Are you a leader running on empty? We've all been there - working long hours, battling exhaustion, and feeling the pressure mount as we strive to lead our teams to success. But what if, in the pursuit of leadership excellence, we've overlooked a crucial player - ourselves? Tune in today as we shed light on the often-ignored issue of executive burnout and how we, as leaders, can recognize the signs in ourselves.
Building on insights from a recent senior executive mastermind session and the latest research, we delve into the surprising reality that companies have minimal impact on reducing burnout. Instead, we've discovered that over 90% of the responsibility falls on the direct leaders or managers. We explore three key ways to identify stress and exhaustion in yourself. Your leadership journey is a choice. So choose to start by taking a good look in the mirror, assessing your own well-being, and leading by example. Tune in, reflect, and find your path to a healthier, more balanced leadership style.
This episode is sponsored by LucidPoint
Are you struggling to take your IT organization to the next level?
We help our customers do so with confidence. Turn your vision into reality, call LucidPoint today!
https://www.lucidpoint.io/
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Quick Take podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Suzy Tominczuk.
Speaker 2:
And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today.
Speaker 1:
Hey, welcome to Quick Take. I am not so loud. Hi, welcome to Quick Take, I'm your host. Suzy Along with James. How are you today, James?
Speaker 2:
I'm great, I'm super glad you, we have a guest executive with us today. We often say executives are big babies, but this is a cute one.
Speaker 1:
That was a good one, James, yeah.
Speaker 2:
I know let me have possibilities on that one. That's right Awesome.
Speaker 1:
In case you aren't checking us out on video, I'm holding a baby.
Speaker 2:
I'm always the captain. I'm always the captain, yeah.
Speaker 1:
I'm always captain of obvious.
Speaker 2:
You're a lot more subtle. So, well, I just wanted to be clear, too, that it is an adorable baby. For those of you on Spotify, it's clearly an adopted baby.
Speaker 1:
Another good one. My daughter's gonna thank you for that.
Speaker 2:
You bet, you bet, but it's a lot of work to be doing a podcast and a baby especially, especially these days.
Speaker 1:
So she decided that she didn't want to be on her own, two feet away from me.
Speaker 2:
So that's right. She rules kids these days. Camera hogs Totally All right, let's get to it, Okay.
Speaker 1:
On a serious note, I was in a senior executive what do you call it? Mastermind this week and we had the benefit of their head chief HR officer kind of throwing us out. I'm having a really hard time, help me out. So, like, he just framed the discussion and it was so good. He's so powerful, great guy. But he quoted some of the recent research around burnout. Oh yeah, and so the way he talked about it was you know, people are burnout right now has a lot to do with just having a lot of different ways that we connect our life, being really, you know, always on and so. But he, what he said that I thought was really interesting is there is, there are things that the company can do. The research shows that there are things that the company can do, but the that ability or impact for the company to have an increase in engagement or reducing burnout is really minimal, like in the yeah, really low.
Speaker 2:
The larger initiatives and those broader activities that that's not the big. What can companies do?
Speaker 1:
I'm so glad you asked, because what he said was it's your direct leader, your direct manager.
Speaker 2:
Oh sure, sure, that makes complete sense.
Speaker 1:
It's above 90%, it's all on that person and that that is supported. Gallup has reported on that as well, and that's what they say. It's your manager. That's why they wrote a book. It's a manager because it's all about the impact that that direct leader can have. But the problem is, those leaders are burnout too.
Speaker 2:
Oh, that's exactly right. That's exactly right and I think that you know, when you look at the burden that is being put on leadership and we talk about this at a lot of the companies I work with, not only the executive level but the next level down we put a tremendous amount of emphasis on improving morale, improving outcome, improving output on those leaders and it's really challenging to do that when leaders are burned out, and I think the biggest challenge in that is it really recognizing when you're burned out, because we've been running with our heads down for, whether it's post COVID or just as you know, as as companies do, it's really hard to pick your head up and see where you are.
