Leveraging Leadership

The True Causes of Burnout: Beyond Workload and What Leaders Can Do About It

• Jessa Estenzo • Season 1 • Episode 244

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This episode breaks down practical ways to diagnose burnout beyond just heavy workloads, like checking if team members actually have the right training or system access, clarifying real versus perceived expectations, and considering outside-of-work stressors. Emily shares examples, such as a team member struggling because they didn’t have a login to a key system, and gives advice on addressing mental clutter and having open conversations. Chief of Staff listeners get tips on spotting the true root causes of burnout and building stronger, more supportive teams.

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Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.

Time Stamps:
00:00 Introduction to Diagnosing Burnout
00:49 Assessing Workload Fairness
02:32 Clarifying Role Expectations
04:16 Understanding Team Contribution
06:33 Considering Personal Life Factors
10:06 Eliminating Mental Clutter
14:06 Summary and Final Thoughts

emily-sander_2_12-04-2025_163704:

A lot of teams say they're burnt out, but sometimes it's not about the actual workload, Here are some ways to diagnose burnout in a practical, grounded way. And the genesis of this topic is I have a lot of chiefs of staff come to me saying, Emily, my team is so burnt out, I can't possibly ask them to do more. They're over capacity. We can't take on anymore Here are some things that would come up in the subsequent conversation. Number one is workload. Let's just cover off on that. Is it the workload itself? One prompt I like to use here is asking is. Their workload, fair and reasonable. Lots of ways to think about that. Some of which are, if I look out of the team, out on the team of dozens of people doing the same role, are, are they doing similar work and this one person is having a problem. Okay. Um, that's part of the answer. Oh, this person didn't get the same training as all the other folks. That's, that's the issue. Okay. That's not fair and reasonable to ask someone to do this work without the proper training. Okay. Got it. Um, is it fair and reasonable to ask. Someone who doesn't have access to a certain system to be doing the work where like you have to have the data from the system to do the work and you're asking them to do it without it. Well, no, that's not fair and reasonable. Uh, if you're asking someone on their first day to do something with a client that someone you know who's been here five years might know how to do, but they probably have a tough time with it too. Is that fair and reasonable? No. So these, there's all these things that go into is the workload actually. Fair and reasonable. The flip side of that is if you dig in there and you go, um, yeah, like dozens of other people are doing this job, just fine. This person has had the same training. They do have access to all the tools and information they need, and they're not new. It's not their first day. they've been here for quite a while and they're saying they're burnt out. That word can be used as a cop out. That word can be used as an excuse, so that's out in the world as well. So just be aware of that. Okay, so number one thing, cover off on workload. That can be a big piece. Second thing to check in on is expectations. What are the expectations for the role? And specifically, what are the perceived expectations? So I could have an expectation of, of a team member, like, I expect you to do X, Y, and Z in this role. My team member might be sitting over there going like, they expect me to do X, Y, Z, A, B, C, blue triangle, rocket shit for the moon, paint the sky pink. I. It's like I'm being, I'm burned out. It's like, well, no kidding.'cause like, that's a lot. I'm, I'm just asking you to do X, Y, and Z. So if there's a delta or a gap between the actual expectation and the perceived expectation working to close, that can do a lot for burnout. And that could be conversations or resetting expectations or understanding, Hey. Like, help me understand how you got there, because I, what I've said, I, my intention is not to, is not to convey I expect X, Y, Z, A, B, C, blue triangle, rocket ship to the moon, paint the sky pink. It was X, Y, and Z. So maybe there's something that I was saying that, that, you know, was sending the wrong signal. So having conversations around that, If it's not a conversation that you think you can have or are best equipped or in position to have, you might have someone else ask or, sometimes people respond to the boss in a different way. So if you have a trusted lead or a trusted colleague or some other way to get that information, that's fine. Sometimes it's a survey and you ask people about that. There's lots of different ways to get that information, but I would look for ways to, to collect that information. Just check like, okay, I feel like I've been setting this expectation, but I just wanna check. That's the expectation that my team members have. Third one, do they know their contribution? This, this one has to do with people's motivation. Humans like to be part of something bigger than themselves. It's just human nature. and humans will sacrifice more of themselves if they think it's gonna, it's gonna contribute to the bigger picture, to a legacy, to generations to come, all these different things. So at extreme examples we can talk about, they will make the ultimate sacrifice if they think that it's worthwhile, right? So, um, hopefully in your job, you're not actually. Charging a beachhead for freedom, like in D-Day in World War ii. It's probably smaller stakes than that, but same principle. Similar principle. It's if people can see how what they're doing makes a difference and makes an impact to. Their team members sitting next to them, to the department, to the company, to the customers, to the marketplace, to the world that's meaningful to people. That can be very meaningful to people, and they will sacrifice, not in an extreme way, but they will. They will work harder or they will work differently in order to do that. If they can see