Note 1. Burnout is Everyone's Problem

Archana Tedone: Today on Working Notes, we have Erica Pieczonka She is an organizational psychologist and a leadership and team coach. Welcome to the pod.

Erica Pieczonka: so happy to be here with you.

Archana Tedone: So before we dig into burnout, I want to share a little bit about how I know Erica and how amazing she's been in my own career journey. We met in grad school, and in grad school I always called her Mama Bear because she was always such an amazing mentor, and such a great friend too. So I'm so excited to have you here.

Erica Pieczonka: I couldn't be more proud of you. I feel like you well exceeded me and I celebrate that holy. I'm so honored to be here with you.

Archana Tedone: So I want to kick it off by setting the stage a little bit and thinking about what burnout actually is. from a research perspective, burnout is viewed as this feeling of being heavily emotionally exhausted. So being mentally fatigued at the end of the workday, feeling drained. There's also the other two components of burnout in the research that relate to starting to feel negative and cynical even towards your work, and eventually starting to feel a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. hey, maybe I'm not such a good employee anymore. maybe this job isn't right for me. so it's just this overwhelming feeling of feeling defeated, and this can

Erica Pieczonka: Mm.

Archana Tedone: Grow over time and enter into somewhat of a cycle that could be hard to escape. So, Erica, from your

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah.

Archana Tedone: perspective, what is burnout and what does that actually look like in the real world?

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah, and that definition you shared is the one that I connect with the most, I would say. And then there's some others that I think about too. But what I think is so important that we understand is burnout's relationship with motivation. Like this last piece you talked about, it's it's like it just sucks the life out of you. And you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose that spark, and everything just becomes really hard. And that is really really challenging for us as humans to feel like we're not good at the thing we used to be really good at. And it just really starts to diminish almost every part of our life. It really is that insidious in a lot of ways. But you nailed it in terms of of the of the theories. I was going to bring up maybe job demands resource theory where since it's like, hey, if the job demands are larger than the resources available Then burnout ensues. And and you and I were talking about this earlier, where it's like, yes, these models are really helpful for us to understand burnout, but but they really only look at parts of it because there's so much that goes into understanding it. And the way I like to define it is thinking about yourself as a battery. And are you intentionally charging that battery? So that you can show up resourced and as and at your best really. Or are you constantly running on empty? Because when you're

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: running on empty and you're and you're trying to kind of show up the way you used to when you were fully charged, I

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: think burnout is inevitable.

Archana Tedone: For sure. And you know, you hear a lot of times that individuals enter this stage of burnout and look

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: in hindsight, they're like, How did I not see this coming? sort of thing. So what are some indicators that you might be entering into that burnout zone?

Erica Pieczonka: Great question. So I love Nick Petrie's three degrees of burnout for this because I think that there's there's stages. And to your point, a lot of times we don't realize we're in burnout until we're in like the later stages.

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: And so the first degree burn in his definition is really about being kind of tired and stretched thin. But what differentiates this from the other levels is hey, if you get Some good rest over the weekend, or you build in some basic recovery to help again, like charge that battery, you can overcome this first degree burn. And this again is why energy management, you know me, I love energy management, why energy management is so so important because if you have a good system for that, then you're probably not gonna go to the other levels of burn. Second degree burn is like this. Exhaustion that lingers even after you have a break, and then that's when the cynicism starts coming in that you were talking about. And

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: then you start to get those performance dips also. So capacity, resource, they're all interconnected. And I would say here is where you start to see a lot of that motivation start to decrease.

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: So this is when you have to really start to address the root cause. And we've talked about this a lot. Like, is it the organization? Is is it

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: you? Typically it's both in some degree because you can't really just work the symptom anymore. You have to work like what's causing it. And this is where I recommend people get support, whether that be a coach, a therapist, some kind of program that can help you really systematically look at your burnout. Because once you get to the third degree, this is when you're in chronic depletion. This is when you have the physical symptoms. Where you are losing identity and meaning, and you really are just feeling completely depleted. This type

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: of burnout can take years to recover from. It people are like, I can just recover from it in a couple of weeks. No. I mean, you have to take time away, get very like incredible professional support, rebuild capacity from the ground up. Like this is like a very serious type of burnout

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: that you don't want to get to. And so Trying to notice the first and the second degree burn is really important.

Archana Tedone: Yeah, that makes total sense being able to identify it early on, just like with anything, right? Any kind

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Archana Tedone: of illness and things like that. If you can identify and manage it early on, you can prevent it from getting worse and harder to to recover from.

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: so it sounds like there, you know, being able to identify early on from an individual perspective would be ideal. From a leader perspective though, what are some

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: benefits from a leader's point of view of being able to identify and help manage burnout in in your team in those early stages.

