We have all heard the oxygen mask rule: secure your own mask before helping others. I have never had to use one on a flight, but the principle shows up every day in leadership. You cannot help others if you cannot breathe.
In leadership terms, your oxygen is your fire: the energy, clarity, purpose and resilience that allow you to stay present and effective over time. Without protecting that fire, you cannot light the way for your team. In contact centers, where leaders make judgment calls moment by moment that directly affect performance and customer experience, running on empty is not just unsustainable. It is a strategic liability.
Here is what I know after years of leading contact center teams: when leaders burn out, they do not just lose energy. They lose clarity, creativity and influence. And when that happens, culture follows.
As we move into 2026, leadership capacity must be treated as a strategic investment that directly impacts retention, decision quality and team performance. Your wellbeing is not separate from culture. It actively shapes it. Sustaining both yourself and your team requires protecting time for recovery, modeling sustainable practices and building systems that support rather than drain leaders.
Why Your Fire Matters More Than You Think
The pressure placed on contact center leaders threatens vitality in unique ways. Leaders manage teams that may be struggling while still meeting aggressive service targets. They navigate executive expectations that can feel disconnected from the reality of doing more with less.
Layer on the emotional complexity of modern contact center work. Automation has reduced simple transactions, but increased the emotional load on humans who now handle the most complex, frustrated or escalated interactions. Leaders absorb that weight daily while sustaining morale and service excellence.
Burnout is often misunderstood as a failure of discipline or time management. In reality, it is the result of commitment without recovery. It happens when you care deeply without restoring what leadership continually draws from you.
Research supports this. According to Shapiro (2023), leader vitality is not just protection against burnout, but a key driver of leadership effectiveness. When leaders operate from depleted reserves, they transfer negative energy to their teams. Engagement drops. Performance suffers. When leaders maintain vitality, they create inclusive environments and show up with greater mental capacity and emotional range.
When leaders lose their fire, decision-making becomes reactive instead of intentional. Culture work turns performative rather than authentic. Metrics may still look fine on paper, but their meaning erodes. Teams feel the shift, even if results have not yet declined.
Leadership as Strategy
If we think about culture as the environment where work happens, leadership is the force that shapes it.
Leadership is not simply execution of strategy. Strong leadership is strategy. The way leaders show up, make decisions, invest in people and respond under pressure determines whether culture becomes an asset or a liability.
But here is the paradox: leaders are expected to energize others while their role steadily drains their own energy. Culture investment requires presence. Developing people requires patience and emotional availability. All of that draws from the same limited internal reserves.
In contact centers, this shows up in how we handle escalations, staffing shortages, performance conversations and peak cycles. It shows up in whether we respond to pressure with clarity or reactivity, whether we model composure or transmit stress, whether we lead intentionally or simply manage the moment.
Without protecting their own fire, leaders unintentionally undermine the culture they are trying to build. The cost of depletion is real: reduced clarity, strained relationships and cultural drift. These costs far outweigh the short-term gains of pushing through exhaustion.
Oxygen Level Reflection
Early in my leadership journey, I believed being first in and last out showed commitment because that's what was modeled for me. What I did not realize was that I was modeling unsustainable behavior for my team. They stayed late unnecessarily, hesitated to take time off and responded to messages around the clock.
It has been an ongoing discipline, but I am more intentional about protecting boundaries now. I leave on time most days, avoid after-hours email unless urgent and take real breaks. And I am seeing the impact in our collective energy.
Keeping your fire alive while lighting the way is about intention and balance.
Here are some questions that do not require immediate answers, but do require honesty:
- When do I feel most energized and most depleted?
- What leadership behaviors renew me and which drain me?
- Where do I model balance and where do I model overextension?
- If I continue leading this way, will it still work a year from now?
Your Turn
This week, identify one energy-draining behavior and one practice that renews you. Protect 30 minutes for that renewal on your calendar. Notice how it changes your presence with your team.
Keeping your fire while you light the way is not a personal indulgence. It is a leadership responsibility. You cannot build sustainable culture with unsustainable leadership.
Protect your capacity. Lead with clarity. And light the way without losing yourself in the process.