Latest / RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Leadership Podcast / Episode 12: Leadership Burnout Isn't a Self-Awareness Problem (Most Leaders Already Have That)
Transcript
- Kent: You don't need balance, you need the right rhythms. And much like a heart where all four chambers work together, real success depends on four key rhythms working together in harmony, relational, emotional, spiritual, and tangible rhythms. I'm your host, Kent Morowski, and welcome to the Rhythms of Rest Leadership Podcast, where we build rhythms for sustainable success, the kind that don't leave you coming home empty. Before we dive in, if you're achieving by every metric that matters and you still feel like something's off, the rhythms of the sorry the rhythms of rest assessment will show you exactly which of your four rhythms is off, which is out of sync, and the highest leverage next step for you to take this week. In less than three minutes, you can have some real clarity. Just go to Kentmaroski.com forward slash rest dash assessment. Let's go. Well, I just got back from Florida with my youngest son. we were there to help my mom after she had a knee replacement, and despite her pain, she's doing well by the way. But we had some wonderful family time with her and her boyfriend and two of my sisters and their children. So it was good to do that. but man, is it hot in Florida in August. And I came back to New England, which is beautiful in August, but well, you know, this morning at sixty-one degrees, I felt cold after being in Florida for the week. but all that being said, let's move on. I want to wreck a belief that many people have, that many of you probably have. And here's the belief that I want to take apart today that saying the words, I'm burned out, is the same thing as fixing it. So if simply being vulnerable and naming burnout or overwhelm worked, then burnout, the levels of burnout would be going down. But they're not. So confession is not a strategy. It's just a starting point. So this is, if you remember, if you've been listening to the podcast, I'm kicking off this season two of the podcast with three back-to-back mega trends, I'm calling them, a three-part series of what's actually going on with leaders right now. Now, the podcast is usually bi-weekly. I'm kicking off season two with A weekly podcast and a weekly newsletter. And in the first piece, week one, two weeks ago, I said the whole wellness and balance industry has quietly failed us. So we've had a decade of apps, of work-life balance, of self-care, and the numbers are still going the wrong direction. So it's not working. In the second mega trend, I said that the grind that built your company is now quietly taking you apart. And the way through it isn't to hustle and grind more. It's actually counterintuitive. It's letting go of control that you never actually had in the first place. This week we're doing Mega Trend 3, the third piece, and then we'll go back to our bi-weekly rhythm. so let's dive in today. if you know or if you've been listening to the podcast for a while or reading my newsletter, you know that I had a full-fledged fall down on the floor. Nervous breakdown, burnout at age 27, you know, uncontrollable sobbing, everything blacked out. I was in a dark cocoon. I couldn't see or hear every anything. It seemed like I was in that space for hours and I couldn't pick myself up off the floor. Now I didn't need someone telling me to be vulnerable. And not that I'm against vulnerability, please don't misunderstand me. I love the work of Brene Brown. I love I love vulnerability. I think it's important for leaders when it's done the right way. but I didn't need someone telling me to be vulnerable at the time. I I was vulnerable. I didn't need someone to tell me to honor my feelings or to set better boundaries per se. I did that for the next 12 years after that point, and it only led to incremental change. It led it led me back to almost another near burnout. What I needed was a structural answer because whatever I've been doing was not working even after even after I tried some other things for years. So burnout isn't a feelings problem that you're going to talk your way out of, okay? It's a structural problem that you build your way out of. So fast forward to age 39, you know, knowing that truth at 27 years old didn't protect me from it. you know, confessing it for the first time didn't make me immune to it. And I I nearly had another breakdown at 39 years old. Now, both times my body was tired, my mind was clouded, my marriage and my relate my marriage felt strained, some of my relationships felt strained. And this wasn't about insight or learning from my mistakes, okay? I tried that and I ended right back up in the same place. This is about your rhythms and your structure. It's about doing the inner work and some of the outer work as well. So it took me a second near miss to stop chasing insight and start building an actual structure that worked. Now, I'm at 51 years old. I've been building these rhythms for the past 12 years. And just like skyscrapers that are built in an earthquake zone, they're not engineered to resist the shaking. They're actually engineered to sway. back and