Guest blog from Clive Cary
What have business leaders learned from their experiences of burnout; and can it lead to them seeking and finding greater meaning in their work and personal lives?
Welcome to part 2 of this 3-part blog*. I have now completed my research phase, and whilst I have not started the formal data analysis, I can share a few early observations based on participants’ experiences.
The first, observation is that participants come from disparate ‘walks of life’ – which included: banking, teaching, professional sport, training, management consultancy, business owners, and entrepreneurs. Participant ages ranged from 37-55, with men and women equally represented.
Second, there are different levels of burnout. The severity and longevity of the burnout experience can depend upon individuals’ circumstances. For example, if someone suffering burnout has been fortunate enough to save enough money during their career, they might choose to leave a demanding job in favour of a less demanding role. Potentially, this choice could reduce the impact of burnout. The converse seems equally true: people ‘trapped’ economically (e.g. main family ‘breadwinners’) might experience more serious burnout, suffering until ill-health forces them to seek help.
Third, participants’ all experienced what they described as ‘brain fog’ and agreed that this could not be fully understood unless it had been experienced personally. There is consensus that whilst their burnout experiences were extremely challenging episodes in their lives, they would not change it because it resulted in refocused priorities and positive life changes. They also agreed that organisations are not doing enough to provide adequate support: policies and procedures were largely ‘box tick’ exercises, and Mental Health First Aider roles often filled by people not qualified to help.
Finally, participants remained unsure that burnout would never recur in their lives, raising the question of whether it’s possible to recover fully, or simply learn to manage?
It seems that burnout is an intensely personal experience, without a ‘one size fit’s all’ intervention. It is becoming easy to see why a precise definition of ‘burnout’ is difficult to pin-down.
This research is for an MSc Organisational Psychology dissertation project ending on 15th July, 2022. If you have any comments, please email at clive.cary@city.ac.uk
Thanks for reading part 2 – hopefully see you for part 3…!
*Catch up on part one of the blog here…Recovering from burnout
