The 11 Causes of Burnout At Work (Plus Steps To Reignite Your Passion)

Read Time: 3 minutes.

In nearly every coaching session I've been leading, I have a leader on the edge of burnout or one of their employees suffering from it. 

But why?

• Have we gotten softer? 

• Did the definition grow?

• Has work gotten worse? 

I'm pretty sure the answer is all over the above. And more.

But you can't treat burnout directly. You need to uncover the root cause cause. And that cause is different for everyone. 

Here's your diagnostic cheat sheet with suggested remedies. 

The 11 Causes of Burnout (in no particular order):

I don’t assign blame.

I try to figure out “what’s true” so I can then decide what to do about it.

A few of these will be controversial. I know this.

But just because it might be unpleasant, doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Meaningless Work

We need a paycheck. But once we meet our basic needs, we want more. We need a purpose. 

Some struggle to name their purpose. Some hesitate to chase it. 

Endless existential questions lead to burnout.

💡Tip: Inventory the activities that bring you joy. Make more of them.

Inefficient Work

Even with a purpose, we're unwilling to waste our most precious resource: Our time. 

It's everywhere: Purposeless meetings, unread reports, incessant Slack notifications.

Burnout increased when switching costs went exponential. 

💡Tip: Build 2-3 unbreakable work blocks each week. Go deep. 

Endless Work

This can be a volume problem. 
This can also be an "always-on" problem. 

Leaders need a realistic understanding of what's reasonable. 
Employees have no defense other than clear boundaries. 

The resulting standoff yields burnout. 

💡Tip: Measure your work. Set a baseline. Show how you can't defy physics.

Lost Autonomy

Take two people:

• "A" willingly opts into the activity

• "B" is told they have to do it

Without any more context, you can be confident "A" is happier than "B".

Same activity. Entirely different outcome. 
Burnout festers in stolen sovereignty. 

💡Tip: Make recommendations. Then, make them happen when approved. 

Blurry Boundaries

You can have anything you want. Not everything.
Every "Yes" today is a "No" to something previously important.

This flexibility can be a show of true ownership. 
It can also mean you can't separate big from small. 

Burnout happens when we outsource border defense. 

💡Tip: Force tradeoffs. "I can take on X, but it means Y pushes out. Agree?" 

Unquestioned Unfairness

It's easy to see small slights and let them slide. But we store them up and weave them into a tale of injustice. 

Don't suffer in silence. Curiously questioning is a better path. 
Don't assume the sinister. Figure out what you're missing.

Burnout smolders in imagined inequities. 

💡Tip: Assume positive intent. Ask to understand if things don't make sense.

Broken Connection

We are tribal. We need to feel a part of the group. 
Our work is increasingly global. Offline. Asynchronous. 

We're 7x more likely to stay at a company where we have 1 friend. 
Burnout and loneliness are close cousins.

💡Tip: Set up one coffee, call, or convo each week. 

Diminished Rewards

Many are working harder to earn less. 
It's just math: Inflation has outpaced wages. 

Running harder but losing ground is demoralizing. 
Pretending this isn't a factor is dehumanizing. 

💡Tip: Do your own research. Can you make materially more elsewhere? Use that info to make your case or make your move.

We Named It

Words have power.
Naming something makes it more accessible.
Why do you think there are so many pharma ads on TV? 

We pattern-match the symptoms and self-diagnose the cause. 
As a result, it grows beyond the clinical definition. 

💡Tip: Tell yourself a different story. You're not burned out. You're tired after a hard push. But hard things make us stronger. 

We Glorified Laziness

The pendulum is always swinging. 

We used to admire those who did the impossible—those who outworked us. Now, many people tear them down. We diminish their effort. 

That diminishing lowers our standards. And helps us rationalize stopping short. We've extended the definition of burnout to give us cover. 

💡Tip: Don't lower the standard. Extend your timeline. Append "yet" to all that you can't do. Transform burnout into growth.

We Gave Everyone a Trophy. 

Business is competitive. Everyone can't win. 

If you spend the first 20 years of your life never losing, how can you build resilience to weather the storms of work?

Resilience is the antidote to burnout. 

💡Tip: Do a fear-setting exercise. Find out if the dragons are bigger in your mind than in reality. 

*****

The greatest capacity any leader can develop is embracing two contradictory things being true simultaneously. And dealing well with that reality.

When it comes to burnout: 

• As leaders, our decisions - who we hire, the work we accept, the behavior we tolerate - can contribute meaningfully to burnout.

• As employees, our decisions - where we work, the standards we hold ourselves to, the stories we tell - are also part of the issue.

I've come to see past burnout because it means too many things. Therefore, as a means of making progress, it means very little.

Burnout typically suggests there's poor behavior masked in virtue.

The question is, whose behavior? 

What You Missed

Here are a few posts that got outsized attention this week.

• Develop And Roll Out Your Team’s Operating Principles

• How “The Good Time Index” Helps Beat Burnout

• Hard Truths Your Boss Is Too Afraid To Tell You

• Solving The 5 Universal Management Problems

• How To Turnaround a Broken Team

And look who became a Top Voice on LinkedIn this week:

Podcast Alert

After giving the keynote at the most recent eCommerce Fuel Live, I was invited to the eCommerce Evolution podcast.

We got into some meaty topics:

• Why pruning is more important than fine-tuning

• How to stay flat while adding a “minimum viable” structure

• Creating incentives to deliver reliably today and suitably tomorrow

Find it on Spotify, Apple, or your favorite platform.

Thank you for reading. Appreciate you!

Dave