forth to to to flex rather than be rigid. See, rigid buildings snap in an earthquake, but flexible ones stand, barring, you know, the earthquake is catastrophic. Now, my rhythms are clear enough and defined enough to hold, but they're flexible enough to bend. a few months back, you know, I even started to feel overwhelmed and like I was inching towards burnout again, but I I know what to do now. It was a combination of pulling back from work, some of the work. I I was overworking a bit, but not even more than overworking. I was moving in some directions with some work that was draining rather than energizing. And so I needed to pull back on specifically the work that was draining. Okay. and then I had to lean more into my relational and my emotional rhythms as the summer was beginning. So Typically, my most meaningful relationships are the ones I lean into, my family and some my close friendships. And then in the emotional realm, it might be counterintuitive, but leaning into fun and hobbies. I just needed to have some fun and Brad, you know, do some of some of my hobbies that bring me life. So this happened. This also happened when I ruptured my patellar tendon on my knee a little over a year ago. And many of my spiritual rhythms and my emotional rhythms, they just went out the window. you know, because I some of them I just couldn't do anymore. And then, you know, my emotional state felt really down in the dumps because I was just wrestling with, you know, quite honestly, feeling depressed about what had happened and were things ever going to be the same. you know, during that time some of my rhythms had to totally stop and others had to flex. But the ones that remained held, I had to lean into other rhythms that I had spent the last 12 years building because. To make up for some of the ones that couldn't operate in that time. So in life, the right rhythms, flexing, increasing some, decreasing some at the right time, it means more presence and clarity when it counts, whether it's with your family, whether you're leading a team or an organization, and in and with yourself. Now, the data says. I'm not the only one that at times struggles with feeling overwhelmed or has struggled with burnout in the past. Thankfully, you know, that hasn't happened in a long time. Like I said, mainly because of these rhythms. But, you know, a lot of people feel this way. I regularly, you know, encounter leaders in my coaching practice that can easily name burnout, that they're feeling burnout, and I'll talk more about that later. But a recent vistage study found that 70% Yeah, that's that's right. 70% of CEOs experience burnout at least occasionally, 28% frequently or daily, and this is up from 68% and 24% in 2020. So in 2025, 68% experienced at least occasionally, and 24% frequently or daily. So it's up just from last year. Now, this is actually getting worse. In a group of people who talk about burnout constantly, leaders, right? they shared one story in this article from Kathy Moulton, or quote from Kathy Moulton, president of a real estate company and property management company in Pennsylvania. She said it this way I feel like I'm working harder to stay on top of changing winds in the market, keeping up with new availability of AI, newer benefits my team wants, wars, tariffs. Tariff rebates and and and You see, in a fast-moving world, leaders need a durable structure that can withstand the real pressures of leadership. Not more self-care techniques and workplace well-being programs, or what researchers have started calling carewashing. At the end of the day, you can be fluent in the language of burnout and still be burning out. So naming it was never the finish line, it was never the end goal. And it won't help you overcome it, just to name it. I mentioned that I see this in my coaching practice regularly. I coach, you know, business owners and executives primarily. and I see this all the time. So leaders can, you know, step into my virtual office and they can usually tell me when they feel burned out or overwhelmed almost too easily, because that's not the real issue. Now, some people may not be able to say that and be vulnerable about it. And that's a self-awareness issue, or potentially some other issue of why you can't say it. But that's not even the real challenge. That's just basic self-awareness. Okay. By the time someone can name it, this is the real challenge. By the time they can name it, they're usually further down the road than they think they are. because it's the name it's such is the nature of burnout. so naming the problem isn't nothing. It's just not enough. It and if it were enough, burnout would actually be declining, not rising. So people have become adept at naming burnout or at that version of vulnerability, which is good, but they still don't know what to do about it. Now, part of the structural answer is letting go of control. I shared this in last week's podcast, so you might want to go back and listen to that. But Not letting you know, when I say letting go of control, I don't mean as a mood, but as a practice, you build on purpose. Letting go of control, and not what I mean by that is we don't let go of responsibility. That's ours to keep. But