Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by Kali Jaye. Kali is a publishing industry veteran now serving as a career empowerment coach who helps talented, overburdened women create lives they don’t want to escape from.

When I was asked to write this article, I thought about what the most useful perspective could be, and I realized the topic was right under my nose: burnout. I’ve dealt with it personally, I’ve mentored, managed, and coached others through it, and it’s what I now specialize in as a career empowerment coach. So let’s dive in:

Mental health concept. Man with heart in hands and woman with watering can near abstract silhouette of head with plants.

What is burnout?

In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon, describing it as “a condition resulting from chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed.” It manifests through three key symptoms:

  1. Energy depletion or exhaustion
  2. Mental distance from work, often accompanied by cynicism or negativity
  3. Reduced professional efficacy

In other words, burnout is what’s happening when you’re exhausted even though you sat at a desk all day, you’re starting to hate your job, and you’re wondering what’s wrong with you and why you can’t just get it together.

My personal experience with burnout

My first day at work in scientific publishing, I walked into an office of busy professionals smiling and chatting with each other, and I marveled at how orderly and organized and … civil the environment was. Where was the yelling, the arguing, the escalation? Where was the chaos?

The year was 2007, and as a mental health counselor trained in developmental psychology and psychoanalysis, I’d become disillusioned and pivoted my career from the world of community mental health to the world of scientific publishing as a copyeditor. It seemed interesting, and surely there would be a lower likelihood of having a chair thrown at one’s head, I figured.

I spent the next 17 years moving up the ranks, from copyeditor to managing editor, to senior managing editor, and so on, eventually leading the department I’d joined as an entry-level employee. Along the way, I discovered a deep and abiding love for people management and leadership. On that first day I had no inkling of such a future – at that point, I would’ve said that I had no desire to return to any form of responsibility for others’ welfare. But people management found me, and once it did, I fell in love with the responsibility, the curiosity, the sheer enjoyment of it all.

However, before all of that could come to fruition, I had to leave the world I’d originally planned my life around. I was – and remain – fascinated by psychology, and I imagined myself one day designing my own theory of human development. So it was crushingly disappointing to discover that I had no affinity for the work I was doing. My expectations could not have been more out of tune with the reality I found myself in, and I blamed myself.

Looking back, I realize that this response signaled burnout, although I didn’t know that at the time. Rather, I assumed that I was simply bad at my job and that I’d wasted my time pursuing a degree in the field. As a master’s level residential counselor, I would so often walk up to the front door of the group home I worked at and pause, considering turning around and going home, feeling a dread setting in as I envisioned the next eight hours. When I joined the organization, I had all the zest and zeal of someone who believes they’re embarking on a journey to make a positive difference in the world. However, I soon learned that it was extremely difficult to make much of a difference, at least in the way I’d envisioned.

I developed an ever-increasing sense of powerlessness, feeling that I was doing little to actually help anyone. I enjoyed the one-on-one interactions with clients and discussion of cases with my supervisor, but most of my time was spent developing incentive plans for good behavior, taking residents grocery shopping, and administering medication. I’d dreamed of becoming a therapist, but the reality was that I often felt like a glorified camp counselor. That perception triggered intense guilt, however, because I felt I should value the work more. I essentially judged myself for judging the role.

I hid these thoughts and feelings, because I feared being seen as selfish, disrespectful, and ungrateful. It didn’t cross my mind that I was experiencing a role mismatch, rather than a wholesale lack of skill or interest on my part. I checked out mentally and berated myself for doing so, wondering how I could have been so wrong about my talents and interests.

There was, however, one bright spot in my workdays: designing the weekly newsletter and daily schedules. I could (and did) spend hours in the computer room, playing around with fonts and spacing, designing images, and creating beautiful documents. I didn’t know why I enjoyed it so much, but I did. Recognizing this began my career pivot into the world of publishing. I searched for open roles, found an ad for a copyeditor, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In the text that follows, we’ll look at how you, dear reader, might address burnout in your organization or your own life.

Why address burnout?

Burnout doesn’t just impact individual well-being; it’s a systemic issue with ripple effects on organizational productivity, innovation, and culture. As Jennifer Moss recounts in The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It, a striking example comes from NASA’s Columbia disaster, where cultural dysfunction – poor communication, lack of trust, and a fear of speaking up – was identified as a key factor. While most scholarly publishing workplaces don’t directly involve such life-or-death stakes, burnout-induced disengagement and poor communication can undermine critical decision-making and organizational success.

