situation, stronger delegation, building a real support system, healthier boundaries, and getting help when you need it. Subscribe, share this with a leader who’s carrying too much, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

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Ambitious leaders know that real leadership goes far beyond titles—it’s about developing the clarity and mindset to guide others with confidence. In this podcast, you’ll explore what today’s leaders truly need, from navigating everyday problem solving to handling tough moments of workplace conflict with steadiness and respect. Episodes dive into setting healthy workplace boundaries, strengthening workplace collaboration, and building the emotional intelligence and emotional agility that make leadership sustainable. Whether you’re managing a growing team or refining your voice as a decision-maker, you’ll find insights that help you cultivate a resilient growth mindset and elevate your impact.

Transcript

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Burnout Vs Stress Defined

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of the Intentional Leaders Podcast where we explore stories, ideas, insights to help you lead with more purpose and intention. Today we're talking burnout. And if you want, you're going to discover in this episode whether you are merely stressed or burnout and what is the difference. You're also going to learn the leadership habits that silently drive burnout and what to do instead and gain practical ideas to help manage your energy, not just in the short term, but the long term, to lead at your absolute best. So today we're talking about leadership burnout. We could also be talking about human being burnout. You don't have to be a leader to feel this, but many leaders are in fact experiencing a lot of burnout these days. And burnout is not just being tired, it's not just being stressed, it's prolonged, chronic signs and symptoms that all is not right in the world. And if you have experienced burnout or seen someone who has, you know how devastating it can be to our health and well-being. So today let's talk a little bit about what it is and how to think about maybe are you a candidate for burnout? Are you heading in that direction? Are you already there? Um, but I think back to different times in my career, and I don't know that in the moment I thought, gee, whiz I'm burnt out. I think in the moment I thought, gee whiz, I'm pretty stressed. And I look back on those moments, and I think I didn't realize the toll that what I was doing was not sustainable. And I'll say what I was doing because it was a lot of choices I was making. And I think a lot of us make choices when we're in a role, when we're in a position, when we're in a leadership job, that we think that we have to be dedicated and committed, you know, a billion percent of the time. And I always wore that as I guess a badge of honor that I was very committed. I was very dedicated, and I wanted people to see that. I wanted people to experience my level of commitment, my level of dedication. And back in the day, like a thousand years ago, uh, in the corporate world, that meant working really long hours, coming in on the weekend, coming in at night, and I would do those things. At that time, there weren't as many virtual options as are there are, of course, today. Um, but I wanted to show how dedicated I was and how committed I was, and not realizing, again, that toll that it was taking on me. So when we think about the signs of burnout and the effect of burnout, and then how to prevent it, the cool thing is there's going to be a downloadable guide for you in the show notes that talks about the warning signs and are you falling into or are you having any of these warning signs? But a lot of times we um disguise dedication and say it's dedication, but it's really leading us to burnout. And how do we know that if it affects us in three key

When Dedication Becomes Unsustainable

SPEAKER_00 3:35

ways? When you think about chronic stress, because stress tends to be short-term, right? Like, okay, I'm stressed about this thing, capacity or a deadline or something that just happened, and stress tends to be more short-term, and we fix it and we move on and we get back into balance. But when we think about burnout, it's sustained and prolonged stress, and that affects us not only uh cognitively, because our ability to process information goes down, our ability to problem solve is diminished, our ability and capacity to make quick decisions all goes down. So cognitive, our cognitive load um we can't bear as much and we don't think as well. But secondly, it takes an emotional toll. So our ability to regulate our central nervous system, our emotional reactions becomes much less or much more limited, right? So if I think, you know, again back to I was never really good back in the day. I've been working on this for a long time. Um emotional intelligence. It wasn't as much of a thing. There wasn't as much access to resources and information about it, but I was not good at managing my emotions or regulating my emotions. And when I was stressed or when I was emotional about something, especially at work, if it was disappointing, if it was upsetting, if it was irritating, if I was angry or disappointed or embarrassed or ashamed, I did not know how to manage that well. So for me, it was always like suck it up, suck it in, compartmentalize it, which just led to more stress and exhaustion. So, one, cognitively, our capacity goes down. Emotionally, our ability to regulate goes down. But third is just our physical well-being. And if you think about stress, what stress does to our um our nervous system. And from a biology, when we have stress, our stress hormones um, you know, come into play. Like think about adrenaline, adrenaline and cortisol, and all the things that happen to us when we're stressed. Well, when we have chronic stress and and that kind of burnout, those hormones have been racing through our body for a long time without the ability to dissipate. And that affects us physically. It's gonna affect our eating, our immune system, um, our eating because our digestive system can be compromised, and of course, our sleep. And sleep isn't just like, I don't want to be tired, I need to sleep. Sleep is recovery for our brain. When we sleep, it our brain is able to process all the things that happen every day, and it's able to store things into long-term memory. It helps with problem solve at night, right? All the good things. It takes care of our heart and all of there's so much going on when we sleep that we don't know about. It's not just rest, it's recovery for our body. So if you think about those three things being affected by chronic burnout, that we're not in a good place emotionally, cognitively, or physically, the bummer is that we might not even recognize we're at a burnout stage, right? We may just think, oh, I'm tired, or it's things are just too much, and we don't really see it. A lot of times other people see it. Um I see it in people I work with. So they may not experience it or they may think of it as stress, um, and and we may look at others and see something

