Job Fatigue And Mounting Expectations
Many executive are facing mounting pressure to produce in increasingly competitive and fast moving market conditions. Living through the last five years of recession, and the struggles to survive and recover, has not been fun for far too many. Adding to the stress and the inevitable fatigue, executives are expected to be on 24/7/365. Not surprisingly many are not excited any more. And if they happen to be the CEO, or the head of a business unit or function, there are very few people for them to turn to for advice of support.
In coaching conversations with executives most will fess up to the fact that they experience fatigue, and a few will even acknowledge that they feel burnt out. Even so, many feel that it would be a career limiting move to speak up. They fear that it would be the start of a conversation that they are simply not cutting it, they are not up to the demands of their role.
Burnout Is Becoming A Discussable
However, executive burnout is becoming a topic that a few executives are becoming more willing to discuss as Leslie Kwoh reports on the WSJ News Hub.
The ones who do discuss their burn out and who do take time off, or even leave their organizations all together, are mostly those who can well afford to do so.
For the larger majority of executives it is simply a question of powering through, as Dr. Srini Pillay, and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who is conducting a study of burnout among senior leaders, puts it. He acknowledges though that, "they do eventually crash".
Adding to Fatigue and Burnout
Too many organizations unconsciously add to fatigue, and the experience of burnout. They have practices that add unnecessary frustration to the challenge of getting things done in a way that is productive, fun and expressive of vision and values – just look at the process of getting an idea through a stage gate process, or the layers of bureaucracy to get decisions made.
We need to re-examine policies, procedure and rules, especially those that seem to be designed to suppress and demotivate, rather than unleash creativity and energy – a fatigue creator we can easily eliminate.
The singular focus on growth, profitability and shareholder return inevitable means that for many CEOs and senior executives employee wellbeing, including their own, is at best, a secondary concern – if it even makes it to the level of concern at all. That people are stressed, fatigued and experiencing little to no joy at work is seen by too many as just the cost of doing business.
And it doesn't have to be this way as Raj Sisodia and colleagues illustrated in their book Firms of Endearment – taking care of all stakeholders actually increases the returns to stakeholders. This is a perspective that a growing number of companies are discovering as they align with the perspectives of Conscious Capitalism – both from the eponymous book and organization.
We First Have to Fess Up to The Condition
As we know from recovery programs we first have to admit that we have an unhealthy condition that needs to be treated – and we can't do it on our own. Denial is not a viable option.