letting go of control that we never had in the first place, it's kind of like a muscle where you have it's like a muscle you have to build. And over time it gets easier to recognize where you have control, where you don't, and release control in the areas where you actually don't have it. We act and just hint hint. like like I said, go back and listen to the podcast, but we have control of very little. most of our control is over ourselves and sometimes we don't even have that. So self-control is really most of the control that we have. We do not have control over the outcomes. So without going more into that story, you can listen to that in last week's podcast. But let me share a story with you of of executive I coach. His name is Cliff and Gave me permission to share you know, his his story and his testimonial. Cliff is the CTO of a medium-sized company, and he's a a good example in in in one of the areas, anyway, in your relational rhythms and how that can contribute to overwhelm and burnout. You know, when we when we started working together, he would bulldoze through people and problems. Those were his own words. His relational rhythms needed work, and you know. he self-care isn't wasn't going to do it. That wasn't the issue. But after a few months of working together, Cliff's CEO pulled him aside and he saw that the team dynamic was changing in Cliff's mist in his in the midst of his team. And here's what he said to Cliff. He said, Other people haven't changed, Cliff, you have. So as Cliff put in in the work, he was able to let go of control. with his team members, with the people that where there was stress and tension. He was able to embrace a coaching paradigm of leadership with his team. And he was able to start valuing people as a part of the process. This is a big one, rather than an obstacle between him and the goal. Sometimes we look at people as the obstacle, but people are really a valuable part of the process that when we win them to our side and when we pour into them and when we coach them and equip them and help them, they actually want to be part of the process and they're an important part of the process. They're not an obstacle. So now people weren't avoiding him. They were seeking him out to talk to him about things because of his coaching paradigm, listening better, not always giving answers, not saying, you know, this is the way we need to go right away, all those things. And so the paradigm, the team, the team paradigm, his paradigm of leadership and of relationships changed and the team dynamic, that's what I meant to say. the team dynamic around him begin to shift and change as he did. Now, maybe you're saying, okay, isn't this version of fix your own rhythms a small claim being asked to answer a big problem? Because workplace burnout's a it's a big problem, right? now for Cliff, that's fair. His work changed his posture and how his team experienced him, but it didn't change the whole organization. He didn't have the whole organization underneath him. Now you might. So Maxwell's Law of the Lid says your leadership ability is the ceiling for your effectiveness, effectiveness, and what people under your care can become. You know, it boils down to this: you have more power than you think to change the atmosphere, to change the dynamic in your workplace. You're authentic as a leader, your authentic. Non-anxious load-bearing presence can shift the dynamic of your team or organization. You know, whether it's a team you're leading, you can shift that. You may not be able to shift the whole organization, or you're in charge of the organization, or the CEO, or the business owner, and then you may have the ability to actually shift the whole organization by fixing your rhythms. Now, here's the harder work. Being vulnerable about burnout is not the cure. It's only the diagnosis. It's your commitment to develop yourself and build a structure that can hold weight, that helps you move towards wholeness and flourishing. Because then you create an environment of well-being that supports both you and the people around you. Instead of quietly sabotaging them. So confession is just the beginning. Vulnerability is just the beginning. Competent leadership takes vulnerability and then it does something with it. It provides answers and solutions. And sometimes, leader, the best answer you can provide is working on yourself and getting better so that the people around you can begin to rise because you are the Becoming the person you need to be for yourself, for your family, for the people you lead, that's the harder work, but it's also the better work. Well, talked about a lot today. you know, as we end this podcast today, I want to just talk a little bit about your relational or sorry, your rhythms check. Each week we take some time to process one of the rhythms and help give you a next step that's going to move you forward in your leadership. But today, you know, I want to talk about all four rhythms and then have you pick. which one it is that you want to spend some time on this week. So in Cliff's case, his relational rhythm was the big stressor. That was causing overwhelm, was causing some burnout, it was causing relational tension and stress in