Things Leaders Do

Beat Burnout: Strong Teams in 2025

• Colby Morris

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Episode Title: Beat Burnout: Strong Teams in 2025

Host: Colby Morris

Published: March 10, 2025

Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Platforms

Episode Overview

Burnout’s not just lurking—it’s eating your team’s lunch and tanking your productivity. In this episode of the TLD Podcast, host Colby Morris breaks down why employee well-being and retention are your leadership superpowers in 2025. With 73% of leaders reporting change fatigue (Forbes, Oct 2024), it’s time to ditch the corporate wellness clichés and fight back. Colby delivers three actionable strategies to beat burnout, boost morale, and build strong teams—no fluff, just stuff you can use right now.

Perfect for leaders wrestling with hybrid teams, workplace stress, or high turnover, this 30-minute episode blends practical tips, real stories, and a kick to act today. Ready to lead stronger in 2025? Let’s roll.

What You’ll Learn

  • Why well-being isn’t a perk—it’s a business strategy for retention and productivity.
  • How to build psychological safety that beats burnout (hint: it starts with you).
  • A framework to redefine workloads and kill the 40-hour myth.
  • Tips to lead for energy, not just output, with energy audits and recharge culture.

Show Segments

  • Introduction – Colby sets the stage: Burnout’s real, and well-being’s your secret weapon.
  • Why Well-Being Matters – The peanut butter and jelly of retention and health—plus a wake-up call on change fatigue.
  • Strategy 1: Psychological Safety – Model vulnerability, reward honesty, and ask better questions (with a story that’ll hit home).
  • Strategy 2: Redefine Workloads – Quarterly resets, empowering “no,” and a tale of clarity gone wild.
  • Strategy 3: Lead for Energy – Energy audits, flexible schedules, and how banning meetings saved a team.
  • Wrap-Up & CTA – Pick one strategy, start this week, and connect with Colby for more.

Show Highlights

  • Quote of the Episode: “Burnout’s not waiting for the perfect moment—why should you?”
  • Story Spotlight: Colby shares how axing pointless meetings cut stress and boosted output by 20%.
  • Actionable Challenge: Try an energy audit this week—ask your team what drains them and what fires them up.

Resources Mentioned

Subscribe & Share

Loved this episode? Don’t miss the next one—subscribe and share it with a leader fighting burnout—tag @ColbyMorrisTLD on LinkedIn and let’s keep the conversation going.

Drop a review —tell us how you’re beating burnout in 2025. Colby reads every one (and might shout you out!).

Keywords

employee well-being, leadership strategies 2025, burnout prevention, team retention, psychological safety, workplace energy, hybrid team leadership, productivity tips, change fatigue


Speaker 1:

Welcome to Things Leaders Do, the podcast that uncovers the secrets of becoming an extraordinary leader. If you're a leader who's constantly seeking growth, inspiration and tangible ways to level up your leadership, then you've come to the right place. Remember, the world needs exceptional leaders, and that leader is you. Now here's your host, colby Morris is you.

Speaker 2:

Now? Here's your host, colby Morris. Hello leaders and welcome to the TLD Podcast. I'm Colby Morris, your host, and if you're new here, well, welcome to the party. I keep it simple Leadership isn't about fancy titles or corner offices. It's about action. I've led from the sweaty front lines to the executive suite and I'm here to hand you tools you can use today. No fluff, no corporate jargon, just stuff that works. My episodes are meant to be short so you can listen on your way to work or your way home and implement it as soon as you get there.

Speaker 2:

Today, we're tackling a beast every leader's feeling, but not every leader's fixing Employee well-being and retention. Look, this isn't some HR buzzword or something to slap on a poster. This is survival. Forbes dropped a stat in October of 2024. 73% of leaders say their teams are battling change. Fatigue, burnout isn't just creeping around the edges of your business, it's kicked back in the break room. Eating your snacks is kick back in the break room. Eating your snacks draining your productivity and definitely tanking your culture. So let's skip the corporate yoga classes and the drink more water posters. We're diving into what actually works to keep your team strong in 2025. So buckle up. This is going to be good. Here's the deal. Well-being isn't a perk anymore, like free coffee or a ping pong table nobody uses. It's a straight up business strategy. When your team's burnt out engagement nosedives, turnover spikes and your culture yeah, that's toast you end up spending more time posting job ads than actually leading and let me tell you, scrolling LinkedIn for candidates at 2 am that's not the dream you signed up for. Retention and well-being are like peanut butter and jelly or, if you're fancy, avocado and toast. You can't have one without the other. People don't stick around if they're running on fumes. So today I'm giving you three strategies not fluffy perks, but real moves to keep your team healthy, motivated and locked in for the long haul. These are battle tested straight from my playbook and I've got stories to prove they work. You ready? Let's roll First up psychological safety.

Speaker 2:

I know it sounds like a therapy term, psychological safety. I know it sounds like a therapy term, but stick with me, it's a game changer. You can throw all the wellness stipends and gym memberships at your team that you want, but if they don't feel safe to speak up, that's like putting a bandaid on a broken leg. Psychological safety is about creating a vibe where people can be real, where they can pitch wild ideas and admit they messed up, or admit, hey, I'm drowning here Without worrying you'll fire them or roll your eyes. So here's how to do it. You're going to model vulnerability. You go first, share a moment.