Burnout also costs billions annually in lost productivity, healthcare expenses, and turnover. The emotional toll is equally significant, affecting individuals’ relationships, physical health, and overall quality of life. As the scholarly publishing industry sees rapid shifts in technology, work models, and business models, it can force us to feel as though we’re constantly adapting to the next change before we’ve mastered the previous one. And as we integrate artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation into our workflows, the pressure to maximize our corresponding human potential increases. Our world demands creativity, resilience, and emotional intelligence in order to meet the challenges of our times – and these are qualities that burnout actively erodes. So, what can we do? The good news is that burnout is preventable and treatable.

Understanding burnout’s root causes

One of the most challenging aspects of burnout is the frustratingly dichotomous feeling of responsibility (“I should do better, I should do more, this is my fault”) and powerlessness (“I can’t do better, I can’t do more, I’m failing”). To add insult to injury, if you’re someone who thrives on competence and appreciation and takes delight in solving complex problems, being faced with a problem you can’t solve can make you doubt your own competence.

This perception of personal failure is part of what makes burnout so damaging. However, decades of research on burnout shows that it is not a personal failure but, rather, a sign of other factors at play. In The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships with Their Jobs, Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter liken a burned-out employee to a canary in a coalmine, showing us where there is an organizational issue that needs to be addressed. Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic, likewise emphasizes that burnout is not a personal failing but, rather, a systemic issue requiring systemic solutions.

A perceived lack of agency is another hallmark of burnout but, unlike personal blame (which should rightfully be removed), there are always steps that we can take to help ourselves when we experience burnout. As the saying goes, “It’s not our fault, but it is our responsibility,” and we all – employees, managers, and organizations – share that responsibility and, with it, the opportunity for success.

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), developed by Christina Maslach and Susan Jackson, highlights six main drivers of burnout:

  1. Work overload: Excessive demands that surpass an employee’s capacity
  2. Lack of control: Limited autonomy and decision-making power
  3. Insufficient reward: Inadequate recognition and compensation
  4. Breakdown of community: Poor relationships and lack of support among colleagues
  5. Absence of fairness: Perceived inequities and lack of justice within the organization
  6. Conflicting values: Misalignment between personal values and organizational goals

Burnout is also defined as a chronic issue, rather than a response to temporary stressors. In other words, we all have times when work is stressful, and we may even become overextended, feel ineffective, or become disengaged (three scenarios that the MBI differentiates from true burnout). However, burnout is what happens when those stressors become chronic and we don’t get the relief we need.

So how can we, as individuals and organizations, best prevent and respond to burnout?

What can we do as leaders?

The opposite of burnout, according to Maslach and colleagues, is engagement. This is a hot topic within organizations, but how can we achieve it?

By looking at the six drivers of burnout and their corresponding opposites, we can spot the drivers of engagement:

  1. Work overload → manageable workloads and available resources
  2. Lack of control → autonomy and decision-making power
  3. Insufficient reward → adequate recognition and compensation
  4. Breakdown of community → social bonds and trust among colleagues
  5. Absence of fairness → transparency and honesty in communication, provision of context in decision making 
  6. Conflicting values → utilization of skills and talents, good fit with organizational vision and culture

Each of these provides a jumping-off point for further exploration. Rather than trying to tackle all at once, conduct a survey to find the most pressing issues, then involve employees as much as possible in the creation of solutions.

One point of note: If an organization has a “fatal flaw” in any of the dimensions above – say, a blind eye for toxic behavior, a lack of transparency, or outright dishonesty in communication – these must be addressed first, before you can make headway in any other dimension.

When considering any change, start first with: how can we foster trust in this scenario? For example, if workload management is the focus, consider what would help create trust in the initiative. From there, you may decide to create a weekly or monthly progress report of staffing updates, form a focus group of employees who could advise on how best to staff temporary coverage, or assign a senior leadership sponsor to keep the initiative front and center even as other competing priorities may emerge. Trust is earned when our actions match our words – we should consider this as a guide toward the integrity of our organization and our own leadership.

What can we do if we’re experiencing burnout ourselves?

Repeat after me: Burnout is not a personal failure. It’s caused by factors outside of your control, which you can address. You’re still extremely competent, and this is a temporary situation.

The immediate steps to take are ones that will give your overtaxed mental processor a break. We get into unproductive mental loops as our brain tries to engineer a solution to the problem, but this is counterproductive, because our brain has been working overtime and needs a break.

There are also physical and emotional components to the human experience, so we need to address those as well. Just as our mind (mental) needs rest, our dysregulated nervous system (physical) needs balance, and our heart (emotional) needs safety, honesty, and trust.

Exercise, routine, changes in surroundings, and help from others are the best ways to set ourselves up for success because they will introduce energy back into the body, create some structure, inject some novelty, and allow us to tell the truth.

