Leadership’s role against team burnout

It is not uncommon for executives in the tech industry to be overworking themselves and to keep a startup mentality, taking on several tasks simultaneously, no matter what, and believing that the company’s survival depends on them, something that is simply not true. A large organization needs to be able to function without counting on specific individuals, including the CTO. 

The example for balancing work and personal life needs to come from the leadership so that other employees are comfortable doing something as basic as taking a vacation without feeling guilty. A leader’s emotional stability serves as a role model for the organization, and his or her moods and attitudes end up being “contagious”.

It’s an attribute of leadership to walk the talk. A leader cannot keep publicly saying, “I want people to spend more time with their families” if he or she doesn’t feel entitled to rest. When a leader works at a frantic pace, employees will inevitably do the same since it’s behavior that counts, not words. 

A first step for leaders is to identify among the people who report to them who seems to be the most distressed and who is still behaving with a startup mentality, and then work individually with them, asking questions such as: 

• Who are the people in your team who can take over when you’re not there? 
• Do you have a backup plan for all areas? 
• How is the on-call duty structured in case of incidents?

With this type of questioning and planning, it is possible to change the culture of making everything urgent at work, which often leads to individual burnout and overloaded teams. 

A leader’s emotional stability serves as a role model for the organization, and his or her moods and attitudes end up being “contagious”.

Apart from when there is an active incident happening, which requires immediate attention, work in general should be flexible and doable either today or tomorrow without significant loss.  The goal is to structure the technology area so that there are no daily fires—real or imagined—to be dealt with.

Establishing a clear career path and improving the people review process are a huge part of this restructuring.  Employees often overwork themselves because they don’t know what is expected of them. A formal career trail objectively defines what is required of the employees at each point in their career, so that the constant tension of “guessing what the manager wants” is minimized.

In a company with thousands of employees, if someone feels they must solve everything themselves, it’s a sign that something is very wrong and that perhaps there is a systemic problem. One of the most significant duties of the leadership is to ensure that the company functions independently of the individual actions of the parties, including those at the highest levels.

It is also the role of leadership to evaluate people to identify if they can effectively lead their areas. Sometimes it is necessary to attract more experienced managers, in a seniorization effort, as well as establish a mentorship program, so the team gets used to working with a longer-term outlook, which should result in less burnout.