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22 Plays1 year ago
We tackle the critical issue of burnout and how leaders can identify, prevent, and manage it effectively within their teams. We begin by exploring the difference between good stress, which can be motivating, and bad stress, which can lead to burnout. The conversation delves into how stress can sometimes drive individuals to be more diligent and focused, often without realizing they're running low on energy until it’s too late.
We discuss the importance of managing stress not only for yourself but also for your team, emphasizing the need to respect the sanctity of time away from work. The episode also covers practical approaches for leaders who are concerned about an employee's well-being and how to address those concerns thoughtfully and effectively.
Finally, we highlight the importance of having a solid plan in place for stress management, including regular check-ins with your team, being candid about the need for breaks, and ensuring that both you and your team remain energized and engaged. Remember, what’s good for your team is also good for your mission and your customers.
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Transcript
Introduction to Leadership Dissected
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to Leadership Dissected, where we examine the details of leadership strategy, workplace culture, and decision making through the lens of behavioral science.
00:00:15
Speaker
I'm Dr. C. And I'm Dr. D. With our decades of leadership experience and PhDs in business psychology, we dig into the latest research trends and practical strategies to help you survive at work without losing your
Understanding Burnout: Good vs. Bad Stress
00:00:28
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mind.
00:00:28
Speaker
Today, we dissect the critical topic of burnout, how leaders can effectively manage it within their teams.
00:00:34
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We explore the difference between good stress and bad stress and how stress can sometimes act as a motivator for individuals, pushing them to be extra diligent.
00:00:43
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We discuss the phenomenon of often not realizing when we're running low on energy,
00:00:48
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or becoming overly
Strategies for Managing Stress and Burnout
00:00:49
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stressed.
00:00:49
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We highlight the importance of managing your own and your team's stress, respecting the sanctity of time away and the best approaches to take when you're concerned about someone's well-being.
00:00:59
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We provide practical strategies to identify, prevent, and address burnout, ensuring a healthier, more productive work environment for everyone.
00:01:07
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So let's cut into this topic.
Recognizing Burnout Symptoms
00:01:09
Speaker
Dr. C, what is burnout and what are the symptoms?
00:01:13
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Burnout is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, often caused by prolonged stress.
00:01:20
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If we're going to break down the symptoms, you can break it down into four categories.
00:01:23
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First set of categories are those physical signs.
00:01:26
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That can be chronic fatigue, trouble sleeping, sometimes leading to insomnia.
00:01:31
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Often people who are encountering a lot of stress, a lot of starting to get those symptoms of burnout, also get sick more often.
00:01:39
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So there's a physical effect.
00:01:42
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including getting headaches, sometimes feeling muscle pain, and definitely some changes in appetite, changes in sleep habits, and overall just physical well-being.
00:01:55
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You also have emotional signs.
00:01:57
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Now, those emotional signs really varied person to person, but there can be some detachment, loss of motivation, can start growing a negative outlook.
00:02:06
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Often there's a decrease in satisfaction and an increase in irritability.
00:02:11
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And when people are really burned out, they start taking it out on the people around them.
00:02:16
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And it's not even that they're doing it to be malicious.
00:02:20
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Just you're at that end.
00:02:22
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There's also mental signs of burnout.
00:02:25
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Often they look like challenges or difficulty with concentration, this feeling of being overwhelmed, an inability to relax.
00:02:34
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Also, it affects our creativity and our productivity.
00:02:37
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You just don't have that focus.
00:02:39
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There's also some behavioral signs that we encounter.
00:02:41
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A person could start to become withdrawn, may start to procrastinate more, may turn to some negative coping skills to deal with the stress.
00:02:50
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So there's a lot of different symptoms that we often overlook and associate this with just being an employee, living life.
00:02:57
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Stress, I heard it affects you physically, mentally.
00:03:02
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emotionally and behaviorally.
00:03:04
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That covers everything about being a human.
00:03:07
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So as I think about stress, stress can be
Balancing Stress for Motivation
00:03:11
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good.
00:03:11
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There is good stress.
00:03:12
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It's called eustress, E-U-S-T-R-E-S-S.
00:03:16
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And this is the stress that you feel when you're feeling competitive and encouraged and motivated.
00:03:21
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It's bad stress, the distress that makes somebody feel overwhelmed.
00:03:27
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When someone says they're stressed out, they're usually talking about distress.
00:03:32
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The challenge in a work environment or working with other people is that some stress is good.
00:03:41
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If there is a complete lack of stress, there's usually very little motivation to get things done.
00:03:47
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to create momentum around the work that needs to happen.
00:03:51
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Some stress is necessary.
00:03:54
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The challenge is that most people working today, particularly in leadership, have such a constant amount of stress, it's very difficult to recognize the difference between that tipping point from good stress to bad stress.
00:04:08
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People walk into burnout without even realizing that they're in a burnout frame of mind,
00:04:15
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physicality, mentality, emotionality.
Burnout in High-Stress Industries
00:04:18
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Absolutely.
00:04:19
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And I think with certain industries, we see these higher prevalence of burnout.
00:04:24
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Healthcare field has a very high prevalence of burnout coming from a lot of experience working in healthcare.
