Heather here!
Hope 2025 is going well for you so far. As my work with leaders around the globe gears up again, I find myself once again asking:
When will we talk openly about the overwhelm?
And how can we take action to change it?
These are critical questions: ones I’m going to explore and write about over the next 12 months.
I work with senior leaders every day who are looking for ways to manage the impossible workloads they face.
- The leader who spent the last two months of 2024 working 18 hour days to get a major tender over the line
- The director managing nine major projects (each of which will flow through to the front line teams in a myriad of different actions that will never be implemented because no one can incorporate this much change at once)
- The C-suite leader who realises everyone is exhausted and yet can’t find a way to put a halt to the burgeoning list of strategic goals for the year ahead
- The leader who hit record targets last year and so have their targets increased for the upcoming one
These are not incompetent or lazy leaders, but they are exhausted, demotivated and stressed. Sleepless nights, lack of exercise, evenings spent working after the kids are in bed, weekends that feel as busy as the working week.
These leaders are based in the UK, Asia and America, and in organisations ranging from a few thousand to over six figures in employee numbers. It’s not a localised problem.
It would be unbelievably naïve of me to suggest any easy solutions but I think we need to start a wider conversation about the level of overwhelm leaders are facing. After all, if senior people don’t have the power to set boundaries, say No and create space, who does? If discussions about resolving overwork and exhaustion are saved for coaching conversations, or the doctor’s surgery, how can we ever begin to change this?
I’d love to hear from you.
Is your organisation taking serious steps to reduce workplace overload?
Do you, as a senior leader, feel that you can control your workload?
Have we got into such a habit of running at full pace that we don’t know how to stop?
Is my view of the situation too one-sided – perhaps such overwhelm exists only in the confidentiality of the coaching conversation?
What do you think?
And, as always, as 2025 rolls forward, observe yourself and others with interest and learning, not with criticism and judgement.