that, if they know how their day-to-day contributes to the bigger picture. So making sure that people can see that through line, they can see how it all connects, is really important. And I feel like that is a, a hallmark, a staple. Part of a leader's job is to make sure that people can see how their work contributes and also call people out and recognize people, reward people say like, oh my gosh, like John, like when you took care of that customer, it did this, this, and this. And you know, we really look to that, as someone who's in a senior account manager role type of thing, whatever it is, but making sure that they. Know how that flow works and those dots connect and also reinforcing that by recognizing it and saying it. Or if they don't like it in public, then write'em an email or whatever. You get the point. Okay. So if they know these things, um, and can see the big picture, people, people work differently and they tend to not burnout as much. I mean, they tend to just like have a different angle and perspective to their work. And so this can go a long, long way in reducing burnout or addressing burnout or preventing burnout. Fourth one here would be what is happening with this person outside of work? So we're all humans and we don't just live at work as some of us do, but we're all humans that have friends and family and hobbies and events and, um, kids and family members doing crazy things. And as a manager, as a leader, knowing generally what's going on with your people outside of work. I think is a really positive and helpful thing. Some people are very private and don't like you up in their business. So this is not an invitation, like, let me go ask about every single family member. Let me go ask about like all their hopes and dreams and fears. Uh, some people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I just wanna do my work. I don't wanna be interrogated. So respect those boundaries. Some other team members might be like, they care, they care about me, they care about my dogs, babysitters, cousins, you know, pool accident or whatever. and they want you to engage in that way. So I would say know your people and respect their boundaries. at the very least, most people will share, Hey, I had this big event happen and it's gonna affect my schedule. you know, tragedy, my son got in a car accident and I have to go to the hospital. Uh, yeah, totally go. We got it, we got it taken care of. Don't even think about emails, don't even think about your presentation. You had. We will cover that. You need to be where you need to be with your family. Um, so it might just be like a schedule logistics thing, but even with that, and in the example I just gave, knowing that their team has their back and knowing that. They're not gonna lose their job or they're not gonna be thought less of if they have to go deal with a family emergency. Not all the time, not making excuses and not having like, oh, I have like seven grandpas that died last weekend. Um, but knowing that your team and your manager and your company has your back goes a long way. On the flip side, if a positive thing has happened, like, my son is getting married, you know, in a month, okay, well, you know, this person is probably gonna be in a little bit different space in their, in their head space going into that and certainly like week of and then after they get back and all that stuff. So just knowing that might affect their workload or capacity, uh, maybe not a lot in the amount. It might just be kind of where their head is at. Just being aware of that can be super helpful. Um, what else? I think that, oh, I remember, this is one where someone's workload would increase is there was a team member who was going to school and she went back to school. She just wanted to get a degree, uh, get a business degree, which was awesome. And we knew she was going to school and we were totally supportive of that. And when she got done, she had a little bit extra bandwidth. She was always doing full-time, full-time work, and she was doing different things, but she couldn't do, you know, some of the projects that you know, would be ideal. She was still doing a fine job, but she just wasn't able to do some of these extra, extra things after she graduated. She was. And so I knew, oh, like this, her workload would, her work capacity would be able to increase, not crank that thing up to, you know, a hundred or throttle it, full throttle type of thing. But just okay, this person's life situation has changed a little bit and therefore their, you know, work capacity will change a little bit as well. So being aware of all that can really help and can really help you understand what, what should I expect or what should you expect from your team, um, in different stages or chapters of life, which can change, which is dynamic and evolve. So it's not static, it changes. Okay, fifth one. This one is, is really interesting. I see this come up a lot in lots of different ways. What am I talking about? Mental clutter. Reducing or eliminating unnecessary mental clutter. So at some level, you're gonna have multiple things in your brain at once. You're gonna be working with different people on different projects. There's task switching, all that stuff. Unnecessary mental clutter can show up in some of these ways. These are just a few examples. One is interacting with this ass hatt. Causes me stress and anxiety and just like I have to drink some hard liquor after that. Okay. let's take a look at that. First of all, there's the logistical side of this situation. Hey, like these two people do not seem to get along. Do they need to be in this meeting together? Maybe the answer is no. Okay. As a manager, I'm gonna say, you are in this meeting over here and you are in that meeting over there. Problem solved. Unnecessary mental clutter Gone. Now if you look at that situation and go, well, no, they kind of have to be in that meeting. That's their roles, that's their job. Everyone's gonna have to get along and you take a look at that further. One scenario that I've seen, uh, quite a lot is someone will make something bigger in their head than it really is. Anybody. Anybody, has