00:04:30
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That good stress, that you stress, often comes out because there's a lot of adrenaline.
00:04:37
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Think about someone who works in an emergency room.
00:04:39
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It's a constant go, go, go, because the reality is there's someone's life on the line.
00:04:44
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And I like to say that there's sometimes a challenge with the come down with decompressing after high levels of stress, both good stress and bad stress.
00:04:55
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And people, organizations often have a hard time providing those tools, recognition of the actual impact that stress is happening.
00:05:04
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So,
00:05:05
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It requires us to kind of take the step back and understand that the extremes of both good stress and bad stress can have a physical impact on the person.
00:05:13
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Often when people are stressed, blood pressure goes up.
00:05:15
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They may have more adrenaline going.
00:05:17
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They may have more physical signs of being stressed, whether it's good or bad.
00:05:24
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And I like to equate it to if you have too much caffeine or sugar, you're really wired.
00:05:28
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You're really up there.
00:05:29
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And then you have to crash.
00:05:30
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You know, think about a little kid when they have way too much sugar.
00:05:33
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They're all over the place.
00:05:34
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Their body is in this stress mode.
00:05:37
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And then once that stimuli dies down and they have to crash.
00:05:41
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And I think often when it comes to stress, we don't realize that that come down can be detrimental to us.
Personal Accounts of Burnout
00:05:47
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And I think about my own experience with burnout.
00:05:50
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I've had burnout in the past.
00:05:52
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And it's definitely a feeling that we say we call it burnout, but there's so many different symptoms and it manifests in so many different ways with people.
00:06:02
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My own experience, it was very much those feelings of being overwhelmed in the defense mechanism or the way that I coped with it was to start to get withdrawn.
00:06:11
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And often it meant withdrawing from the people around me or withdrawing from the work that I'm doing, which in turn creates more stress because now you're behind and you're having these this emotional reaction when it comes to the stress on relationships.
00:06:25
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So I think often when it comes to burnout, we say the word, we can say the symptoms, but people are going to react in different ways.
00:06:32
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And the people around us will react in different ways, too.
00:06:36
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You brought up adrenaline.
00:06:37
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There's also norepinephrine, CRH, and cortisol.
00:06:41
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These are all chemicals that are created that have a physical effect on your body.
00:06:47
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You can't control it necessarily.
00:06:50
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You can build resilience around stress and become more comfortable with stress and be more comfortable
00:06:57
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managing your emotions and your behaviors, but everybody reacts differently.
00:07:02
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I react very differently than Dr. C. Of course, I've experienced burnout myself from time to time.
00:07:08
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I tend to recover fairly quickly from burnout myself, but with stress,
00:07:13
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Another coping mechanism is to layer on more stress.
00:07:16
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So a busy executive who is in a stressful environment will double down on the challenges, dig in harder, work harder, and put in more hours to try to overcome those feelings of stress to try to get ahead of whatever that challenge is or whatever those problems are that you're facing within your business environment or in your personal environment.
Chronic vs. Episodic Stress
00:07:39
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And so I think
00:07:41
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tend to ignore the signs of stress, jump in a bit deeper and let those mind altering chemicals that are created by yourself to drive forward more until the problem resolves itself.
00:07:55
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The challenge is the problem usually never resolves itself.
00:07:58
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There's always more stress behind the stress that you're facing.
00:08:01
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Yeah.
00:08:02
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And you bring up this this good point about how stress can ebb and flow.
00:08:07
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When we think about stress, we don't always look if it's episodic stress, meaning that this is stress for the moment.
00:08:15
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This is stress because there's been a change.
00:08:17
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Something's happened that is increasing your stress level.
00:08:20
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But then there's also chronic stress.
00:08:22
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which means that it feels like it's coming day by day in waves.
00:08:27
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There is no break behind it.
00:08:28
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So depending on what type of stress you're encountering, your body's going to react to that.
00:08:33
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Your brain's going to react to that.
00:08:35
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You bring up the different hormones, the different neurotransmitters that are associated with stress.
00:08:40
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Reality is stress is very much activating your fight or flight.
00:08:44
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You're either going to shut down and curl up into a little ball.
00:08:47
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You're going to try to run away from the stress or you're going to fight the stress.
00:08:51
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And sometimes we think, well, fighting stress is the best solution.
00:08:54
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You got to pick and choose your battles.
00:08:56
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There are times where it's probably better to get away from that stressor than to try to fight the stressor and it becoming more combative.
00:09:04
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It may be okay.
00:09:05
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Go ahead and wrap yourself up in a blanket, sit on your couch and veg out to avoid distress.
00:09:10
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You have
Social Support in Stress Management
00:09:11
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to be mentally prepared to actually engage in that stress for it not to become so detrimental to your body.
00:09:17
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With that being said, with all the different neurotransmitters and hormones that are released during a stressful period, what's also released, and this comes from our relationships by being around people, by interactions, is acetylcholine.
00:09:31
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or hug hormone.
00:09:32
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Often we need to be surrounded by people to deal with stress.
00:09:35
Speaker
We need to get that support.
