Whatever role you play in your company, you know how hard it is to avoid the creeping sensation of burnout, even if you love your job. Burnout has steeply risen over the last two years, meaning it’s more crucial than ever to find ways to fight back.

It’s easy to get stuck in a snowball effect of trying to do too much at once, then failing to do anything well, then scrambling to fix errors and keep moving ahead. There’s a saying you might have heard: “Throw ten balls at someone at once, and they’ll catch zero. Throw ten balls at someone one at a time, and they’ll catch them all.”

Over the past year, you may have felt like too many balls were thrown at you at once—managing requests, maintaining forward motion, and producing quality work. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to do all three things for an extended period. It can damage your wellbeing and the health of your organization.

So what can you do about it? It starts with taking command of how you respond to new tasks, ideas, and requests.

1. Pause

When you receive a new request, your first reaction might be to add it to your to-do list and start working on it right away. Or you might want to set it aside and forget about it, thinking, “This is just another thing I can’t get done.”

Before you do any of that, pause. Take a moment to reflect on your state of mind and your initial reaction. Give yourself the time to perceive your reaction, then set it aside so you can respond with more intention.

This is a crucial step because it can illuminate how you’re already feeling and how that might be affecting your work. If your first response was to start immediately, then you might be stuck in a frantic, disorganized state, feeling a sense of urgency to move forward quickly without reason. Alternatively, if your first response was to sigh heavily, this might mean you’re already feeling the effects of burnout. This self-awareness is the first step to taking the necessary steps to protect yourself.

2. Evaluate

Before starting on any task, take the time to evaluate its level of importance and urgency. President Eisenhower created a strategy for this that’s still useful today. While the person handing the task to you might be extra excited about getting it done, it may not fall into an urgent and critical category in the grand scheme of things. This can come in very handy when you’re trying to balance a busy schedule and endless to-do list.

3. Prioritize

Once you’ve identified the level of importance and urgency, take a moment to review the task in the context of your other work. Where does it fall on your to-do list? Depending on the structure of your organization, this might be different for you than for another team member. You might have cross-departmental duties, or maybe you’re working on several various projects that are all competing for your time.

4. Assess

Now that you’ve moved through the first two steps, decide the best course of action. No one likely knows the full shape of your to-do list, so you’re the expert on whether you’re the best person for the job and when and how it should get done. Maybe it makes more sense to hold off until the next quarter or to have a different team member work on it. Or perhaps the timeline needs to be adjusted, so you have a reasonable time to complete it. Steps two and three should provide you with confidence when deciding the best next move.

5. Respond

While you may be thinking, “I’m not the boss, how am I supposed to respond to requests if I’m not in a position to say no?” Whether or not you’re able to say no, your opinion and evaluation still hold weight. Good leaders trust their team members and will welcome your insight. A well-balanced team means a productive and happy team, leading to quality work, retention, and satisfaction.

Your manager has probably heard the saying you can have it fast, cheap, or good, but you can only pick two! The same goes for getting work done. You can get something done quickly, but it may mean other things need to be pushed to the side. Your valuable insight can help them do their job better, clarifying challenges and creating a clear path forward.

These five steps will take you out of frantic reaction mode and put you into a leadership mindset. They’ll help you gain confidence and control over your workload and empower you to set and identify crucial boundaries to protecting your wellbeing as an employee (and a human!).

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With great power comes great responsibility, and great responsibility calls for regular reflection upon who you are as a leader and how you are growing.

Regular periods of self-reflection are needed to ensure that we are heading in the right direction regarding empowering our people, making progress towards our vision, and creating a sustainable legacy over the long term.

Asking meaningful questions that bring you discomfort and get to the heart of what it means to be a leader can show you how well you measure up and highlight areas where your attention is needed.

Is the ‘Why’ of what I’m doing the same as it was when I started?

Change is inevitable. Processes, plans, priorities, and even those on your team will change or evolve. Your Why/Purpose is what drives you to emotionally do what you do. It’s the rock upon which everything is built, and it drives every decision you make in the organization, which is why it’s important to consistently reflect on it.

Start by asking, “Is the ‘why’ of what I’m doing the same as it was when I started?” If your ‘why’ has shifted, then you may have strayed from your values or mission. If that’s the case, ask yourself what strategies you can create to ensure a successful re-alignment, so your purpose continues to drive your organization. If you want to inspire people to get behind your purpose and vision, they need to believe in what you believe in.

How am I developing as a leader?

There are no perfect leaders, so if you think you have it all figured out and that you’re at the pinnacle level of leadership, then it’s time to reflect on how you’re developing. Leaders who remain agile and curious and who value continuous development are best able to adapt to the most significant and most unexpected challenges.

