When most leaders hear the word burnout, the first assumption is usually simple. You’re doing too much. Too many hours, too many meetings, too many responsibilities stacked on top of each other.
And sometimes that’s exactly the problem.
There are absolutely moments when the right response is to lighten the load. Delegate more. Automate what you can. Say no to work that shouldn’t be yours in the first place. Those are absolutely appropriate and helpful at times.
But sometimes burnout isn’t about how much work you’re doing. It’s about the kind of work you’ve been doing for too long. You can burn out at 30 hours a week if the work steadily drains your energy…and you can feel incredibly alive working far more than that if the work gives you energy.
When Burnout Starts Whispering
Burnout rarely begins with some dramatic crash. At least, it hasn’t for me.
Usually, it starts with this vague frustration that I can’t quite explain. I find myself asking questions that don’t really have clear answers.
- Why is this so hard right now?
- Why am I in such a bad mood about work?
- Why do I keep going into the kitchen to avoid work when I’m not even hungry?
Nothing catastrophic has happened, but something is clearly off.
Another warning sign for me is the Sunday night dread that a lot of leaders know well. Once in a while, that feeling is normal. A big week is coming and you know it. But when that dread shows up consistently, week after week, it usually means something deeper is happening. Work has shifted from something that gives energy to something that slowly takes it.
And when your job sits in that space long enough, burnout isn’t far behind.
The Work That Drains You
One framework that helped me think about this comes from the Working Genius model. The idea behind it is simple: Different types of work create energy for different people, while other types of work drain them.
To be clear, this isn’t really about skills.
Burnout isn’t caused by doing work you’re bad at or doing something new. In fact, learning new things can be incredibly energizing for the right person. Burnout usually shows up when you spend too much time in work that consistently pulls energy out of you.
I learned this the hard way during COVID.
At a previous organization, we were trying to convert inbound agents into outbound agents by reaching out to previous customers. The challenge was that we didn’t have an outbound dialing process. So, I built a set of spreadsheets that told agents who they should call.
A 12-person pilot in March turned into a 200-person program by May. Which meant every day I was copying and pasting between spreadsheets to keep records aligned and reporting accurate. Over and over again. Every day.
The work had value. Customers were getting called. The business was moving forward. But the work itself was incredibly draining for me. It was just execution. Copy. Paste. Copy. Paste. Copy…maintain the machine.
Now to be fair, there were probably things I could have done differently. Delegated more. Trained someone else. Built a better process earlier. But at the time, I was the person who knew the system best, so I kept doing it. And slowly, that kind of work just sucked the soul right out of me.
The Work That Gives Energy
For me, I get energy from asking questions. From exploring ideas. From helping someone think through a problem and seeing the moment when things start to click for them. In the language of “Working Genius,” my natural tendencies lean toward Wonder and Discernment. I enjoy asking questions and helping surface the direction that makes sense.
Recently, I had a conversation with an analyst who clearly has a lot of potential. We spent about 30 minutes talking through her work and where she wanted to grow. Nothing dramatic happened during that conversation. But I walked away from it energized and it was one of the highlights of my week. That kind of work fills my tank instead of emptying it.
Sometimes the Work Just Drifts
There’s another dynamic here that leaders don’t always notice.
Sometimes the work that originally gave you energy simply drifts out of your role. Maybe you became a supervisor because you love helping people succeed, but now most of your time is spent reviewing reports and chasing down errors.
Maybe you love solving complex problems, which is why you moved into an analyst role. But instead of digging into root causes, you’re mostly executing tasks. I think about WFM analysts who love solving puzzles, but spend most of their day updating schedule exceptions. Eventually, they start wondering if the role itself is wrong for them.
But often the role isn’t the problem. The problem is that the energizing parts of the work have slowly disappeared from the calendar.
Learning to Diagnose Energy
This is where self-awareness becomes incredibly valuable.
Some questions that can help leaders think about their own work:
- What type of work consistently gives me energy, even when it’s difficult?
- What type of work drains me quickly, even when it’s simple?
- When was the last time I finished a day feeling energized by the work I did?
- Am I overwhelmed or have I just spent too long in work that drains me?
For some people those answers are obvious. For others it takes a little more reflection.
Tools like the “Working Genius” assessment can be helpful because they give language to the types of work people naturally enjoy and the types of work that tend to frustrate them. The goal isn’t labeling yourself. It’s understanding where your energy comes from.
This Isn’t About Finding the Perfect Job
One important note here: This idea isn’t about finding some perfect job where you only do work that energizes you. Every role includes tasks that drain energy. Reporting, documentation, administrative work, project execution. Those things are part of the responsibility.
Right now, in my own role, I’m doing a lot of documentation work. Writing user stories. Filling out forms. Working through acceptance criteria. There’s a lot of it, and it definitely leans into the kind of work that drains me. But it still needs to get done. What I try to do instead is balance it.
Sometimes, that means dedicating a block of time to just push through the execution work. Then, intentionally shifting to something more exploratory afterward. Sometimes, it means taking a short break to think about a different project or a bigger question.
I’m not avoiding the work that drains energy. I’m just making sure it isn’t the only type of work filling my week.
Knowing Yourself Helps You Lead
Burnout is often treated as a workload problem. And sometimes it is.
But many leaders burn out because they slowly drift away from the kind of work that gives them energy and purpose.
The better you understand your own energy patterns, the easier it becomes to recognize those early warning signs and course correct before burnout fully sets in.
And as leaders, that kind of awareness doesn’t just help us. It helps us build better roles and better work for the people on our teams, too.