00:09:36
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Challenge is not everyone recognizes of signs of burnout, especially when it comes into the workplace, when it comes to our leaders actually recognizing what is stress?
00:09:47
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What is going to lead us to burnout within ourselves or even within our teams?
00:09:51
Speaker
It's such a good point that the people around you can help you alleviate your stress.
00:09:56
Speaker
But when you're really stressed and you're starting to feel burned out, you're probably not somebody that most people would be around.
00:10:03
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You're irritable, may withdraw, you may...
00:10:07
Speaker
double down on your source of stress to try to overcompensate, there are a lot of reasons why you might not be the best person to be around.
00:10:17
Speaker
Or if you notice a change in somebody else and they're under a lot of stress, whether you realize they're under a lot of stress or not, if they're withdrawing or they are more difficult to be around, you're seeing a different side of them than you're used to, then withdrawing from them is not necessarily the right idea.
00:10:34
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When you see somebody who is pulling away, give them some space, but don't withdraw from them if they're withdrawing from you.
00:10:42
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Be there for them.
00:10:43
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Let them know that they have a path of somebody to talk to.
00:10:47
Speaker
We talked about self-motivation, how stress can drive people, but there is a danger of being over-focused and being so focused on the work that you do.
00:10:56
Speaker
And I see this in leaders and in organizations that over-focus is viewed as a good thing.
00:11:01
Speaker
Being highly focused and working through the stress or working through whatever is happening at the business is usually considered a good thing.
00:11:10
Speaker
but I don't think most organizations measure the effect of burnout.
00:11:14
Speaker
They don't look at the healthcare costs that burnout is costing them.
00:11:20
Speaker
What are some metrics that organizations can use to pinpoint teams or areas where burnout could present risk?
Identifying Burnout in Teams
00:11:29
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely some areas where you can keep an eye on to really see if there is increased burnout among team members.
00:11:38
Speaker
Very first one that comes to mind is attendance.
00:11:41
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People who are overly stressed, potentially burned out, tend to be sicker more often, either because physically they're getting sick as they're stressing their body out.
00:11:50
Speaker
And when you're stressed out, your immune system also gets suppressed.
00:11:54
Speaker
Or they're taking days off to avoid the stress that they may be encountering at work, which often leads to more stress because now you're a day behind.
00:12:01
Speaker
But that's a good metric to start keeping a track of if you see a pattern of attendance changes.
00:12:09
Speaker
In addition to that, you can look at productivity.
00:12:12
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Productivity is going to be a good sign if people are stressed or burned out.
00:12:17
Speaker
You'll often see either people working increased number of hours just to keep up with the work.
00:12:22
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You may see people falling behind on projects, falling behind on deadlines.
00:12:28
Speaker
You also will see employee relation issues.
00:12:31
Speaker
As we talked about earlier, one of the signs of being overly stressed, you have some behavioral changes.
00:12:37
Speaker
Often that leads to irritability, lashing out other team members, or you may encounter people who are bringing some of those maladaptive coping mechanisms into the workplace that actually affecting their performance.
00:12:50
Speaker
Matter of fact, I think one of the best ways for leaders to find out if their team members are doing okay or if they're high level stress or high levels of burnout is to actually have a conversation.
00:13:03
Speaker
Ask, how are you feeling?
00:13:04
Speaker
Be honest and realistic.
00:13:05
Speaker
How's your stress level today?
00:13:07
Speaker
On a scale of one to 10, how was your negative stress this week?
00:13:10
Speaker
It gives us a good insight on people's perceptions of their stress.
00:13:15
Speaker
I'm going to go back to a conversation that we had right here just a couple weeks ago, which is, are you happy?
Indicators of Burnout Risk
00:13:22
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As part of those seven questions, you can get a lot about a person's state of mind by that very powerful question, are you happy?
00:13:31
Speaker
Once you've built up that level of trust and you work through those seven questions with somebody, you'll be able to tell if they're stressed out.
00:13:38
Speaker
I agree with the absenteeism.
00:13:40
Speaker
Too many organizations, they measure absenteeism because they view it as lost productivity.
00:13:45
Speaker
But what they don't measure is over-focus and over-prescription of labor.
00:13:50
Speaker
They're not looking at email metrics to see if people are emailing from 5 in the morning until 10 o'clock at night.
00:13:58
Speaker
They're not looking at those metrics to say, are employees actually disengaging from work when they are not at work?
00:14:06
Speaker
Or if they're at work from five in the morning until 10 at night, what's going on?
00:14:10
Speaker
Because something is not effective there.
00:14:13
Speaker
Another metric that we talked about previously is what are PTO balances?
00:14:18
Speaker
Are people building up excessive PTO balances?
00:14:21
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Are they taking the time off that they've earned?
00:14:24
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Because anyone who is carrying an excessive PTO balance is at risk of burnout and is at risk of leaving.
00:14:32
Speaker
I like how you bring up this idea of a lot of organizations without trying to encourage people to really go above and beyond to the point where a person can burn themselves out.
00:14:44
Speaker
And I like to use the analogy of a shooting star.
00:14:47
Speaker
Often, especially when you're early on in your career or trying to grow your career, we refer to people as shooting stars because they're doing a lot of work.