Speaker 1:
I think that's so true. You know, when I first start working with leaders, one thing I noticed and this is not research-based, but what the first thing I notice is they want to talk about how they can lead better. They want to talk about how do they fulfill the needs of the people that work for them. I think we've trained everyone to be not self-focused, especially in leadership, but you really focus on your people, which is important, but to your point. How do you acknowledge or take the time to notice when you should shift that focus on yourself, Right, right.
Speaker 2:
You know I'm going to, I'm going to give let's see one. I'm going to give three ways that you can maybe help identify stress or stress and exhaustion in yourself. But I'm going to. These are going to be so obvious that to each one of our listeners that there's going to be a little bit of an eye roll. But here's the trick of today's episode is that this is a case of where the cobbler's kids have no shoes. These are very simple things for you to recognize in your people, but I'm asking you to look in the mirror. I'm asking you to ask yourself these questions, because that's really the change. The call to action that we have here is it's not to learn three things about how to identify exhaustion and mental atrophy. It's about how you can use those three things that you know well and make sure that you're checking your own, you're checking yourself, because it is it's really challenging to take time, as you said, and really examine yourself and determine where you are.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that's good and you know, I always say to people it's your choice, Leadership is your choice. So paying attention to these things, even the basics sometimes. So I think that's a great thank you for for me that way. So what's the first one?
Speaker 2:
You know, the first one is really just exhaustion, and you know a lot of us work late hours. I work, you know, in multiple time zones, whether it's a meeting, in a pack or an Arnemia, or in the US. They're quite insane hours, and so of course I have a lack of sleep, but that's. You know. There's there's lack of sleep and there's exhaustion, where you're finding that you are you did get a few hours of sleep last night but you're still tired. You know, in your physical body is not as behaving as you would like it, and you can feel it, whether it's through muscle tension or whether it's through aches and pains or just simply feeling tired. Those are really good indicators that it's more than just your lack of sleep. That exhaustion is a good tell that you made me to evaluate the work.
Speaker 1:
And that's so hard to see you know, I noticed the other day that I've been being watched.
Speaker 2:
You are amazing. I enjoy watching you not quite with the the gape opening mouth that that I'm seeing.
Speaker 1:
But I noticed the other day that I was. I was needing to take a nap in the middle of the day. I have to be honest and you know, my daughter said to me, I, my daughters, are in their 20s, and she said, mom, you've just been going so hard. You go I guess I think that's a great call out, but sometimes I didn't even think about it being something I needed to do. So ask somebody around you really take note of this is a little bit more than normal and I need to do something.
Speaker 2:
And again, it's not just if it's. I think you'll find that an extra hour asleep or a nap doesn't fix it.
Speaker 2:
Right, that's not, it's not that I oh I just I had a kink in my neck when I slept last night. It is like I'm exhausted, I'm not tired. There's a huge difference there. Yeah, okay. And then second one is actually kind of related to that. It's really that your your challenges or you're going to see a decrease in your mental acuity and your decision making. Obviously, if you can't quite tell that you're exhausted, that's kind of a part of the equation here. But we're talking about the inability to make decisions like you're used to, the desire or the need to take more time to make decisions. Maybe you're finding that you're just feeling uncomfortable under pressure and those times when you've been asked by your team to make a quick decision, you can't. Or you're uncomfortable or you're feeling like you need more information. That's exhaustion. That's your brain not functioning as well as it could be, or it could be the drool that comes out of your mouth sometimes when you're in the middle of a meeting.
Speaker 2:
I mean all those things are possible.
Speaker 1:
We're a little distracted. Okay, that's good. Yeah, just a, and maybe one sign I'm trying to think of signs as you're going is it takes you longer. You know a normal thing maybe putting together a deck or writing an email. You're like struggling or your words aren't coming out when you just kind of take no zoom out, watch yourself, look at what doesn't feel right.
Speaker 2:
That's exactly right. Those are great examples and I love the idea that, like gosh, I just can't seem to get this done, or I can't seem to finish my emails, or I'm keep avoiding this presentation. You know that's not. You know you're not all of a sudden lazy. That is, that's some exhaustion that I think is manifesting itself in your inability to execute.