Erica Pieczonka: That's such a good question. I think as a leader, you should always be monitoring the capacity of the people on your team and their fulfillment. So when I was a leader, I had a monthly check-in where they would tell me about their accomplishments and they would tell me about the things that were really challenging. We call them hits and misses. But on the top corner of that of that slide they'd hand in every month.

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: There was a color-coded table that said fulfillment and capacity. And so if I saw that their capacity was red and the fulfillment was red, you better believe that I'm sitting down with them and being like, what do need? Right. And

Archana Tedone: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: you know, you know me, I'm Mama Bear. So I'm like, what do I need to take off your plate? Who do I need to talk to? What kind

Archana Tedone: Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: of work do you need that's more fulfilling? What's going on in your personal life? How can I support you? Because I I want to, I'm in your corner. It was very unlikely that it would go that way, but usually it was a capacity or a fulfillment thing that started to change. And I think it's a leader's responsibility to understand that it is your responsibility to ensure that their workload is manageable, even if it's high, and that you're giving them the right resources to help them be successful with that workload, but that you're also always cultivating their motivation in whatever way you can. Whether that be with recognition, work they love, flexibility, whatever it is they need, you are meeting them there. And that I think is how you can address these symptoms when you start to see them.

Archana Tedone: Yeah. I I think that is so important. And what do you think are some some of the major implications of having a burnt out team from a leader's point of view?

Erica Pieczonka: well, I I mean it really is kind of like the life has been sucked out of you. So I think not only like if you have one person on the team who's burnt out, it's really going to impact everyone else, right? Because that person is it

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: you almost have to think of it as like an illness. Like they're almost unable to perform at their best. So then you know that as a leader, it's so challenging when you have somebody who used to be Really good at what they do, and now they're struggling. And having anyone

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: struggling on your team is a challenge. And so and that has ripple effects to everyone else on the team. And so now not only is performance suffering, but morale is suffering. And sometimes trust is severing, and relationships are becoming harder because people are probably making assumptions about why that person is underperforming now. And then resentment builds.

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: And as a leader, you're now dealing with a lot of dynamics that

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: just become harder and harder and harder to fix and to and

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: to reconnect. Yeah.

Archana Tedone: Exactly.

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah.

Archana Tedone: And also too, I feel like a lot of times burnt out teams are kind of the product of a burnt out leader as well. and

Erica Pieczonka: yeah.

Archana Tedone: you know, and so role modeling the behaviors you'd want to see. A lot of times leaders are like, yeah, take your vacation time, you know, you can you can clock out early and so on and so forth,

Erica Pieczonka: Mm.

Archana Tedone: but they're not doing it themselves. So what are the dangers

Erica Pieczonka: Yes.

Archana Tedone: of that?

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah, I mean it's like the do as I say, not as I do. I just think it's it's if your actions are incongruent with your words, I'll be direct like you're severing trust. Because

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: you you can't say, Hey, you know, our culture is that we don't overwork and we don't answer emails, after five PM. But then your leader is emailing you at eight PM and being like, Hey, you're not responding. You can't use words to describe your culture. Your culture is how you behave, right? And so the danger

Archana Tedone: Yes.

Erica Pieczonka: of that is you can't as a leader put words on the wall and say this, these are our values and these is how we treat each other and then turn around and like not do that. So if you

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: if you don't honor those words with behavior, then No one's gonna trust you. And we all know that when we're working for a leader that is in that space of just lip service, you're not gonna build a team that wants to show up for you and work hard. You you know, people are just going

Archana Tedone: Totally.

Erica Pieczonka: to kind of check out because no one wants to work for a leader like that. I don't want to work for a leader like that.

Archana Tedone: No. And I've done a bit of research on kind of email behavior after hours and things like that. And we found

Erica Pieczonka: Mm, mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: that the strongest predictor of whether an individual is emailing after work hours is not the norms of their team or org policy or anything like that. It's whether their supervisor or their leader is emailing after hours. And that's the behavior

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Archana Tedone: that they replicate because that's what they think is rewarded. That's what they think they should be doing because they're role modeling that behavior. I think we underestimate the power of a leader's behavior, even when they think that it's not affecting other people. Like, I prefer

Erica Pieczonka: Yes.

Archana Tedone: to email late at night because it's better for me and my schedule and I don't mind it, even though I tell my team they don't need to respond. They're still yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: Right, but exactly. Yes. That is so interesting, I love that research. And I think it's spot on it. And really, I think about organizational culture is wonderful, but really who's driving the culture that you experience as an individual employee is your leader. It's like a microcosm. Like think

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: of the organization as like a system of systems, and this and the system begins within the individual team and then expands,

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: expands, expands, expands. So your experience of the organizational culture is

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: going to depend on the microcosm that you belong to.