00:14:54
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They're taking on extra responsibilities.
00:14:56
Speaker
They are those people who are working on their vacation, working after hours.
00:15:02
Speaker
Here's the funny thing about shooting stars, shooting stars burn out.
00:15:05
Speaker
And I think for a lot of organizations, it's breaking this habit, this habit that has grown over the years that your productivity is your only worth.
00:15:15
Speaker
If you're not answering those emails at 10 o'clock at night on a Saturday, then you don't care about the company.
00:15:21
Speaker
You don't care about the work.
00:15:22
Speaker
And I think for a lot of organizations, this is becoming a maladaptive behavior because it's kind of holding a carrot in front of people.
00:15:31
Speaker
That here's the carrot that you want to reach, promotion, more money, more recognition.
00:15:36
Speaker
And we do everything we can to try to reach that carrot, not realizing that if we actually pause to see the actual impact of us trying to chase all day, we'll realize that that's leading to a lot of burnout.
00:15:48
Speaker
Looking at this, there's a different viewpoints as we look at different generations of workers.
00:15:53
Speaker
I think one of the chief complaints that I hear from a lot of leaders is my new employees want more days off.
00:16:00
Speaker
They want to stop working at 5 p.m.
00:16:02
Speaker
when it's their shift and their day.
00:16:05
Speaker
I think there's a greater recognition from people entering the workforce that there needs to be a balance.
Generational Views on Work-Life Balance
00:16:11
Speaker
that there needs to be some self-care.
00:16:13
Speaker
There's a want to be connected to the work, to connect it to the purpose of what they're doing as a way to help reduce stress, or at least that negative stress or distress, because we're more willing to work towards something we care about, something that fills us, than the things that we feel aren't going to have a true impact on our own individual lives.
00:16:32
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Purpose is the great motivator.
00:16:35
Speaker
If you can feel connected to a purpose, you will give every ounce to fulfill that purpose.
00:16:42
Speaker
So even a purpose-driven motivation has to be monitored and has to be tempered because I know that when I'm really excited about something, I'm working hard on something,
00:16:53
Speaker
I will put as many hours and I won't stop until it gets to where I feel like I've achieved the goal.
00:16:59
Speaker
Now in business, the goal is never achieved.
00:17:02
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There is never an end to what you're trying to deliver.
00:17:06
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You are trying to grow, scale your business.
00:17:08
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You're trying to delight your customers.
00:17:11
Speaker
You're trying to keep your team and your employees motivated and happy.
00:17:14
Speaker
You're trying to improve on technology.
00:17:17
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The goal is never reached.
00:17:19
Speaker
So people who are exceptionally motivated by their purpose can overdo it.
00:17:25
Speaker
But there is also a social contract.
00:17:28
Speaker
And this is being borne out generationally in the workforce today in that some employees believe as long as they fulfill the social contract, the contract that I will do the work, the job that you're paying me to do, but that's all I'm going to do.
00:17:43
Speaker
It's a very different mentality.
00:17:45
Speaker
I agree with that idea that an organization has to hire the right amount of people to get the amount of work done that's expected.
00:17:53
Speaker
I also recognize that there are some people who are going to go above and beyond and put in more than their social contract has been built for.
00:18:01
Speaker
There are people who will work more hours and do more because work is their hobby or it's their passion or it is the thing that gives them a sense of fulfillment.
00:18:12
Speaker
That is not everybody.
00:18:13
Speaker
But I also equate this to the idea that in business, you have a contract with another organization and
00:18:20
Speaker
organization to organization, you don't give a bunch of free extras.
00:18:24
Speaker
You live up to the terms of the contract and you don't deliver necessarily more because that's not profitable for you.
00:18:32
Speaker
And I think to your point, employees who are newer in the workforce are living to their social contract and they're doing it to prevent burnout.
00:18:41
Speaker
I think part of that is there's a greater recognition now that burnout is real.
00:18:45
Speaker
And different cultures, different organizations are going to take different views on how do we support and manage people's stress to prevent burnout.
00:18:54
Speaker
Now, when it comes to managing stress, important to identify what's causing it.
00:18:59
Speaker
In psychology, there is this term called locus of control.
00:19:03
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The locus of control is your viewpoint on whether things happen to me or things happen because of me.
00:19:10
Speaker
So we have an external locus of control, meaning things that happen, happen to me.
00:19:16
Speaker
which separates the control over it, meaning I didn't get that promotion because my supervisor doesn't like or better example, I was late to work because there is a lot of traffic.
00:19:26
Speaker
Now, an internal locus of control is really looking at things that happen, happen because of me.
00:19:33
Speaker
So it could be I didn't get the promotion because I have all these deficiencies or I was late because I'm going to give you a laundry list of different reasons why I was late.
00:19:42
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excluding any external factors.
00:19:44
Speaker
Now, our viewpoints on this control influences how we deal with stress and how we handle stress.
00:19:50
Speaker
If we internalize stress that is completely out of our control, and one of the biggest lessons I learned growing up and in my professional life, if your stress is attributed to someone else's behavior, you're going to drive yourself crazy.