Cognitive Emotional Physical Warning Signs

SPEAKER_00 7:20

a little different. So we got to be honest with each other about when this is happening, because if we if we don't, then we can't do anything about it. But here are some of the early warning signs. And again, we um we posted a blog article about this um as well. But um, some of the things you're gonna see is not just you know being tired, but being exhausted, um, decision fatigue. If you're not able to make decisions, and if especially if you pride yourself on being a good decision maker, you can look at things and view it analytically. You have good critical thinking skills and you're able to make good decisions that are uh sustainable, that are high quality, um, or even if you have to make controversial decisions, you're able to articulate them well. So I think all of those things are compromised. So you might experience decision fatigue. You just can't think and decide as well as maybe you can. Uh, it's probably harder to prioritize because everything feels overwhelming. And that ability to say, okay, where do I start? What is most important? Where should I spend my energy, knowing that energy is limited? And how do I think about what is not only the most urgent, but the most important? And how do we balance that and consider that? So that could be another warning sign. Um, also just irritability. Um, and that looks different for other for all of us, right? For some people, irritability is very visible. For some people, um, they kind of again compartmentalize it, but inside they're feeling irritable. You might not see it, but someone might feel it, you might feel it more in terms of your, you know, your nerves feeling. I also I call it jangly when my nerves are jangly inside, like, oh, that's irritability. That's how it feels to me. Um, and maybe just a little bit of detachment that you're stepping out and away from things that you typically care about, whether that's your job or your employees or your family or your friends or whatever you tend to like and enjoy and want to be connected to, you might be a little bit more detached from it. If any of those things sound familiar to you, or if a couple of those things sound familiar to you, we got to take that seriously.

Decision Fatigue Irritability Detachment

SPEAKER_00 9:40

But also know that you're not alone. This is it, it's while it's not good and healthy, it certainly is part of the human experience, right? To to feel this way. And I think in leadership roles, and any of you who are leaders who are also parents, who are also juggling multiple roles, and and when I say parent, parenting can be children, parenting of your uh adult parents, parenting of animals. Parenting, I'm thinking of it as kind of a mindset of not necessarily just children, but parenting that role of taking care of someone else. Um, so when we think about what causes burnout, think about like that unsustainable workload and workload, not just at work. But a lot of people struggle at work with their workload. Um, and I experience and get to work with leaders almost every single day. And I know that they're being asked to do more with less. And even though we've been hearing that for a long time, it's literally true with budget cuts and um all the things, the pressure on leaders to figure out all those problems and how to still get the work done is very, very difficult. And I feel like that um unsustainability of the workload is one of the key reasons. Um, but that's work and life, the bigger roles that we play. And then um, secondly, is a lack of control when we don't feel like we have the personal power, and by definition, that's actually what stress is. Stress is when we feel like the demands being placed on us exceed the resources we have. And that's Richard Lazarus's definition of stress. It's like, I have this to do, and I only have the resources to do this. That is stress, right? The gap between those two things. And um, and that feels sometimes like a lack of control when we look at all those things and think, I don't have enough resources to do this. What am I supposed to do? We feel disempowered, feel like a victim, and begin to shut down a little. So part of getting through that burnout is what can we control? There's so many things in today's world that we cannot control. And sometimes that is so upsetting, it's disappointing, it's frustrating when you're full of sorrow. Um, I think the next one is a lack of boundaries. And I I only learned about boundaries several years ago. I didn't know what a boundary was. But you think of all the boundaries that we have in our life to protect ourselves. You can think of work-life balance, that's a common boundary, but even our ability to um have boundaries in our roles in our jobs. When people either say stay in your lane or don't stay in your lane, you know, boundaries around the work that you're supposed to do or you're assigned to do or that you want to do. Um, you can think about physical boundaries, physical limitations that you have that aren't being honored, even emotional uh regulation and what is expected of you in your place of work. And have you ever been told to like dial it down or shut off those emotions, which is unhealthy and unrealistic? But boundaries cross a lot of different areas, um, faith, uh physical space, time, roles, work itself, cultural, social. And if we aren't really considering the boundaries we have and when they've been violated, and when they've been violated, it's up to us to be able to say something to someone, right? Like I remember working in a job and I felt like I was being assigned in this very small team some of the most complicated work that was the most time consuming, but I was the most junior one on the team. So uh, but I got the biggest, what I perceived as to be the most challenging workload. And I didn't realize it at the time. And at first I was like, yeah, this is cool. I can totally do this. And I could add value and I could do the thing that I was being asked to do, and I was really good at it. But over time I came to resent that. Like, hey, why is it always me? Why am I the one kind of assigned this type of work, which is more complicated and time consuming than some of the other tasks that were delegated to people on the team? And because I was the most junior and of course making the least amount of money too, um, it I became to resent it over time. But you know what? I never said anything about it. I just quietly resented it until I left the job, right? That's not a great solution. So we have to be able to think about our boundaries and honor them. But I think the fourth thing that causes burnout and the things I've referenced so far is unsustainable workload, feeling a lack of control, uh, lack of boundaries. And I think the fourth is isolation. I think, again, the more senior a person is in an organization, probably the more isolated they become or feel. Like, who can I talk to? Like, okay, I I want to talk to my managers or leaders or people on my team. Is that appropriate to? Should I be sharing certain things with certain people? And feeling that isolation that comes with the power associated with the role. And that is really tough because if you don't have anyone to talk to, and it just removes you further, and then it's that feeling of being alone, like I'm alone with this. And being alone with burnout and exhaustion and stress is not a great place to be.