  • Exercise: Start an exercise routine, no matter how small. Start with a morning dance session to a couple songs from your favorite playlist, do 10 push-ups or jumping jacks between meetings, or exercise along to one of the many videos available on YouTube. From there. If you’re feeling ready for more, join a gym, or grab an at-home workout subscription. The key point is this: Whatever type or amount of movement feels doable, start there, and build up as you’re comfortable and it remains fun.
  • Get some rest: This is easier said than done; nothing diminishes our ability to sleep like telling ourselves that we must sleep. One way to encourage sleep is, paradoxically, to try to keep your eyes open as much as possible. This can trick your brain into fighting that urge, instead of fighting the urge to sleep. Another option that’s worked for me personally is to tell yourself it’s ok if you can’t sleep that night. Sometimes simply removing the pressure is what helps the most. Alternatively, you could spend time reading or just relaxing instead.
  • Create a bookending routine for remote working: Go outside and take a walk for 15 minutes before and after work, to get a break from your surroundings and get a dose of natural light. Spend 10 minutes meditating, reading, doing puzzles, or anything else that has nothing to do with work. It’s tempting to jump right into work, but the more you do to create that buffer, the more flow you’re likely to experience during the rest of the day. After work, close your laptop and put something over it so that you’re less likely to habitually log on to check email.
  • Tell the truth about how you feel: Having your experience validated and feeling understood will loosen up the fear and give you some much-needed distance from the part of your brain that’s trying to convince you that you’re failing and that everyone else is doing better than you (you’re not, and they’re not). If it feels like no one could possibly understand, please know that this is the burnout talking. Reach out to a friend or family member, or utilize your workplace’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Let them know that you want to talk about what you’re going through and to know that they understand. Although you can’t control people’s responses, you can choose people you trust, and it will help to be clear that you’re not looking for advice; you’re looking for them to simply listen and let you know they’re there for you. A trained therapist or coach could also be a great resource to consider.
  • Create a list of successful failures: When your mind is telling you that you’re failing, one way to bring it into reality is to make a list of the times you’ve failed before and what you learned as a result. We hear that failure is part of the path to success, but to bring this from cliche to reality, we have to believe it. Making a list will help move you into belief territory.
  • Clarify your values: Reflect on what matters most to you and how your work aligns with those priorities. Understanding your “why” can help you reconnect with your role — or recognize when it’s truly time for a change (in responsibilities, role, or even career). This step can be done at any time, but it is most helpful after you’ve completed the previous steps, because you’ll have more energy and creativity to help you envision your options for moving forward.

These steps will help to give you relief from the immediate effects of burnout. Once you have that space, you can begin to create change.

The future of burnout prevention

Looking ahead, I believe a couple of differentiators will set the successful companies apart from their competitors as we move further into the age of artificial intelligence – for the successful companies will be the ones who harness the potential of human capital alongside technological advances, as the two go hand in (robotic) hand.

  • Emphasis on human uniqueness: Differentiating human creativity and emotional intelligence from machine efficiency will be the hallmark of successful companies. As automation takes over repetitive tasks, the value of human-centered skills will grow, and we will see a further evolution away from the task-oriented mindset of the industrial age and toward an emphasis on creativity, innovation, problem solving, and adaptation. Soft skills will become equally, if not more, valuable than purely technical skills, and companies that prioritize their development will outpace ones that fail to capitalize on such potential.
  • Proactive, individualized wellness strategies: Prevention-focused initiatives, such as promoting exercise, mindfulness, and the development of future-facing interpersonal skills, will focus on resilience building rather than crisis management. Companies may find that enhancing accessibility support and subsidizing exercise programs, coworking memberships, and social outings provide as much ROI as tools and automation.

Conclusion

By addressing the drivers of burnout and fostering cultures of engagement, transparency, and support, we can create workplaces where people thrive – and, in turn, drive sustainable success. Employees, managers, and organizations all have roles to play in combating burnout. Together, we can build a future where work supports, rather than detracts from, overall well-being. The stakes are high, but the rewards – healthier teams and stronger, more productive organizations – are well worth the effort.

Kali Jaye

Kali Jaye is a career empowerment coach who helps talented, overburdened women create lives they don’t want to escape from. A publishing industry veteran and longtime fan of The Scholarly Kitchen, she’s delighted by the opportunity to experience it as a contributing author. She’s an Extraordinary Leader, according to Zenger-Folkman, as well as a thrice-certified coach, but her most valuable leadership and communication skills have come from single parenting. Her 11-year-old son does most of her PR, and he’s the best in the business. You can find her at https://kalijaye.com.

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