00:20:04
Speaker
Because the reality is you cannot control that person's behavior.
00:20:07
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You cannot change a person.
00:20:08
Speaker
that creates some stress when we think that I need to control everything around me.
00:20:13
Speaker
And what's funny is the opposite end is when you go to the extreme of I am out of control of everything, the stress now becomes I'm stressed because I'm powerless.
Locus of Control and Stress Management
00:20:21
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But we have the opportunity.
00:20:23
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And here's the interesting part about stress.
00:20:25
Speaker
We get to control what actually stresses us.
00:20:28
Speaker
We often don't think about that, that how much control we truly have, because stress is a lot of times attributed as a feeling, behavior, but true stress
00:20:38
Speaker
is our reaction to external stimuli.
00:20:41
Speaker
Whether it's the people around us, the work that we have in front of us, it can be something completely out of our control.
00:20:46
Speaker
I think it's important when we start to talk about how do we manage stress, first understand you cannot control your team members' reactions.
00:20:54
Speaker
You cannot control the whole organization's reaction.
00:20:57
Speaker
You have control over your own personal reactions.
00:21:00
Speaker
Now, as leaders, we have a great opportunity to actually influence how people react to stress and what are those things that may cause stress and be proactive about it.
00:21:10
Speaker
I love the idea of locus of control because it does give a framework for evaluating where is the stress coming from?
00:21:18
Speaker
Is this something that I can control and influence or is this something that I cannot control or influence?
00:21:26
Speaker
then you can decide what to do about it.
00:21:28
Speaker
And I think this is where people fall down.
00:21:31
Speaker
There are externalities, things that are far outside of our control that can affect us for a very long time.
00:21:39
Speaker
A sick family member, death of a loved one, financial challenges,
00:21:44
Speaker
There are a lot of things that are outside of your control that cause stress and cause stress duly.
00:21:50
Speaker
When you recognize those things are outside of your control, the question is, what do you do with that?
00:21:55
Speaker
Do you get help?
00:21:56
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Do you find support?
00:21:58
Speaker
What is your action?
00:21:59
Speaker
What activities do you take to work on those things?
00:22:02
Speaker
Now, there are prolonged, intense stressors on people's lives.
00:22:08
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If you are feeling stressed for those reasons and you do nothing about it, then you have not taken control.
00:22:15
Speaker
You can't change the circumstance.
00:22:17
Speaker
You can't change the grief or the sadness or whatever the underlying creation of stress is, but you can get help.
00:22:25
Speaker
You can talk to a mental health professional.
00:22:28
Speaker
You can talk to your doctor.
00:22:29
Speaker
You can
00:22:30
Speaker
Let the folks in human resources know what's going on so that they can provide some resources or help capacity to deal with that stress.
00:22:39
Speaker
It doesn't change the underlying stressor.
00:22:41
Speaker
Now, there are stresses at work as well.
00:22:44
Speaker
And one of the questions that you have to ask yourself is, am I a cause of stress?
00:22:48
Speaker
Am I creating stress on other people around me?
00:22:51
Speaker
Are my actions, my behaviors, my over-focus, is this causing stress on other people?
00:22:57
Speaker
Is my responding to email at 10 o'clock at night causing somebody else to feel like they need to take time out of their evening to respond to an email?
00:23:06
Speaker
Or if they wake up to a bunch of email from me, is that creating stress on them in the morning?
00:23:11
Speaker
Am I actually pushing the send button at 8 a.m.
00:23:15
Speaker
or am I pushing the send button at 10 p.m.?
00:23:18
Speaker
When people are stressed out, one of your favorite topics, Dr. C., when someone takes that external locus of control and tries to make it an internal locus of control, when a stress leader becomes a micromanager.
00:23:32
Speaker
when they try to control the situation around them by trying to overexert their influence on other people because they're stressed out themselves and they think that the only way to resolve a problem is to try to control the problem.
00:23:47
Speaker
I think that's important for any leader to recognize is often we set expectations, but we don't role model those expectations.
00:23:56
Speaker
It's very much, do as I say, not as I do.
00:23:58
Speaker
And I'll be your first to admit, I have been guilty of that.
00:24:02
Speaker
I'm very much a proponent of team members taking their time off, taking time to de-stress themselves while I don't model the behavior all the time.
00:24:09
Speaker
As you said earlier, sometimes you have those team members with high level, high number of PTO.
00:24:14
Speaker
I'm often one of those people, but I have a recognition.
00:24:16
Speaker
And I think that's really important is you have to be able to recognize that.
00:24:21
Speaker
Here's my limits.
00:24:22
Speaker
Here's what may stress me and still have a plan in place to reduce that stress.
00:24:28
Speaker
Now, as a leader and as an individual, one of those factors that plays into get burned out or not are emotional intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence and Resilience
00:24:36
Speaker
Because not only is it helping us read the room, but it's helping us understand our own reactions, our own emotions, our own feelings when it comes to stress.
00:24:44
Speaker
Studies show people spent time to develop their emotional intelligence, actually become a little bit more resilient to burnout because they're able to regulate their own emotions, understand their reactions, contribute to that feeling of stress.
