Always Chasing Your Tail?
I’ve been speaking with nonprofit executives recently about their experiences managing their challenging jobs.
Most said they:
Regularly work nights, weekends, on vacation, even on medical leaves
Feel intense pressure to keep their organization running and funded
Have little downtime, recreation or fun
Don’t feel effective in their job
Have new or exacerbated medical problems
Most striking of these executives’ comments were:
“It’s an impossible job. It's like I'm spinning a million plates.”
“Being an executive director is like being codependent to the world. You’re always putting everyone else’s needs ahead of your own.”
“I feel like I’ve been on a bicycle on fire since the start."
"You can’t let go because things might fall apart.”
“Being an ED is a very lonely job. You can’t confide in anyone.”
“I rarely get enough sleep.”
“I expected long hours, but not the board pinging me every weekend about trivial matters.”
“I don’t feel as of I can ever get on top of things.”
“I’d like to leave but I am very identified with my role.”
Several shared that they believe their board’s, their funders’—and even their own--expectations of the nonprofit chief executive role are unrealistic, and worse, unsustainable. Some of the leaders I spoke with have left their jobs or are seriously considering it to maintain their physical and mental health.
What’s Burnout & What Can Be Done About It?
Burnout is neither a mental illness nor a medical condition. According to the World Health Organization, it is an "occupational phenomenon". Researchers estimate that across all sectors, burnout effects 10 to 15% of workers. As you recall, health care workers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic experienced much higher rates.
How to tell if you're there or nearing burnout? UC Berkeley researchers found that the first sign of burnout is chronic stress-related exhaustion; you have little energy for work or life in general. After that, you're likely to feel cynical about your boss and coworkers and negative about your job. The third key sign of burnout is a feeling you're not effective in your work, that you're not accomplishing enough.
It's important to note that not everyone in a “burnout shop” will have the same experience, but that doesn’t mean the ones who do are somehow flawed or weak. According to the Berkeley researchers, burnout is caused by job-worker mismatches, not personal failure. Mismatches include how much control and flexibility we have in our work, the rewards we receive (financial and social), how fairly we're treated, how supportive our coworkers and boss are and other work-related factors.
Last newsletter, I wrote about the imperative the social sector faces in confronting nonprofit leadership burnout. The following strategies are a good place to start to first recognize and then reverse burnout.
Executives Facing Your Own Overwhelm or Burnout
Assess your own feelings of stress and/or burnout and your work habits
Identify trusted confidents to share candidly with and to get support from
Join or create a peer support group to combat stress and isolation
Add to your existing self-care practices to better manage stress
Hire a leadership coach to receive confidential 1:1 support and validation and to identify solutions and needed skills
Reflect and decide whether it's time to move on and, if possible, make a plan to do so
Executives Concerned about Your Team
In addition to the suggested strategies in my last post, consider these:
Set clear boundaries protecting employees’ personal time--avoid holding meetings outside core work hours and modify and clearly communicate expectations around response time to work emails, texts and calls
Come clean with any micromanaging you're doing and make changes to offer your employees greater autonomy
Provide staff who want them with flexible and hybrid work schedules, perhaps even a part-time schedule and other flexibility in their jobs
Support mental health care by offering this benefit and removing stigma that burnout is a personal failure and make it safe for employees to tell you about their experience and ask for help
Individuals
If you’re an exhausted, constantly stressed individual, start by tracking what you spend your time on and what's most taxing for you about your job. Talk to trusted coworkers about their experiences around their jobs. If it feels safe to, you may want to ask your boss for changes that would reduce your stress--a more manageable workload, better boundaries around your personal time and greater flexibility in how and where you work.
If you've done this and it hasn't worked, consider your ability to make a job change. Not everyone will be able to risk being without a paycheck during a job search. If changing jobs is an option, you’ll want to identify in advance whether a prospective workplace is likely to be another "burnout shop".
Other Stakeholders Invested in Your Organization's Success
Later, I'll explore what board members, donors and funders can do to support the wellbeing of the leaders and staff of their organization or their grantees' organizations.