Four Leadership Loads That Keep Getting Heavier

You dreamed of being an inspiring leader, but you're fighting fires every day instead. Here are no-nonsense tips for managing the stress of leading in “interesting” times.

- By Melissa Swift

Feeling emotionally drained at work? Is your patience exhausted? Your energy low? If so, you're showing clinical markers of burnout.

And you’re not alone. In a January 2024 mental health survey conducted by NAMI, 54% of managers indicated that they had felt burned out during the past year because of their job. Among employees of all levels, 36% said their mental health had suffered due to work demands. Even folks in the C-suite are heading for the exits.

No one ever said leadership was easy. But in recent years it’s become harder. With exponentially escalating business complexity, diminished civility, and intrusive, pervasive technological interruptions, you may feel like it’s barely possible to keep order, let alone lead employees on an inspiring journey.

It's Not Your Imagination: Where Leadership Is Tougher

Four specific areas that most leaders care about have genuinely become more difficult in the past few years: hyping up their teams, getting to the truth, focusing on strategy, and staying sane themselves. But understanding how and why each of these leadership loads has become more difficult to carry can set you on the path to doing better.

1. Leader as Cheerleader: Hyping Up Your Team.

Sometime in 2011, my boss brought me a chocolate muffin. I mention this not only because it was my introduction to the idea of servant leadership (thank you, Dave!) but also because it remains an excellent example of the simplicity of morale-building. You don’t have to hire a brass band and shoot off fireworks; you do have to say thank you, send a nice email, and offer a bit of chocolate at around 3 p.m. Consistently appreciate the humans around you. Be a mensch.