A new report from Deloitte has revealed that 70% of C-Suite executives are considering quitting their job for one that better supports their wellbeing. 70%! Burnout is a significant issue amongst the C-Suite; as reported in Grapevine Leaders, KellyOCG’s 2022 Global Workforce Report, which surveyed 1,000 decision-makers, found that two-thirds (63%) say their workload is unmanageable while only a third of those surveyed (34%) think they’re receiving a fair remuneration for their efforts.
I’ve been speaking to a number of HR Directors recently and while they’re not reporting (at least not to me) burnout induced dissatisfaction at this level, all reported some level of concern about the senior management team, of which of course, they are a member in most cases. HR Directors were very open about the huge pressures on them over the last couple of years and the effect it has had on them, but despite that, all saw it as their responsibility to intervene and support anyone looking as though they were struggling. A further burden.
Another recent article in Management Today describes burnout as a silent epidemic stalking the upper echelons of management so this is clearly a trending topic. But what to do about it? I’m left wondering whether there is a mass crossing of fingers hoping that somehow everything will be OK and that everyone having a holiday will sort it out. It might but given the stress of wondering whether your flight will be cancelled or hours queueing at the airport with the children in tow…. I’ve also seen people returning from family holidays with the in-laws and granny looking decidedly haggard!
Is that the best way to start the next quarter? It doesn’t look like anything that’s an external cause of stress is going away. How do you know when a burnout problem is serious? According to Mental Health UK this is what you need to look for:
- Feeling tired or drained most of the time
- Feeling helpless, trapped and/or defeated
- Feeling detached/alone in the world
- Having a cynical/negative outlook
- Self-doubt
- Procrastinating and taking longer to get things done
- Feeling overwhelmed.
When do you need to do something about it?
- When performance is affecting the business, for example, delayed decision making
- When you know someone is being affected by factors outside of work that are making things worse, for example, family problems
- When someone trying to deal with it by working longer hours and potentially making the situation worse
- When you can see someone is obviously not coping
- When someone is resorting to drinking too much or taking drugs as a way to cope.
Many people, affected by all the pressures of the pandemic and subsequent business pressures, have been holding on by their finger-tips, hoping it will clear the stress and fatigue they’ve been feeling. A holiday will certainly help, but it may not be the complete answer. Why’s that?
It’s very easy to attribute our stress to very obvious external factors such as economic conditions, the war in Ukraine, climate change… But what if there is more to it than that? Something about our own psychology and history?
Here’s an example of how it works: A participant on one of our retreats told the story of how as a fifteen-year-old she’d been told at school not to expect good GCSE results because she wasn’t up to it. She wasn’t prepared to accept that verdict and went home and started getting up at 5am every morning to study and she did get the results she wanted. The problem was that decades later, having had a successful career and with a family to look after, she was still getting up at 5am to work hard, but more crucially, to prove herself. Even though the cost was burnout.
We often pin so many hopes and expectations on that holiday. So why might a holiday not be the complete answer to dealing with stress? Simply – because you take your psychology and history with you. We aren’t two totally different people depending on whether we’re at work or outside work.
Psychologist Taibi Kahler identified five personality drivers, habitual patterns of behaviour which motivate us across every part of our life: the drives to be perfect; be strong; hurry up; please people; and try hard. Our drivers can guide us to successful living and working but they can also be the source of stress when they get out of control.
These drivers may also be the things that scupper the perfect holiday. For example, it may well not be everyone’s expectations of the perfect holiday, which guarantees disappointment and also the failure of another drive – to please people! In other words, what trips us up at work is just as likely to trip us up in our personal relations and all aspects of our life.
So all of this is by way of saying that a holiday per se won’t deal with the stresses and strains brought about by the interaction between your psychology and history and external causes of stress. They’ll merely sit in the suitcase and be carried back with you.
So much of this has been badged as a problem with mental health, but that’s too narrow. There are three aspects of stress:
- An event or environmental cause of stress
- How someone responds to it, the emotional and defensive processes, including mental strain
- The body’s physical reaction, for example, the effect of stress hormones such as cortisol on brain cells leading to premature ageing.
For that reason, any approach to dealing with stress needs to be holistic, covering physical wellness, mental and emotional health.
Management teams need to be future-proofed. All the causes of stress are not going away and could get worse. I spoke to some HR Directors that are on top of this issue and the common factor was an HR Director and CEO who together were committed to wellbeing and had an organisational culture that prioritised wellbeing. Having a senior management team who are openly committed to their own wellbeing will pay dividends in the development and maintenance of a culture where everyone feels supported.
To end where we started, this is what will enable the retention of valuable senior people. This is what will provide confidence for the months and possibly years of difficulty that lie ahead.