Speaker 1:
All right, what's number three trace?
Speaker 2:
And then I think that really just the emotional distress and really maybe detachment from your work and your desire to be elsewhere and no longer really finding the fire inside of you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You know, and typically when I see this in executives, it's almost one morning. They realize, you know, I don't care anymore.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
Like well, you know what? It's probably not today. Yeah, you're exhausted and this isn't a thing that's been happening. You're just suddenly finding that your brain has changed and you don't see the excitement anymore. Maybe that's time for you to take a couple of days off and maybe you need to step away. That emotional reaction to detach yourself from the work is really a huge indicator that you're facing burnout. You know we talk about taking sabbaticals. People take time off. You know large amounts of time. You do need to shut your brain off sometimes and just step away, and you know burnout and can take, you know, various times for different people to kind of come back from. But you know you don't want to get to yourself in a situation where you're being forced to continue in a role where you just don't have the passion anymore and you're going to continue to dig yourself into a bigger hole.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think I was trying to think of examples and I thought of something funny. It's like when you're not, you don't really that person doesn't bug you as much. That email doesn't, quite you know, sting from that person. We always have those people that are difficult to work with. That kind of is a sign of like I really don't care.
Speaker 2:
Like I'm kind of yeah, lost the passion.
Speaker 1:
There's a good and bad to that.
Speaker 2:
You know they don't bug you as much. They don't bug you as much. But you know what? Two months ago, you know, we had a retrospective and we had a staff meeting after that kind no-transcript, no. You, as a leader, need to be consistent and execute. If you're finding that the apathy is one of the major components of your thinking that you've got to maybe take a look at, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
All right, so let's go through the three.
Speaker 2:
First one physical and mental exhaustion. Are you exhausted and not tired? Does an extra hour of sleep not make a difference? Keep an eye out for that. Second decision-making ability. Is it hard for you to finish your work? Are you putting off that deck, that presentation to the board, those things that you usually would dive in and you just kind of pushing them off? Or are you struggling with that ability to execute on that? And then the third one is kind of that emotional detachment. Are you detaching from work? Are you finding less energy and interest in what's going on and are you feeling that the things that used to get you excited or not? That's another huge indicator that you probably need to make some changes.
Speaker 1:
I think this is really important and it's really important for us to take those moments to assess ourselves. And burnout is real I mean, the research shows it at a lot of different levels. So thank you for that. You've got me thinking, too, about what can I do to rejigger or really be thoughtful about where I stand on that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and that's the question that I would ask the leaders that you talked to. I know it's a question I ask my leaders First is do you look for burnout in your teams? And then there, of course, they'll give me a 20 minute diatribe and then I'm like and do you look for it in you? Because that is the bigger. You know, if you're a multiplier, if you're a leader, your burnout is impacting a whole lot more people than any one of your, your, your executive.
Speaker 1:
You know, and when you notice it and you articulate that, hey, I've noticed this in myself. I just when you do that, you're showing that leadership, that this is something that you need to do too, so you're helping you and you're helping them.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely Awesome.
Speaker 1:
This is James, yeah yeah, yeah, so good, so good. You know what I love about the number three? What?
Speaker 2:
was that.
Speaker 1:
That her mom's name is Trace. If we go, you know.
Speaker 2:
Oh, Trace, we have to call Trace for no one.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's a good name. Yeah, let's call her Trace. Well, thank you, james, appreciate it and we appreciate you. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate your reach out. Feel free to follow us on LinkedIn and we'd love to hear from you. Think about this for yourself, and what do you need to adjust or take note of so that you can address maybe your stress out or burnt out?
Speaker 2:
And look for the Quickster onesie that'll be coming to the Quickster store soon.
Speaker 1:
That's right, and if you happen to have one of these under six months and you're feeling burnout, it might just be that you have a baby. So I'm just saying I wanted notes so that we know it's not carte blanche.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:
All right, well, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the minds of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind.
Speaker 2:
You can find us on LinkedIn, YouTube or whatever nerdy place on the internet. You find your podcasts. The links you really did are in the show notes.