the workplace. And this week's practice works in whichever chamber is actually causing your overwhelm and your burnout. So Cliff's overwhelm wasn't random. It was partly caused by his relational rhythm being out of sync. Which is what had him treating people like obstacles. But burnout isn't caused by the same chamber every time. And the one causing yours might be different than Cliff's. It might be, might be like Cliff's, your relational rhythm, where people start feeling like obstacles, or there's a conversation you're avoiding, or there's a relationship that you know you need to mend that you're avoiding. It might be the E in R-E-S-T, emotional rhythms. So maybe you can't name what you're feeling anymore. You just call it fine, or you just say, I'm fine. I like that one movie. I think it was called The Italian Job, where one of the one of the this sounds stupid team of heisters was you know asked how he was doing and he said fine. And and the leader of the team said, fine, you know what that stands for. Frightened. I don't remember the eye, something. Something and emotion's frightened, something neurotic and emotional. I forget what it is. You can Google it. It was a good movie, but anyway, when we start saying we're fine, it doesn't necessarily it shows that our emotional rhythms are probably a bit off because we can't even name what we're feeling anymore. Or we don't want to, which is a problem as well. it could be your spiritual rhythms, the S. This could this is your faith or your philosophy of life. Maybe you've stopped asking. What any of this is actually for, or what the bigger purpose is behind behind your life, behind your your work, behind the things that are important and matter to you. Or it could be the T in REST, which is tangible. And it's more than just overwork. So let's not trivialize it. you know, overwork can be a part of it, but it's often that we're doing work that's draining us rather than energizing us us. So you feel it in your body. In a way that's hard to explain. If you feel that sort of exhaustion in your body in a way that's hard to explain to people, it could be the tangible chamber that's causing that overwhelm and burnout. So this week you have a choice to make. You can ignore it, you know, whatever chamber it is, and that pattern stays the same. It holds. You keep confessing something's off instead of building the structure that will actually fix it. Or you could stop and pay attention. You could stop treating the symptom as the problem, and you could start treating the right chamber as the problem, which is the only version of this that's actually going to help you. Whichever chamber it is, it determines the same things. When you start to get your rhythms right, or you don't get them right, it determines your decision quality, your capacity, how present you are with the people who matter. You know, so this week's action we're gonna take is this. If you already know your chamber, R E S or T, and which thing within that chamber is the thing you've been avoiding, then do it this week, not eventually. So try to name which chamber's off: relational, emotional, spiritual, or tangible, and what within that chamber is off, and take a step this week to do something about it. If you don't know your chamber yet or which rhythm is out of sync or off, that's exactly what my rhythms of rest assessment is built to tell you in under three minutes. And you can take that for free at kentmorofsky.com forward slash rest-assessment. And if you've already taken it, then you already know what this week's action step will be. So here's a reflection question for this week. Of your four rhythms, relational, emotional, spiritual, and tangible, which one are you avoiding most right now? And what's the smallest next step you could take this week? I want you to write it down. What's the smallest next step you could take this week in the relate in the rhythm that's off? Relational, emotional, spiritual, or tangible? You probably already know what it is. If you don't take that rhythms of rest assessment, it's gonna help you. Well, I'd love to hear back from you. Would you, if you're on my email list, would you reply and tell me which chamber it is for you this week? If you're watching this on YouTube, you know, would you just leave just leave a comment under the video or DM me? on social media or leave a comment in social media and tell me which chamber is it for you and what are you gonna do about it this week. Well, we've come to the end of our podcast. And if this resonated with you, you're gonna love my bi-weekly newsletter as well. Every other week, I send out some honest practical insights to help you live and lead from a place of internal rest instead of burnout and overwhelm. So there's no fluff, just simple tools from my rhythms of rest framework, and they're gonna help you slow down without losing momentum. Just go to Kentmorosky.com forward slash newsletter to sign up. It's absolutely free, and you'll be the first to hear about exclusive offers and get bonus content from time to time as well. Well, listen, I hope you have a wonderful week. I will see you next time, two weeks from now, back on the podcast, and have a great couple of weeks.