Root Causes Workload Control Boundaries Isolation

SPEAKER_00 15:33

How do we tackle burnout? And the best thing to do is prevent it, right? By doing all the things we can to manage our workload, to manage our boundaries, to do all those good things in advance. But if you find yourself stuck and you go through our warning signs and you think, ooh, yikes, this is this might be me. Um, there are some things that you can do if you're burned out. And number one is you got to recognize it. And as I said, sometimes that's really hard for many of us. Many of us who consider ourselves committed and dedicated, we think this is what dedicated people do. Uh at the same time, dedicated people don't hurt themselves and don't suffer the consequences of physical, mental, emotional danger to pursue something in their job. I and I do remember this, and this was uh a colleague, but also someone I considered a friend, and this was this was several years ago, but she said to me, Do you think that the organization that you work for cares as much about you personally than you care about the organization? And I was kind of taken aback by the question because I thought, well, of course they care about me. And she's like, uh and representing uh human resources in a very large company, and she's like, Well, you might want to think about that. Not that the or the company didn't care, but she was like, You are putting way a lot of energy into this, um, into uh a role that was very unsustainable. So it made me think about like, okay, Cindy, recognize it. So that's number one. And number two is we have to go into recovery mode. What does that look like? Well, it looks different for every person who's recovering from burnout. Recovery to some people might be a vacation, just getting away and truly getting away. That may help to start that process of recovering. Um, but for some people, it looks different. For some people, it's a sabbatical. For some people, it's literally a career change or a lifestyle change. So recovery is very unique to all of us. Like, what do we need? And at what level of burnout are we? The third one is just being more able to delegate. And I teach a lot of delegation strategies, like, here's how to do this. Um, but that gets to control, right? When we feel like we don't have enough control over the results and we're not willing to let go and have someone else either not do the same kind of quality job that we perceived we would do, that that's a challenge, right? But think of all the people in your career who delegated to you and allowed you to learn something. Maybe you screwed up, maybe you made some mistakes along the way, but that's what learning is all about. And as leaders and as human beings, we have to allow other people to try and fail. And I don't mean set them up to fail, and I don't mean like watch them fail big, that'll be super fun. But I mean think about your tolerance, your risk tolerance, and someone else's growth and their growth potential. And most of us learn the most from making those mistakes. So getting stronger at delegation is an awesome strategy. And it's something we must do to be sustainable with the workload that is being asked of many of us right now. Um, number four is having a good support system. And this is sometimes people associate support systems or like asking for help is a weakness. I know I did for a lot of well be and because my parents raised us to be strong and independent. And so many of us in our family, maybe all of us, have had a hard time with asking for help. And there's a a leadership assessment that I do for a client, and one of the um, one of the continuums that's being measured is uh receiving help. Can you receive help or not on a scale of and this is more emotional preference, you know, it's um from zero to 100. How much can you receive it? And and sometimes people look at that and they look, they they see a really high receiving preference and they think, oh man, I'm a taker. That's bad, right? And I think, no, that's actually good. The ability to receive help, the ability to ask for help is a sign of resilience. And resilient people tend to place themselves in situations where they have a good support system. So that's actually a really good strategy is to have that. Um, number five is healthy boundaries. And if you don't know a lot about boundaries, there are so many uh good readings and books on boundaries and um and and study that, figure that out, whether that's work-life balance or um role boundaries with your role or your social norms, whatever it might be, really consider are there things that are being violated in terms of things that you care most about. And when I say violated, I don't mean people are intentionally violating those things. Um, they might be unintentionally, some people might, but unintentionally violating them. And it's again, it's on you to create healthy boundaries and to be able to talk about them. And then last is last but not least is seeking help, finding someone to talk to. I remember different times in my life, a couple different times. One when I was going through a really significant career challenge, and I was going through a personal physical challenge, and those two things together hit me hard. And I am known for my determination and endurance, but that hit me, and I was like, I can't do this. And I remember, and I've gone to therapists a couple of times throughout my life, but that one I found a good one, and her name was Mary, and she's she's long since retired, but Mary was my spirit guide. She was the person that I could go to and expect compassion and empathy and honesty and candor. And really helped me to look at myself and my life in ways that I wouldn't have been able to do without her guidance. And um, and I will never forget. I a few years ago, it was so weird. I ran into her in the grocery store and I literally flew across the produce section like, Mary, do you remember me? And she's like, of course, of course I do. Like simmer down. Um but I was so excited to see her. And I said to her, Do you know that literally you have helped change my life, that you put me on a different trajectory? There's another word, trajectory, than I was on at that moment in my life, and it completely changed me. And it's still changing me to this day. And that was decades ago. So here are the things you can