00:24:58
Speaker
The most powerful weapon against burnout is knowing yourself, understanding how you react to stress.
00:25:06
Speaker
When you are feeling overwhelmed by stress, what do you do?
00:25:11
Speaker
Are you a withdrawer?
00:25:12
Speaker
Are you a fleer?
00:25:13
Speaker
Or are you a dig in harder, roll on?
00:25:17
Speaker
Are you a fighter?
00:25:18
Speaker
Neither of those actions are wrong.
00:25:19
Speaker
It's just recognizing what's your style.
00:25:22
Speaker
Do you get irritable?
00:25:23
Speaker
Do you take it out on people?
00:25:25
Speaker
Or do you work harder to try to overcome whatever that stress is?
00:25:29
Speaker
Or do you step away and withdraw from people?
00:25:32
Speaker
Recognizing your own symptoms is the greatest weapon.
00:25:35
Speaker
Because once you do that, you can have an honest conversation with somebody and say, I'm feeling very stressed out.
00:25:40
Speaker
I think I'm on the brink of burnout.
00:25:42
Speaker
I need to take some time off or I need some help or I need to talk to
00:25:47
Speaker
somebody.
00:25:47
Speaker
I need to get in touch with our EAP program.
00:25:50
Speaker
Whatever that might be, it gives you the opportunity to raise your hand and say, I'm recognizing I'm in a precarious spot and I need to get some help.
00:25:58
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:25:58
Speaker
And as leaders, we need to encourage that behavior.
00:26:01
Speaker
We have to encourage people taking that time to have that recognition of what those symptoms are.
00:26:07
Speaker
Sometimes people don't realize that those symptoms are actually occurring because we're not always as introspective as we like.
00:26:12
Speaker
We need that second person observer to let us know, like, here's how you're showing up.
00:26:16
Speaker
Here's what I'm seeing.
00:26:18
Speaker
As a leader, you may say, here's what concerns me.
00:26:20
Speaker
And it's not about immediately jumping to a person's productivity, but ultimately taking care of a human being.
00:26:26
Speaker
So we have to take steps to actually take care of ourselves, take care of other people.
00:26:32
Speaker
One of the biggest steps that a person can take is actually taking breaks.
00:26:35
Speaker
And not doing those, I'm going to work through my lunch.
00:26:37
Speaker
I'm going to work through my break.
00:26:39
Speaker
Actually taking true breaks.
00:26:40
Speaker
Now, what's going to be important for that, leaders need to respect the sanctity of being away, that time away.
00:26:47
Speaker
Seeing often a person's on vacation, yet they're getting flooded with emails, flooded with messages.
00:26:53
Speaker
And often there's an expectation to reply or for a person who's on vacation or time off.
00:26:58
Speaker
There's an expectation that if they're messaging me, then that means that they need me and that hyper ownership, internal locus control means I need to respond.
00:27:07
Speaker
Some organizations just that's their culture, that you're going to be a flame that burns bright, burns out quick.
00:27:13
Speaker
So it's important that we set these healthy boundaries around our work.
00:27:17
Speaker
As leaders, we have to encourage setting these healthy boundaries.
00:27:20
Speaker
And that can look like clear communication guidelines of what the expectations are of during work hours, outside of work hours.
00:27:28
Speaker
And understanding that people need to have this personal time to decompress or to do activities that actually encourage positive mindset.
00:27:35
Speaker
Whereas one of my good friends says, you got to do the things that fill your cup.
00:27:39
Speaker
An empty cup can't give anything.
00:27:41
Speaker
You also have to be willing to provide assistance when a person is in that midst of a struggle.
Aligning Values with Practices
00:27:47
Speaker
That assistance can be, you know, an ear to ear amount.
00:27:50
Speaker
It can be evaluating.
00:27:51
Speaker
Does the workload actually make sense?
00:27:54
Speaker
Or is there something going on that we can look at?
00:27:56
Speaker
My son was born at four o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday.
00:28:00
Speaker
And I sent the email to the folks that I was working with saying, hey, I'm out of the office.
00:28:04
Speaker
My son was born.
00:28:05
Speaker
He's healthy.
00:28:06
Speaker
Everybody knew.
00:28:06
Speaker
I got a call at 930 that morning.
00:28:08
Speaker
Dr. D, we really need you to come in.
00:28:11
Speaker
Important person in the company needs your help with something.
00:28:14
Speaker
I said, well, you know, my son was just born hours ago.
00:28:18
Speaker
I don't think I can leave.
00:28:20
Speaker
No, I'm not going to come in.
00:28:21
Speaker
And that caused me a tremendous amount of stress.
00:28:23
Speaker
How can I make this work?
00:28:24
Speaker
How can I be here and help solve whatever crisis of the moment?
00:28:28
Speaker
And I realized that one, because of my mental gymnastics, try to do both, which there was one clear priority.
00:28:36
Speaker
I had to change some things about the way that I was thinking about the world.
00:28:39
Speaker
And the first thing that I thought is, why was I getting called mere hours after my child being born to come into work for some crisis that I'm sure somebody else would have been able to support or solve?
