Para Kanino Ka Bumabangon: How Can Leaders Find Meaning When They Are Already Exhausted?
By Isabel Medez, Positive Workplaces Intern
“I have given my absolute all to being Prime Minister, but it has also taken a lot out of me. You cannot and should not do the job unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unplanned and unexpected challenges that inevitably come along. Having reflected over the summer I know I no longer have that bit extra in the tank to do the job justice.”[1]
Last January 2023, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s public announcement that she would step down as the country’s leader by February shocked a lot of people who were impressed by her steady and empathetic leadership through the pandemic. [2]
Leadership fatigue is one of the risks that high-achievers like leaders may want to keep an eye out for. As Thrive Global would describe it, leaders often have an optimistic and determined “I can handle everything” attitude. These types of leaders prefer to neglect the reality that they work incredibly long hours, take on disproportionately large workloads, and place immense pressure on themselves to excel - all of which makes them prime for fatigue that they never saw coming.[3]
Despite having a determined mindset, leading and managing people is still hard work. After all, employees have different personalities, growing and maintaining a business is challenging, and anyone called upon to regularly make tough decisions is bound to feel the strain and experience fatigue.
Signs of Fatigue
Living with high-stress levels for a long time can lead to experiencing fatigue. Healthline would define fatigue as a term to describe an overall feeling of severe tiredness or lack of energy.[4] When you’re fatigued, you have no motivation or energy to focus on your tasks and they start piling up, so you may have a sense of anxiety for what lies ahead on any given day. Thrive Global adds that fatigue often occurs along with these:
Pessimism
Pessimism can be negative self-talk or a switch from a glass-half-full mentality to a glass-half-empty one. At times you may think that you can’t rely on others. Such feelings can become immobilizing.[3]
Isolation
It could sound like a slight aversion to socializing in the early stages (i.e., not wanting to go out to lunch; sometimes locking the door to keep people out). In the later stages, you can get upset while someone is talking to you, and you might come home early or quite late to prevent encounters with others or avoid answering telephone calls.[3]
Increased irritability
Irritability also stems from feeling inadequate, unimportant, and pointless, and an increasing perception that you can’t perform anything as well or efficiently as you once did.[3]
Decreased Productivity
Chronic fatigue, given long hours, keeps you from becoming as successful as you once were, sometimes contributing to unfinished tasks and a rising to-do list.[3]
Overcoming Leadership Fatigue
There are many ways to recover from fatigue. However, not everyone has the luxury to take a year-long break or immediately resign from their job especially if they have a family to feed or they are the ones who own the company.
One of the recurring recommendations to recover from fatigue is going back to your why. Viktor Frankl’s theory of logotherapy explains that. Here’s a real-life example to preface his theory.
After the great fire of London in September 1666, Christopher Wren, an architect, was commissioned to rebuild St Paul’s Cathedral. One day, the architect observed three bricklayers on a scaffold. He approached the first bricklayer and asked the question, “What are you doing?” to which the bricklayer replied, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.”
He asked the same question to the other two bricklayers. The second bricklayer, responded, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.” But the third bricklayer replied with a gleam in his eye, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to The Almighty.”[5]
The story talks about the power of purpose or being able to find meaning in your everyday struggles. Three people were working on the same wall, doing the same work, but with totally different perspectives. For the first bricklayer, building the wall was for a paycheck. For the second bricklayer, it was a task he needed to do. For the third bricklayer, it was a calling.
It showed how different the third bricklayer felt towards his work because he saw a result that gave him purpose. He’s able to see how his efforts contribute to that end. The meaning he gave to his daily grind gave him pride, a positive attitude, and a higher meaning to his work.
Viktor Frankl’s theory of logotherapy is based on the idea that an individual is driven by a “will to meaning” or an inner desire to find purpose and meaning in life (Amelis & Dattilio, 2013).[6] For this article, two concepts in logotherapy are relevant to focus on, namely: will to meaning and meaning in life.
Will to meaning states that humans are free to achieve goals and purposes in life. Frustration, aggression, addiction, and depression arise when individuals cannot realize their “will to meaning.” As humans, our primary motive is to search for meaning or purpose in our lives. We are capable of supporting pain for a meaningful cause.[6] For Frankl, it is not enough simply to have something to do, rather what counts is the “manner in which one does the work.”[7]
There is pride and privilege in being a leader. But when you are stacked with deadlines and you’re still expected to fill out performance evaluations of your subordinates, do you take a pause and consider how you can complete the evaluation forms and leave meaningful feedback to your subordinates that motivates them to improve at work and ultimately be able to share with the workload in the future?
Filling out evaluation forms can be tedious but understanding that they are a tool to help you develop subordinates who can be more efficient while working with you, ultimately you’re helping yourself, too.
Meaning in life is based on the idea that meaning is a reality. Meaning isn’t just an illusion. Viktor Frankl asserts that humans have both freedom and responsibility to bring forth their best possible selves by realizing the meaning of the moment in every situation.[6]
Were there moments in your life when you weren’t treated fairly by a superior? Or did you experience being surrounded by people at work who couldn’t give you the emotional support you needed at a time when you needed it most?
Now that it’s your turn to lead a team (or an organization), has it ever occurred to you that maybe you were meant to go through the challenging experiences you went through so that you can be the kind of leader that your younger self needed?
Experiencing how unfair treatment made you work with resentment, how then will you treat your subordinates this time in a manner that they feel their well-being is considered?
Knowing how difficult it felt when you couldn’t rely on anyone for support at a time when you were struggling, how then will you hold space for your current team members so they feel supported?
Or how about seeing it from a different lens, have you experienced a moment when you mistreated a subordinate because of an emotional outburst due to pressing deadlines? Or has a friend at work asked for help but you couldn’t offer a hand because you need emotional support, too?
May this way of seeing our past experiences help us develop grace towards our past superiors and coworkers. And if you have become the kind of leader who may have unintentionally treated others in a way that caused more harm than good, may you give yourself grace instead of judgment, too. You’re doing the best you can with the resources that you currently have.
Being able to find meaning and purpose in our lives through both good and bad experiences can give us relief and increase our resilience and well-being. And when we can align our sense of purpose with our values and strengths, that can give us a profound sense of joy.[6]
Logotherapy was developed in the context of extreme suffering so it is not surprising that Frankl focused on a way out of these things. His experience showed him that life can be meaningful and fulfilling despite the harshest circumstances.[7] For Frankl, joy could never be an end to itself, it was an important byproduct of finding meaning in life.
References
[1] Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces resignation. (2023, January 19). The Beehive. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-announces-resignation
[2] Manning, K. (2023, January 28). Leadership fatigue is real. Here’s how to build up your resilience. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90840800/how-to-build-up-your-resilience-to-leadership-fatigue
[3] Mitchell, T. (2021). WHAT IS LEADERSHIP FATIGUE? Thrive Global. https://community.thriveglobal.com/what-is-leadership-fatigue/
[4] O’Connell, K. (2023b, April 18). Causes of fatigue and how to manage it. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/fatigue
[5] Baker, J. (2021, September 10). The Story of Three Bricklayers – A Parable About The Power of Purpose - Sacred Structures by Jim Baker. Sacred Structures by Jim Baker. https://sacredstructures.org/mission/the-story-of-three-bricklayers-a-parable-about-the-power-of-purpose/
[6] Madeson, M., Ph.D. (2023). Logotherapy: Viktor Frankl’s Theory of Meaning. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/viktor-frankl-logotherapy/
[7] Pursuit of Happiness. (2023, April 10). Viktor Frankl | Happiness and Meaning |Pursuit of Happiness. https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/viktor-frankl/
