Recently, a CEO told me that burnout occurs when someone makes significant emotional investments in their work and doesn’t realize a commensurate return on investment.
I understand “return” to mean “emotional return”.
I’ll take this one step further and suggest the greatest emotional ROI that team members can realize is having a deeply felt sense that “we’re all in this together”.
Team members who don’t feel this way become susceptible to burnout, and they check out emotionally to protect themselves.
Responsibility for continually renewing the emotional bonds of a tightly knit team sits squarely on the shoulders of our leaders.
I often reference this definition – by Kouzes and Posner - of leadership: it is “the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations”. Sounds like an effective approach for combatting burnout!
As a leader, how are you mobilizing others and creating shared aspirations?
If you're not sure how you're doing, contact me for assistance.