Recovery Delegation Support Boundaries Help

SPEAKER_00 23:07

do. And again, I'll just summarize what I mentioned. One is recognizing if you're in that burnout stage. Really check that out. Check out the warning signs. Number two, focus on recovery. That means different things to different people. Um, number three, as part of even if you're not at a really chronic burnout stage, I bet if you're in a leadership role, you are not delegating enough. I would place a bet, and I'm not a betting person because most people I know do not. Most people don't take the time. They think it's too time consuming, too risky, too much, blah, blah, blah. I totally get it. Um, but delegation is important. Number four, create a support system for yourself. And if you don't feel like you can share some of these things at work, because many of us cannot, uh, and that's what I was going through when I met Mary. Um, I could not tell the people I was working with, um, and some of the personal things I was going through, I was not comfortable sharing, even with some close friends. So I was very reluctant to share that broadly. But having someone and some group that you can talk to is super helpful. Um, number five is healthy boundaries, really focusing on protecting yourself and your values and honoring those things that are important to you. And number six, seeking help if you need it. I would encourage you to download that quiz and I would encourage you to really be thoughtful about this and also be thoughtful about people around you. If you work with a group of people who are really committed to their roles, really dedicated, watch for signs of burnout in them too. Again, you're going to see it potentially physically, because you can see that, right? You can see the physical signs in people, or emotionally, if they're typically more emotionally regulated and they become less so, more irritable. Or third, those cognitive signs, if they're just not operating at the level that they typically do, um, please, please, please reach out and get involved with them. I think if we make a commitment to take care of ourselves, if we make a commitment to honor the people around us, we will get through the challenges of today in the world today. There's so much going on. And if we are mindful and thoughtful about the caretaking, the compassion that's needed, I think we can all have more intentional lives, also happier, more successful lives. And that's what I hope for all of you.

Small Choices And A Simple Next Step

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Before we wrap up, I'd like to share just a couple more thoughts. Burnout doesn't happen overnight, it tends to be the result of small actions, small choices that we make and that we take that lead us to a chronic place where it is not sustainable. So the good news is we can change it, but we have to do that with awareness and with intention. It's not a character flaw. If today our conversation was interesting to you, download that burnout guide. See if there are warning signs that you've experienced that may be contributing to your mental exhaustion. And then also, if someone came to mind when you were listening, maybe a colleague, maybe a friend, maybe another leader that you know, and it seems like they may be caring too much, share it with them too. Because sometimes the greatest gift we can give to another person is just helping them to know that they're not alone. So thank you for investing this time in listening to the episode. And remember, intentional leadership begins with helping yourself first. Until next time, lead with intention.