From Achiever to Unmotivated: How Leadership Fatigue Breaks Down Competent Leaders
by Richard Sumpio
Have you ever found yourself slowly losing your passion for something you love to do? Have you ever found yourself unintentionally criticizing your coworker over minor mistakes? Have you ever found yourself having a hard time doing something you are normally good at?
I remember when I was working on a long-term project with a team. At first, proper boundaries were established, and tasks were delegated according to each personnel's skill and availability. However, other factors came to play as the months went by. Personally, I dealt with private matters, which made it hard to concentrate on my work. Along with the constant barrage of deadlines and demands for outputs, the quality of my work steadily deteriorated. I was functioning, just not on an optimal capacity. There were times when decisions had to be made, and since I was drained from dealing with private matters, I refused to communicate with my team as I thought that the process would be easier and faster if I dealt with it and decided it on my own. Hence, it felt justified in my perspective at the moment. Then, I also found myself unwisely choosing personnel who still need significant improvement with the given task, and begrudgingly accepting then revising the output on my own. I knew I wasn't at my best and I need to rest. Little did I know at the time, I was already experiencing leadership fatigue.
Leadership fatigue is defined as the struggle to maintain motivation, passion, or energy towards your work, and having difficulty motivating, guiding, and encouraging team members (Afolayan, 2022). More often than not, Sacrifice Syndrome (Boyatzis & Mckee, 2005) is at play wherein leaders respond to stress by taking on more tasks that eventually turn into burdens. Thus, it is simply burnout that spreads over your leadership like wildfire. It is burnout but those under your leadership are also directly affected by your state of well-being. But where does it start?
Overcommitment
As leaders, we naturally want to excel in our craft with efficiency and share our expertise passionately. However, we also handle multiple roles in our everyday life, and this daily tug-of-war often leaves us overworked. This difficulty in saying "no" may lead to catastrophic results in spite of our level of competence as the quality of our outputs deteriorates due to fatigue. In a survey published on Harvard Business Review, 81% out of 500 managers in global companies concurrently worked on more than one project with multiple teams (Mortensen & Gardner, 2017). That's roughly 400 managers who most probably experience burnout. The cohesion of their teams might also be affected negatively due to the lack of focus and team-building activities. Thus, the quality of work suffers due to these otherwise controllable factors.
Job Mismatch
A job mismatch is simply the misalignment of qualifications and skills to the workload of the employee. In the Philippines, about 40% of Filipino employees are revealed to be overqualified for their jobs (Chanco, 2023). Leaders are often victims of this phenomenon due to the variety of qualifications and skills they possess. As leaders, it is ideally part of our job to elevate our team members to their maximum potential. Hence, we should be careful in limiting their opportunities by shouldering most of their work.
How can we mitigate these problems, then?
Communicate with Members
As mentioned, establishing group cohesion is important in leadership since it allows the group to run like a well-oiled machine. However, it is also beneficial for the leader to express themselves to their members. After all, leaders are humans too. Communicating not only helps with task efficiency, but also in expressing compassion to one another as they work towards the same goal. In Positive Workplaces, we implement the concept of "Check-In, Check-Out" in our meetings since we recognize the value of human compassion. A simple "kumusta ka?" works wonders in someone's day.
You can read more about the concept here:
Check-In, Check-Out: Putting the Me Things in Meetings
Check-ins helped me be more open to being asked if I was okay
Delegate Tasks Efficiently
As the saying goes, 'two heads are better than one'. Thus, it has been identified that delegation is a core leadership skill (Baker & Murphy, 2022). Task delegation not only maximizes resources but also gives opportunities for members to improve themselves. Naturally, it is important to delegate workload according to skill and context since no matter how competent someone is, there are still situational factors to consider. As such, delegation works hand-in-hand with proper group communication.
Practice Mindfulness
In Positive Psychology, mindfulness is described as a state of mind comprising of calmness, gratitude, and compassion (Sutton, 2019). It is a relaxed state of being "in the moment" as compared to constantly being stressed about the hustle and bustle of life. Taking time to reflect and relax is an integral part of taking care of one's wellbeing. Moreover, studies also show that practicing mindfulness correlates to follower satisfaction (Arendt et al., 2019). In my experience, taking long walks help since it allows me to appreciate the beauty of the simple things we often overlook, like the blessing of still-breathing. It also declutters my mind and leads me to generate more intuitive ideas.
I firmly believe that leadership is a delicate balance of promoting accountability and exercising compassion. However, it is important to take care of ourselves first before elevating others. After all, how can you happily share your meal if you are also starving?
Do you want to improve your leadership skills? Learn more by reading these articles below:
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References:
Afolayan, S. (2022, January 18). How to Fight Leadership Fatigue. ICMI. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from https://www.icmi.com/resources/2022/fight-leadership-fatigue
Agarwal, P. (2021, December 10). How to create a positive workplace culture. Forbes. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2018/08/29/how-to-create-a-positive-work-place-culture
Arendt, J. F. W., Verdorfer, A. P., & Kugler, K. G. (2019, March 29). Mindfulness and Leadership: Communication as a Behavioral Correlate of Leader Mindfulness and Its Effect on Follower Satisfaction. Frontiers in Psychology. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00667/full?hss_channel=tw-3688330153
Baker, E. L., & Murphy, S. A. (2022, July). Delegation: A Core Leadership Skill. Public Health Management and Practice. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from https://journals.lww.com/jphmp/Fulltext/2022/07000/Delegation_A_Core_Leadership_Skill
Cole, B. (n.d.). Three Attributes to Sustainable Leadership. Systems Thinker. Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://thesystemsthinker.com/three- attributes-to-sustainable-leadership/
Chanco, B. (2023, June 23). Job-skills mismatch. PhilStar Global. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from https://www.philstar.com/business/2023/06/23/2275818/job-skills-mismatch
Mortensen, M., & Gardner, H.K. (2017, September). The Overcommitted Organization. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from http://events.hannessnellman.com/NGCS2018/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Mortensen-Gardner_Overcommitted-Organization_HBR_2017.pdf
Philippine Institute of Developmental Studies. (2022, August 24). 40% of Filipinos are overqualified for their jobs: Job mismatches and how you can avoid them. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from https://www.pids.gov.ph/details/news/in-the-news/40-of-filipinos-are-overqualified-for-their-jobs-job-mismatches-and-how-you-can-avoid-them
Sutton, J. (2019, April 9). What Is Mindfulness? Definition, Benefits & Psychology. Positive Psychology. Retrieved August 13, 2023, from https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-mindfulness/