Reflect on how you’re developing. If your list is limited, contemplate how you can seek opportunities to grow and develop your skills as a leader in your organization.

Am I as accessible as I can be?

Take a moment to reflect on this question.

Did you think of physical availability? For example, perhaps, you considered yourself accessible because you have an “open-door policy” or a “virtual communication policy” if you’re remote. If so, it’s essential to differentiate physical availability and accessibility.

Accessibility goes beyond physical availability because it’s everything that happens the moment someone walks in your door and your accountability that follows. Now reflect on this question again and ask yourself:

• Have I created an environment that encourages people to come to me in need?
• Am I providing enough support?
• Do I demonstrate genuine appreciation and gratitude for my team members?
• Am I actively listening to others’ input? 
• Do I consistently follow up with people?

For example, if you’re going to encourage your team to share their input and ideas because you one time read in an article that you should, ask yourself if you’re genuine. Especially in the case of leadership, actions speak louder than your words.

Have I been seeking enough feedback?

There are copious amounts of people who don’t seek feedback because it could bruise the ego or harm our self-confidence, but as the saying goes – no pain, no gain. One of the most courageous acts you can perform is to seek honest and constructive feedback on your performance as a leader. You can do this during team performance reviews or one-to-one employee check-ins.

Actively seek out suggestions on how you can improve and support your team. It’s critical to follow through and integrate feedback for it to make a meaningful impact. Take this feedback, reflect on it some more, and embrace how you can grow as a leader.

Self-reflection makes the best leaders

Just as leaders expect certain standards from their people, their position as a leader holds them to greater standards.

Regular periods of self-reflection are needed to ensure that you’re holding yourself to this standard and that you’re heading in the right direction.

Regardless of whether you’re in a leadership position or not, these questions can help you bolster your strengths and make any necessary improvements that will enhance your ability to be of greater service and benefit to yourself as well as others.

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The art of leading a productive and enlightening conversation is at the essence of success. Whether you’re conducting a job interview, talking to a client, or working with your team, you need the power to get as much out of every conversation as you can.

You need to inspire, to be purposeful and clear, to obtain and share quality information, and to connect on a human level—all of which needs to happen naturally and in as few words (of yours) as possible.

Here are a few key points you can apply to nearly every conversation you have, amplifying your impact, takeaway, and position.

Who’s at the center?

Leading a quality conversation doesn’t mean you become the focal point. Most of the time, if you position the other person at the center, you can make a greater impact. You can make the other person think you’re the most interesting person in the world, or they can leave the conversation feeling they are the most interesting person in the world.

Which would you prefer? Be honest with yourself.

While you might impress some people by espousing your thoughts, experiences, and opinions, it will do little to help you connect with and learn from them. This brings us to a critical point: setting your intention. If you want to lead a conversation where everyone goes away with your opinions and ideas swirling around in their heads, then sure, get on your soapbox and talk away.

BUT, if you intend to get information from someone while also connecting with them personally, then your focus should be on them.

Listening to hear, not to speak

Imagine a microphone: the only thing that comes out of it is what is said into it. Having a conversation with someone who spends their time waiting to speak is like becoming a microphone for the other person. It’s not fun. Or rewarding. Or engaging.

It’s just exasperating.

So how do you avoid being the person who only listens long enough to find an opportunity to speak? The first step is slowing down. Remind yourself why you are having the conversation. Ask yourself what it is you’re hoping to gain. Then ask yourself how you’re going to get there. I promise you, the answer isn’t by talking.

Learn how to ask questions

While you’ve known how to ask questions since you first learned to talk, it doesn’t mean you know how to ask the right questions.

Let’s look at two similar questions and see how they evoke wildly different responses:

• Did you feel happy when you got the new job?
• What was it like to get the new job?

One quick way to stop a conversation in its tracks is to ask leading or closed-ended questions. These are questions that push the response in a specific direction and simply require a yes or no answer.

What would you say if someone asked you the first question? Probably something like, “Yes, I did feel happy!” While that isn’t a bad answer, it doesn’t leave room for you to add anything else. The answer sits within the original question: “Happy,” prompting no additional thought or introspection

Now think about answering the second, open-ended question. There’s no obvious response. Your answer could go in many different directions, allowing richness and depth to develop within the discussion. Those are the types of questions you want to be asking if you’re looking for value.

Don’t resist the awkward pause

While no one loves to sit in silence, learning to do so comfortably can create something amazing. Think about the landscape of your conversation as a jumble of marbles on a mattress. You go from one marble to the next in a sometimes straight, sometimes meandering line. But there will always be marbles that don’t get picked up.