00:28:51
Speaker
And that's when I realized that's not the place for me.
00:28:55
Speaker
And shame on those leaders knowing my situation very clearly and still deciding to call me and put me in that situation where I had to say no.
00:29:04
Speaker
When I think about an organization whose values were work-life balance, making that phone call, it undercut the values of that organization so deeply that
00:29:15
Speaker
that I never recovered from it.
00:29:17
Speaker
When I think about an organization saying that stress and burnout is something that needs to be fought against, something that needs to be monitored, work-life balance is something that is important, family is important, then that means that an organization has to hold people accountable to working too much.
00:29:37
Speaker
as they do to people who work too little.
00:29:40
Speaker
That they need to put the same level of focus on over productivity as they do on under productivity.
00:29:47
Speaker
As I think about this and respecting time off and being candid,
00:29:52
Speaker
These are all important things that an organization has to consider when making a serious commitment to resolve burnout.
00:30:00
Speaker
You can't have it both ways and say, we wanna have work-life balance, we wanna prevent burnout, but we're gonna turn a blind eye to excessive productivity to people that work from five in the morning until 10 o'clock at night.
00:30:12
Speaker
I think you bring up a great point.
00:30:14
Speaker
The way I frame it is for a lot of organizations, they need to balance the optics versus the actions that they're taking.
00:30:21
Speaker
The optics is, hey, we're going to create work-life balance.
00:30:24
Speaker
We're going to take care of people.
00:30:26
Speaker
You know, Dr. D, your son was just born.
00:30:28
Speaker
So, you know, we're going to be respectful of that.
00:30:30
Speaker
That's one thing.
00:30:31
Speaker
But the reality is the actions are not aligning with what they're presenting.
00:30:34
Speaker
And that in turn creates more burnout.
00:30:37
Speaker
When you feel you can't trust your organization or word to create this balance or this space for you to do the things that are important to you.
00:30:44
Speaker
It's going to create additional stress that ultimately is going to lead to burnout.
00:30:49
Speaker
Most of the time, the source of a lot of our burnout is other people making decisions.
00:30:54
Speaker
And again, that comes back to our feeling that we have control or lack of control.
00:30:58
Speaker
That's what really is creating that stress.
00:31:00
Speaker
Now, if we're thinking about how are we going to take care of ourselves, what are we going to do for ourselves?
00:31:05
Speaker
What are we going to do for our team members to help reduce burnout, build a resilience against burnout?
00:31:10
Speaker
Well, the very first thing is you got to put a plan together, a plan of what are the right questions to ask?
00:31:15
Speaker
And also, what are the resources, supports that we can give individuals?
00:31:20
Speaker
Often this plan has to be led by a little bit of data, understanding where people's heads are at.
00:31:24
Speaker
That can be through engagement surveys.
00:31:26
Speaker
That can be through looking at productivity numbers, looking at absences, looking at PTO balances.
00:31:33
Speaker
We have a lot of different resources.
00:31:34
Speaker
And as leaders, we have to create that time to check in and ask some of these candid questions of how stressed are you feeling?
00:31:40
Speaker
Are you happy?
00:31:41
Speaker
What support do you actually need?
00:31:43
Speaker
One of the challenges as well, we can see people approaching burnout, but might not feel empowered to actually say something.
00:31:51
Speaker
Might not feel empowered to say, I'm worried about you.
00:31:54
Speaker
I care about your well-being.
00:31:56
Speaker
You seem stressed.
00:31:57
Speaker
How can I help?
00:31:58
Speaker
Dr. C, how do you think someone can set up within a team the expectation that it's okay to have those conversations?
Leaders Modeling Vulnerability
00:32:06
Speaker
Create a shorthand for, let's have a conversation about stress and burnout.
00:32:10
Speaker
First thing for a leader to do is you're a little vulnerable, share their experience with stress, share their experience with burnout.
00:32:18
Speaker
People get stressed, people get burned out.
00:32:20
Speaker
And it's it helps people understand that you're human, too.
00:32:24
Speaker
So being able to have that vulnerability and being able to share like, here's my experience.
00:32:29
Speaker
I'm bridging this conversation because I'm concerned because I'm seeing some of the same symptoms in you that I experienced.
00:32:35
Speaker
It can just be general concern also with any leader.
00:32:38
Speaker
I hope is that you have team members that you actually care about.
00:32:41
Speaker
That's not 100% of the time, and that might actually be the source of the stress.
00:32:45
Speaker
You have people that you care about, not just on a professional level, not just on a transactional level, but care for them as a human being.
00:32:53
Speaker
So as a leader, we've got to take that step back and we have to model the behavior.
00:32:57
Speaker
I think that's probably one of the most important things a leader can do.
00:33:00
Speaker
Model the positive behaviors that help reduce burnout, which also means as a leader, if you're experiencing those high levels of stress,
00:33:09
Speaker
you're experiencing those symptoms of burnout to actually get help yourself.
00:33:12
Speaker
Because what ends up happening is if you're stressed out, team's going to be stressed out.
00:33:16
Speaker
If you're burned out, team's going to start burning out.
