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- What Leaders Can Do About Burnout
Burnout is real.
If you have ever been burned out or care about your team members' burnout, this week is for you.
Let’s get after it.
I. Burnout is about being out of balance
What it means:
Being burned out isn’t about being busy. When you look at employee engagement data, accountants are the most engaged in April, their busiest season. If burnout were tied to being busy, wouldn’t all accountants be burned out?
The truth is, burnout is about being out of balance. It’s about forgetting the deeper purpose behind the work. It creeps in when work consumes more than it gives, and energy fades. The danger for high performers and driven teams is that they often don’t recognize burnout until it's too late.
II. Burnout happens when something about work isn’t working.
What it means:
In a recent episode of the John Eades Podcast, Adam Weber said, “It’s not the volume of work, it’s about when something about work isn’t working.”
Burnout can happen when you allow work to take an outsized place in your life. It’s most prevalent when you don’t give enough attention to other areas of your life, such as health, hobbies, and family.
Seasons are okay, but in perpetuity, they might not be.
III. Burnout doesn’t show up at all once, it builds in stages.
What it means:
As a leader, your job isn’t just to prevent burnout in others; it’s to recognize it in yourself and model a more sustainable way forward. That begins with understanding that burnout has levels. Knowing where you and your team members are is the first step to combating it.
After coaching and studying leaders for over a decade, one pattern has become unmistakably clear: burnout doesn’t show up all at once, it builds in stages.
Use your gifts,
John Eades
CEO | LearnLoft | The Sales Infrastructure
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The Optimistic Outlook (Newsletter)
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The Optimistic Outlook is now available wherever you listen to podcasts. Channel your inner John Eades and make your kids listen to it, then read it aloud to work on their minds and communication skills.
Great Leadership Inspires Followership (Podcast)
"Great leadership inspires followership. It gets people to follow the strategy. Followership doesn’t happen by just telling people what to do."
Adam Weber joins the show in this week's episode. He is the former Chief People Officer at 15Five, co-founder of Emplify, and author of Lead Like a Human.
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