Beyond Burnout

Over the last 5 years, wellbeing has taken centre stage in workplace learning and development. Prior to this, there’d been a focus on getting employees to be more resilient (throw back to our dark side of resilience). Then came the pandemic, which forced a shift in focus to wellbeing. Fast forward to now and with the Great Resignation, quiet quitting, and a relentless cost-of-living crisis, burnout has become the new priority.

My last two newsletters have gone through the components of burnout and what we can do about it in detail ( April: Progress: The Missing Piece in the Burnout Puzzle, June: A Cynics Guide to Cynicism), but what if the problem is bigger than burnout? 

In our latest research, we have uncovered something that sits beyond burnout that not many people know about, which we believe will bring huge disruption to the workforce if not addressed.  

Let me explain.  

Being a leader was never easy, but it’s certainly not getting any easier. There’s a broadness to the role and responsibilities that seems to be ever expanding.  Today, leaders have to be mindful of the following: 

·       Do they have enough diversity in their teams,  

·       Are they fostering inclusivity,  

·       Demonstrating empathy,  

·       Promoting continuous learning, 

·       Adapting their leadership style to various situations and team members, 

·       Considering the psychological safety of their team members,  

·       Being more of a coach than a manager,  

·       Ensuring that their people are engaged and buying into the vision of the organisation.  

·       And delivering on their outcomes and KPIs. 

Phew! That makes you tired just thinking of it.

Recently in a workshop, we were discussing the different roles that leaders have to fulfill and a guy at one of the tables piped in with “remember when you just had to be good at your job, what happened to that?” New legislation has added more on the leadership responsibility pile where leaders are now responsible for the psychosocial risks that their people face in the workplace.  

Now, while this broadening of the leader’s role is needed and we do not contest that the changes will improve an employees work experience, we must consider the impact of this pressure on leaders, it’s called Compassion Stress.  

Whenever we support someone through a challenging situation, we experience something called Compassion Stress. Compassion stress refers to the impact on yourself of learning about the trauma or challenges experienced by others. Typically, the only people you would think suffer from compassion stress are your caring professions like first responders, mental health workers, or nurses. However, high levels of compassion stress are being seen in other roles such as teachers and even some non-traditional caring roles simply because we’re being asked to understand, support and comfort the people that report to us. During the GFC in 2008, financial advisers experienced very high levels of compassion stress when they spent countless hours on the phone to their clients who were losing their life savings and super. 

Compassion stress exists on a spectrum. Higher levels of compassion stress are more likely when the trauma a person has experienced is particularly significant. The impact can vary not only depending on the type of trauma but also on the personal history, values, and worldview of the person offering support. 

One of our key findings is that compassion stress can accumulate over time if not effectively managed. Some studies suggest it builds up in leaders because they are constantly navigating the emotional demands of their teams, managing stress, resolving conflicts, and dealing with disappointment when mistakes are made or things don’t go to plan. 

Here's the revelation I promised at the start of the article. Research shows that when you have high levels of compassion stress combined with burnout, these things come together to create something called compassion fatigue.  

When we enter compassion fatigue, our capacity to be productive in our work drops significantly. Problem-solving and idea generation falls through the floor, but even more concerning is once you’re in this state, you find it very hard to have empathy for others, read facial expressions and even recognise signs of abuse or distress in other people. Compassion fatigue is beyond burnout and twice as scary.  

 
So how do we manage compassion stress? Here is what we have learned from a study of over 2200 educators.  

Step 1 : Be aware of it.

Most of the subjects in our study were not aware that this was a thing. They thought “if I haven’t witnessed the trauma, it shouldn’t affect me”. Start to notice the emotional toll that supporting others can have on you and it is not selfish to do things that allow you to recover from that stress.

Step 2 : Be able to switch out of work mode and into your personal life.

To do this there are four specific things we can do: 

Detachment – You do something that takes your attention away from the stress of work. E.g. Socialise with others, be present in the home. 

Relaxation – Do something that calms you down and puts you in a state of relaxation. E.g. Mindfulness, meditation. 

Mastery – This involves learning or doing something that intellectually challenges you. Art, music, learning a language, study… 

Control – I decide my own schedule. I have autonomy over where my time goes. E.g. Capacity to practice self-care and take time out. 

Using The Third Space ™ is exactly what’s needed here.

Step 3: Have the capacity to process the negative thoughts and emotions that come with compassion stress, so that you respond in a constructive way.

This involves the following: 

·       Self-Compassion – Don’t judge yourself too harshly. There are no right or wrong emotions.

·       Emotional regulation – Don’t let your emotions overwhelm you and start driving your behaviour and decisions. 

·       Reach out to others and get support. 

·       Regularly focus on the impact you are having with the people you are supporting. How have you improved in your approach.

·       Have hope and optimism about how your impact can make a difference to others. 

So to summarise, burnout is a huge issue for employees and leaders alike. But when burnout combines with compassion stress it leads to something far worse, compassion fatigue. When it comes to our wellbeing we not only have to focus on reducing burnout we also must help them manage compassion stress too.