Cultural Alignment for Burnout Prevention
00:33:19
Speaker
The conversations that you have around the seven questions, you should be looking for signs of burnout.
00:33:23
Speaker
And if you're not, if you haven't listened to that episode on the seven questions, they really are a great way to stay engaged and thoughtfully get to the bottom of how someone is feeling and performing within the day, the week,
00:33:36
Speaker
the month.
00:33:36
Speaker
You also have to look at your culture.
00:33:37
Speaker
Is your culture really aligned with this idea of preventing burnout or is it productivity at all costs?
00:33:45
Speaker
There are a lot of metrics that you can use.
00:33:47
Speaker
Absenteeism, email habits, sentiment questions, pulse survey questions, engagement questions, the seven questions that you might ask during one-on-ones, PTO balances.
00:33:59
Speaker
That's a great way of identifying hotspots where people may be overworked and
00:34:05
Speaker
Thinking through and having a good inventory of what changes an organization and a team is going through.
00:34:10
Speaker
Have there been leadership changes?
00:34:12
Speaker
Have there been understaffing or new hires?
00:34:15
Speaker
Are there systems changes?
00:34:17
Speaker
Are there process changes?
00:34:19
Speaker
All of these also contribute to stress.
00:34:21
Speaker
So if you think about people's work performance, absenteeism,
00:34:25
Speaker
their general sentiment, PTO, the frequency of magnitude of change, those are all good indicators of understanding where a team's head might be at, where individuals might be at on the burnout scale, and giving leaders the opportunity to live their values and make sure that what they're saying about burnout and what they're saying about stress and work-life balance actually match the actions.
00:34:46
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:47
Speaker
And I think any actions you do take, you have to be authentic about it.
00:34:51
Speaker
You have to provide authentic support, authentic feedback, and not draw assumptions of why certain things are happening, because that in turn can create more stress and create misalignment on how we're actually supporting people.
00:35:05
Speaker
Now, really, as a leader, as an individual, if we want to address burnout, there's a couple of steps we can take to help prevent it.
00:35:13
Speaker
help mitigate the risk of burnout.
00:35:15
Speaker
Very first thing, you got to take time for yourself.
00:35:18
Speaker
You got to take breaks.
00:35:19
Speaker
You got to take vacations.
00:35:20
Speaker
Utilize your PTO.
00:35:22
Speaker
As I tell my team members, if you're that worried about the work, you have the budget to leave the country.
00:35:27
Speaker
We have geofencing.
00:35:28
Speaker
You can't check your email.
00:35:29
Speaker
I can't message your team to you.
00:35:31
Speaker
You'll be good.
00:35:32
Speaker
As a leader, I'm very respectful of those boundaries, which in turn,
00:35:36
Speaker
Another another step to address stress and burnout is to actually set those healthy boundaries.
00:35:41
Speaker
Be clear about your working hours.
00:35:43
Speaker
Establish those clear boundaries between personal time and work time.
00:35:48
Speaker
What one of the activities I do with a lot of teams is identifying people's calendars.
00:35:53
Speaker
I like to call it sacred time, and that can be within a person's calendar, just outlining.
00:35:58
Speaker
This is the time I'm spending with my family.
00:36:00
Speaker
This is a time that I'm spending with those activities that fulfill me.
00:36:04
Speaker
Also want to make sure that you don't go it alone, because again, one of the symptoms of burnout is isolation.
00:36:09
Speaker
You have to be willing to seek support or at least accept when someone reaches out to provide support.
00:36:15
Speaker
You also have to practice some self-care or those activities that fill your cup.
00:36:20
Speaker
And often we often have to promote activities that not only support your your mental well-being, but also your physical well-being.
00:36:30
Speaker
Exercise, meditation, hobbies.
00:36:33
Speaker
I know for you, Dr. D, you're a big runner.
00:36:35
Speaker
Getting that couple miles in with the runner's eye just to clear your head goes a long way with reducing burnout and stress.
00:36:42
Speaker
And finally, both leaders and team members having the conversation.
00:36:47
Speaker
Is the workload that a person has fit right?
00:36:50
Speaker
Assessing and adjusting that workload and the responsibilities to help prevent someone from feeling overwhelmed.
00:36:56
Speaker
What I often tell people is as a team member, as a leader, don't let yourself suffer in silence.
00:37:02
Speaker
That's what's going to lead to burnout.
00:37:03
Speaker
That's going to lead to that increased stress.
00:37:06
Speaker
Does it mean march into someone's office and go, you gave me too much work?
00:37:10
Speaker
No, it's having a candid conversation of here is what's becoming excessive.
00:37:15
Speaker
The other phrase I use often is, and this is a big source of stress for people, is understanding there are times when you need to say no.
00:37:23
Speaker
An inability to say no can often lead to more stress because you're now taking on where I have told people someone's poor planning is not my emergency.
00:37:33
Speaker
On that wisdom, I don't know how we could top it.
00:37:36
Speaker
I think we're done here.
00:37:37
Speaker
Let's close it up.
00:37:38
Speaker
I'm Dr. D. And I'm Dr. C. And we'll keep dissecting leadership.
00:37:42
Speaker
Your time at work looks a little less.