Burnout: What It Is & Why It Happens

One of the most important things I’ve learned — both through my own experience and through research — is this:

Burnout is not a personal failure.

Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter, psychologists at UC Berkeley & Deakin University, who have spent decades studying burnout, describe it as a workplace phenomenon — the result of chronic stress that hasn’t been effectively managed.

It shows up in three key ways:

• Exhaustion — emotional and physical depletion

• Cynicism — a sense of detachment or negativity toward work or colleagues

• Ineffectiveness — feeling like your work doesn’t matter or you’re no longer making an impact

When I first read this, I didn’t think I was there yet. Sure, I was exhausted — that part was obvious. And yes, I was frustrated with a lot of things. But I still felt confident in my work. I still trusted many of the people around me.

It wasn’t until I felt those two dimensions shift — cynicism and inefficacy — that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. The moment I felt distrust toward a colleague I had always been close to and the moment I started questioning my own contributions and effectiveness. That’s when it stopped me in my tracks. And, coincidentally, it was the same week my body sent a much louder signal. It all became too real to ignore.

Why Burnout Happens

According to Maslach and Leiter, burnout is most strongly connected to six workplace conditions:

• Workload that isn’t manageable

• Lack of autonomy or voice

• Inconsistent or insufficient recognition

• Breakdown of community

• Unfairness or inequity

• Misalignment between work and personal values

When these conditions exist, burnout becomes much more likely regardless of how capable or committed someone is.

When I learned about this, that was another shift for me. It gave words and credible data to the things I had been intuitively feeling for so long. The things I had been working with leaders on as their HR partner that I knew were so critical to a healthy culture and employee engagement.

It helped me see that burnout isn’t just about how much we’re doing. It’s about how we experience what we’re doing.

Leadership Burnout Is Rising Too

McKinsey research shows that 83% of leaders worldwide report feeling unprepared for the demands of top roles.

They call it leadership fatigue — the exhaustion that comes from constant decision-making, pressure, and uncertainty. It’s no wonder burnout is rising in our organizations, our leaders themselves are burning out.

But McKinsey also stated a solution: Leaders who develop self-awareness, reflection practices, empathy, and adaptability build stronger teams and more resilient organizations.

What Actually Helps

If burnout isn’t just an individual problem, then the solution can’t be individual alone.

And yet, this is where many organizations focus: More perks. More wellness programs. More encouragement to “take care of yourself” or take time off.

Those things can help — but they don’t address the root causes. What actually makes a difference is a combination of individual awareness and systemic change. For individual leaders, that often starts with creating space to pause and reflect, noticing your patterns and choosing something different, and creating healthy boundaries you can stick to.

For organizations, it means addressing the conditions that create burnout in the first place.

If you stay tuned, I’ll discuss some of these things in future posts.

Key Takeaways

Burnout is not just an individual problem, it’s a leadership signal. A signal that something in the culture, structure, or expectations isn’t sustainable. A signal that how we’re leading, and how we’re asking others to show up, may need to change.

Burnout may be experienced individually but it doesn’t just impact individuals. It shapes teams, cultures, and performance over time. Sustainable, mindful leadership requires us to pay attention to those signals — and respond differently.

A Question to Consider

If burnout is a signal rather than a personal failure…

What might it be trying to tell us about the way we work and what might it be trying to signal about the culture we have cultivated?