Speaker 2:

You weren't the invincible leader. Maybe it was that project that crashed and burned last year. Mine was a client pitch that bombed so hard I still wince when I think about it. Or maybe a decision that went sideways. When you're human, they get permission to be human.

Speaker 2:

Also, two reward honesty. When someone flags a risk or miss their stuck, don't give them the silent treatment. Celebrate it. Say thank you, that just saved us a train wreck. That feedback's gold. It catches problems before they blow up. And then three ask better questions. Ditch that whole generic. You know how's it going. No one answers terrible to that. Try what's one roadblock you're hitting right now or what's one thing we could tweak to make your job easier. And then get this. Listen, really listen, quick story.

Speaker 2:

One year I led a team that was crumbling under quiet pressure. Deadlines werelines were slipping, morale was in the gutter. Nobody wanted to be the first to say we're drowning. So I started every meeting with a confession, something I struggled with that week. Like I totally spaced on that email chain and that cost us a day. That took guts. But within a month the team opened up. One guy even said I'm juggling three priorities and failing at all of them. So we fixed it. We shifted workloads, we caught issues earlier and the culture went from let's call it shaky to rock solid. That's the power of safety. Now imagine this what if you tried that this week? One vulnerable moment from you, what could unlock in your team? Think about that, all right. Strategy two I want you to redefine workload expectations.

Speaker 2:

Burnout isn't always about working too much. Sometimes it's about working on the wrong stuff. You want to beat burnout. Get ruthless with priorities. Here's the framework. First, kill the 40-hour myth. Stop measuring value by hours logged. Now all my Gen X people just rolled their eyes. They can't believe I said that. But if someone can crush their goals in 30 hours, that's not laziness, that's a win. I don't care if they're sipping coffee at 10 o'clock while the rest of us are on call.

Speaker 2:

Number three impact matters, not clock watching. Number two quarterly priority resets Every three months. I want you to sit down with each team member and ask what are your top three priorities. If they list 10 things or worse, they don't know, that's a red flag. You have to simplify, laser. Focus them on what moves the needle. And then, number three, I want you to empower the no. If a project's not mission critical, let your team push back. Teach them to say not now and back them up when they do. Protect their focus like it's the last slice of pizza at a party.

Speaker 2:

I started doing quarterly resets with my teams a few years ago and it was like flipping a switch. One guy was juggling six quote-unquote urgent tasks. Turns out half were just busy work from a VPp who loved meetings. So we cut the dead weight. We shifted those resources. We watched how his stress just plummeted from there. Productivity that was through the roof. People stopped dreading mondays because they knew what actually mattered. So here's a challenge your next meeting, ask your team what's one thing that we can kill right now and then watch what happens. All right.

Speaker 2:

Strategy three lead for energy, not just output. Okay, you have to lead for energy, not just the results. You don't just manage tasks right, you manage people. Actually, you lead people and people run on energy. You know that meeting that could have been an email energy vampire.

Speaker 2:

That project with no clear goal drains the life out of everyone. So here's how you flip it. First, do an energy audit. Ask your team hey, what sucks your energy dry around here? What lights you up? Then cut the drainers, delegate them, ditch them whatever it takes, but double down on the energizers to flexible schedules, maybe. Let people work when they're at their peak. Okay, morning people can dominate. At dawn, night owls can rule the midnight hour. Stop forcing square pegs into round holes, if it's at all possible. And then, three, recharge the culture. Normalize real breaks, not the eat a granola bar at your desk kind. I mean stepping away.

Speaker 2:

I once banned meetings from noon to 1 pm on my team. Guess what? Yeah, output increased because people came back sharp. Guess what? Yeah, output increased because people came back sharp. I worked with a team that hit burnout hard. I'm talking missed deadlines, grumpy vibes, the works. We did an energy audit. Turns out, 70% of their stress came from pointless status meetings. So we axed half of those, made the rest 15 minutes max and gave clear action items. Three months later, stress was down, output was up and people actually smiled again.

Speaker 2:

Energy is contagious, good or bad, but you set the tone. So which of these hit you hardest? Energy audits, flexible schedules, whatever it is, pick one and run with it. Your team is waiting. All right, leaders, here's your marching order. Pick one of these strategies, just one. Maybe it's sharing a struggle to build safety, maybe it's a priority reset to clear the clutter, or an energy audit to find the vampires. But whatever it is, start it this week, start it tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Burnout's not waiting for the perfect moment, okay. So why should you and here's the kicker tell your team, yeah, be real about it. Say hey, I heard this idea on a podcast. Don't laugh, but I think it could help us. Let's try it together. That move. It builds trust, it builds buy-in, it builds momentum.

Speaker 2:

Now, if this lit a fire under you and I hope did I'm here to keep it going. I run workshops, I speak at events. I even hop on one-on-one calls with leaders wrestling with this stuff. So hit me up on linkedin or swing by nextstepadvisorscom. That's nxt, no e, you know who has time for extra vowels. Let's build a culture where well-being isn't a checkbox but the foundation. If this episode hit home, smash that subscribe button, share it with a leader who's fighting burnout, yours or theirs. Drop me a note on LinkedIn that's in the show notes as well. Tell me how you're keeping your team strong in 2025. I read every message and I might even shout you out in the next episode. So, until then, go, lead with strength and purpose. Why? Because those are the things that leaders do.

Speaker 1:

Because those are the things that leaders do. Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do. If you're looking for more tips on how to be a better leader, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and listen to next week's episode. Until next time, keep working on being a better leader by doing the things that leaders do.