anyone experienced this? Just me. Okay. Just, okay, cool. Uh, no. So this happens a lot, right? Something happens, the event itself happens, that's level one. And then we add level two. So we double stack ourselves. We're like, they met this by that and clearly it said this about them as a person. And I'm gonna assume all these things about them morally speaking, and they're gonna be talking about this to their friends. And so I have to like come up with my talk track'cause people are gonna follow up with me about this. And they create this whole narrative and this. Whole like craziness in their brain and it's unnecessary. And sometimes it's unreal. Some, sometimes it's not real. It's not actually what, it's not actually what happened there. But I see that you're in this story arc and narrative in your head pretty deeply. Um, let me help you see the forest for the trees or see the big picture or make some neutral outside objective observations about the event that I saw. To help you work through that. That's not a, I am, I am diminishing your experience, or I'm invalidating what you're saying. It's, it's helping someone. If they're caught up in that, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You've created a whole thing up here. And that's not actually what happened. They're causing themselves and probably people around them unnecessary. Friction. And so helping them see that and helping them work their way down from that is, is part of a leader's job sometimes. So reducing mental clutter in that fashion, um, sometimes it can be. You know, we had this one, uh, this one analyst who's this poor guy, I felt so bad, he was doing his work and he was just like, flustered. And I was like, what? This one, um, this one like step of the, of the work he was doing. And I'm like, why? Like, why is he like so flustered? Like other people do this and they're fine. And finally I was like, Hey, so and so can you talk to him?'cause it wasn't my direct, it was just like someone, I collaborated with like, Hey, so and so can you go talk to him? And so and so came back to me and said, Emily, he doesn't have access to VL and he doesn't have access to one of our systems. And I'm like, what? Like what do you mean? Like we give all of our analysts access to this system. And they're like, no one, no one ever gave him a login. I'm like, holy. What, like someone give this man a login. Of course that's causing him unnecessary stress and anxiety because that's a big part of the dataset they're working with. So like sometimes it's easy to remove some of this mental clutter where it's like I'm trying to like piece this together and I'm like, I'm so sorry, type of thing. So I would just look for. These interactions or moments or steps or anything across your team look for like where is there unnecessary mental clutter? And that can be a logistics thing. That can be an access thing. That can be like a, Hey C, come here in this conference room. Let's just chat. Or let's go for a walk around the block or go to Starbucks or whatever. Alright, so where are we here? We've got five things. We've got the workload itself. Take a look at that for sure. We've got perceived expectations. We have. How do they contribute to the team, to the company, to the world. We have a. Other elements outside of work. This is a whole person we have reducing unnecessary mental clutter. So basically, here's the workload, here is the expectation. Here's how this ties into the bigger picture. I care about you as a person and we have a job to do. All those things can be there together. So I think when you have that, and I I would also say this, um. take the time to make these observations and have these conversations have dialogue where you can actually. Get into some of this stuff, not getting into anyone's business if they don't want, but just opening up a conversation, listening and asking for their input. Uh, you know, CEO made a really big announcement, earlier this week. How you doing? How's the team doing? How's the team responding? what do you think of that 18 month goal? Pause. Allow them to speak. Listen, don't be attached to the answer. Don't automatically try to convince them of something like, no, no, no, this, this, this. Like, listen. Like what? Like how did they see this thing? Oh, okay. Oh, interesting. Okay. You and the team are taking it like that. So I think when you get to that level with people, like that type of conversation, that tone of conversation, that tenor of relationship, that's where you can really ideally prevent burnout, but then quickly diagnose it and address it if need be. But I think just being aware of all these things, there's there. There's these different lenses to look through and you might find something that really helps a team member and really helps your team run efficiently. Uh, burnout is a real thing, so I'm not trying to, in any way say it's not, and I think that there are many factors. Besides just the workload that play into it. Workload is certainly one, so don't skip that But I think there's these, um, not hidden, but just lesser talked about elements that go into burnout. And I often talk to people about this in these types of conversations. So I wanted to share that with you in case it's coming up for you. you personally and certainly your team, or if you're a chief of staff or leading a team of any kind. so I would just encourage you to keep an eye out for these types of things and have the conversations, have people's back. Invest in your people, and when you create that environment, I've seen really good things happen and teams rise to the occasion. Teams come together in a really cool way, and they are interacting with people differently. They're showing up differently themselves. They're energized, they're not burnt out. They're just approaching their work in a different way. So hopefully some of these elements have been helpful for you and if you have a specific situation where it's like, uh, what about this one? Can you sanity check me on this one? I would be more than happy to do that. the contact information is in these show notes below. Otherwise, I will catch you next week on leveraging leadership.