While burnout has a lot to do with individual management of workloads and stress, company leaders and managers play an important role in preventing - or promoting - burnout.
In order for us, as managers and leaders, to achieve the former, we must create a work environment in which people feel heard, regardless of whether they express concerns or ideas.
It's an environment where they know that what they have to say is important.
We share 3 ways in which these actors can prevent burnout in their workers 🤝:
- 🤗Be selectively vulnerable by sharing challenges you've encountered in your own career, such as having a tough boss, mistakes you've made in the workplace and how you solved them.
What they need to hear is that there are things that go wrong, that you don't have all the answers, that you make mistakes, that you are a human being with flaws, so they can feel that it's okay for them.
- 🤜🤛Have regular one-on-one meetings. Your team members must feel that you are willing to prioritize them, and the best way to do that is to make time for them.
Depending on the size of your team and your daily schedule, this can happen for an hour a week, half an hour every two weeks, or whatever works. And make sure you are 100% focused on them during their one-on-one meetings.
- 🙋Explicitly ask them to share their feedback. During their one-on-one meetings, ask questions like, How are you experiencing your work? How are you experiencing our team? How are you experiencing me as your leader?
Putting yourself in a position where your direct reports share that information with you allows you to increase the sustainability of your team. It gives you the opportunity to see what challenges workers face and discover how to make things easier.