Now, think about silence as a bowling ball put down in the center of the mattress. The ball’s weight creates a physical pull on the outlying marbles, coaxing them to roll into the dent left by the bowling ball and into the center of the conversation.

Give your conversation some intentional bowling balls. Make way for those stray thoughts or shy opinions to be pulled to the center and realized.

Move with purpose

As you practice leading conversations that produce real value, help you authentically connect, and make progress, take the time to reflect. After an especially frustrating or exciting conversation, stop and go over what made it successful or not. This process takes self-awareness, intention, and purpose. Take your time, work at it, and watch as each interaction you have becomes more valuable, impactful, and satisfying.

What is it that holds you back? What pushes your employees or peers to burn themselves out? What halts growth and stifles innovation? What keeps cultures from overcoming periods of apathy? Some might point to poor company culture, faulty leadership, or even personal mental health and wellness. But one thing ties them all together—permission.

When we don’t feel like we have permission to do things that need to be done, we hold back and force ourselves into doing something unnatural. And that unnaturalness forms tension between two opposing things: what we are doing vs. what we should be doing.

Now, more often than not, permission is given tacitly. Meaning no one tells us we have permission to take the day off when we need the rest (except maybe during the onboarding process). It’s either built into the culture, or it isn’t. Sometimes, even if it is built into the culture, we don’t allow ourselves permission out of pure habit, fear, or uncertainty.

But whatever the cause, the bottom line is we need permission. We need it to maintain wellbeing at work, try new things freely, follow our gut, and actively confront difficult problems. Permission is needed if we want our organizations to have a healthy growth rate, our employees to have a healthy work-life balance, and our values and vision to withstand change.

For leaders

You may think your employees feel like they have the permission they need to:

• Take time off work
• Advocate for their needs (physical, mental, personal, and professional)
• Try new processes
• Challenge their leaders
• Confront issues they see within the organization

But ask yourself: are you sure? How are you sure? Do you expressly permit your employees to do these things? Do their managers? Is it written in your company values? If you’re not sure, then your organization could probably benefit from a refresher.

Some red flags can help you identify when employees need permission. Suppose you have more than one (or even one) employee burning themselves out, consistently working long hours, or taking on too many things. In that case, they probably feel like they don’t have permission to say no to taking on more responsibility, taking the time they need for themselves, or asking for help.

If you want to remind your employees (or tell them for the first time) they have your support in doing these things, try:

1. Telling them in a one-on-one or company-wide meeting
2. Training your managers to work it into the onboarding process
3. Writing it into your company values
4. Acknowledging or celebrating employees who set an example
5. Sending it in an email, writing it on the wall, shouting it from the rooftops

However you go about it, remember people often need to be reminded of what is allowed. Don’t fail to do so. Keep it in the conversation, add it to your company employee survey, bring it up wherever and whenever you can. It takes time to unlearn habits of keeping their heads down, keeping quiet, and avoiding asking for things. As a leader, work with your employees to gradually build their sense of permission.

And don’t forget to set the example. Don’t be afraid to tell your team when you need time off or that you’re comfortable asking for help when you need it.

For individuals

We’ve all had jobs where we felt we had to show up when we were sick or couldn’t take time off when we needed it. We’ve had managers who got mad at us for needing help or refused to listen to new ideas. There are far too many people working too many hours because they don’t feel they can advocate for their needs.

The fact is, sometimes you need to give yourself permission. If no one is doing it for you, do it yourself. And if you can’t do it, then here you go. Repeat after us:

You are allowed to take time off when you need it. You have permission to ask for help. You have permission to confront issues. You have permission to say no to more work. You have permission to quit any job that doesn’t give you permission to do these things. You have permission to ask for a raise and to tell your boss you deserve a promotion. You have permission to follow your gut. You have permission to fail.

For each other

As a society, we haven’t done a great job teaching people their needs are just as important as their jobs. We haven’t done an excellent job raising people to feel free to take time off or say when they’re overwhelmed. It’s not uncommon to feel like admitting you’re overwhelmed or need a break is like saying you can’t do the job. It feels like failure to admit these things to ourselves, much less each other, and even less to our bosses.

But if we don’t encourage people to advocate for their needs or take a day off without feeling guilty and afraid their positions will be negatively affected, we’re building an extremely fragile foundation for our success. For our organizations to succeed, we need our people to succeed. And for our people to succeed, we need to build a culture that allows them to meet their needs, guilt-free.

Photo by Lindsay Helms

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