Archana Tedone: Totally. And it's the version of the culture that your leader presents to you essentially, right? I've been on so many

Erica Pieczonka: Correct. Yes.

Archana Tedone: teams where you know, my leader has been like, you know, we we do that at at this company, but we're not gonna do that on this team. Like that's not how we run, right?

Erica Pieczonka: Yes. Exactly. They're like redefining they're they're almost like

Archana Tedone: Exactly.

Erica Pieczonka: interpreting the organizational culture in a way that suits their own leadership or their perspective. Always. Yes.

Archana Tedone: Exactly. Always.

Erica Pieczonka: Uh-huh.

Archana Tedone: Always. okay, So let's say we're on a team, we're starting to feel like we're entering burnout stages, we don't have a mama bear leader that's watching out for us. How do we advocate for ourselves without,

Erica Pieczonka: Mm.

Archana Tedone: you know, especially early career professionals, how do we balance this?

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah.

Archana Tedone: you know, showing up and being passionate about our work and putting our best foot forward, but also not overworking and feeling, you know, getting deep into burnout very early on and quickly.

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah, that's a great question. I really think it starts with self-awareness and and being able to identify, okay, if I'm noticing that I'm starting to feel tired or I'm starting to feel cynical or resentful or whatever it might be, where is that coming from? Is it a workload issue and I need to say, Hey, I have a lot of priorities on my plate and I'm not really sure which one is most important. Can you help me decide which to do? Because I can't manage all of this. Like that should be your if especially if you're early career, like you should be having that conversation all the time with your

Archana Tedone: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: leader of like, hey, I'm in the red and you gotta tell me what I need to prioritize, or have a point of view and say, Hey, I think I could I can prioritize this. But they they really should be involved in that. another thing that you can look at is Is it because I'm feeling like I don't have enough ownership or I don't have enough decision making power? Almost that autonomy piece, how is that showing up? Do I need to ask for more of that? Do I need more resources? is it because I'm feeling I'm doing good work and nobody's noticing? And I all I get is critical feedback, which of course is helpful, but I'm not getting enough positive recognition. Do I need to ask for that?

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: You know, all of those things, those are not the full list by by any means, but it's like really look at what is the problem. Like what is the challenge, what is causing the burnout, what is causing you to feel overwhelmed. And then you need to be able to have those difficult conversations and asking for what you need. Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask. I tell everybody this all the time. Like stop assuming that people know

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: that you're drowning and ask them

Archana Tedone: So true.

Erica Pieczonka: for what you need. And The more you do it, the more you practice it, the easier it will get. And actually that is a skill you need once you get to a level of leadership. Like you have to be able to push back when when things are too much.

Archana Tedone: Yeah. Yes, exactly. I think being able to advocate for yourself, being able to push back and set kind of healthy boundaries from the get go is going

Erica Pieczonka: Mm. Yes.

Archana Tedone: to make that your own norm, right? You're building kind of a skill set in in advocating for yourself so you can show up as the best version of yourself

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah. And I think what's really hard for early career folks too, and I I would put myself in this camp, right, is like you're really trying to prove your worth in some ways. And I so I I think it's very easy to like work late, take on more, really burn the midnight oil as a means of trying to get ahead in your career. The

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: the problem with that is once you start moving into positions of leadership, you

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: see these behaviors. That actually made you successful as an individual contributor are now completely depleting you. So what I mean by that is like the responsiveness. Like, somebody sends an email, I need to respond right away. Or

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: kind of this like perfectionistic attitude, or just saying yes to everything because you don't want to

Archana Tedone: Yes.

Erica Pieczonka: lose an opportunity. you know, those are things that if you keep that behavior as you grow in complexity and scale. And your span of control increases, you can't sustain it anymore. And so those are the things that I tell early leaders as well as people coming in, is like, watch for those things because those are the personal contributors to burnout that if you don't start to get a handle on early on, are really gonna cause some problems later in your career.

Archana Tedone: Yeah. and so thinking about some really practical takeaways for leaders and

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: team members who are who are on their way to to experiencing burnout, being able to identify those kind of symptoms before they become huge and problematic. And then from a leader perspective, right, being able to check in with your team, understand. workload and whether they're at capacity, and really being able to offer support as folks need it, right? Whether it is

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: by not only workload reduction, but maybe they need additional resources to get something done, so on and so forth. Anything else you'd add to that list?

Erica Pieczonka: Yep. Yeah. Yes, I would say really as a leader, understanding what motivates your team. So what are their strengths? What are their opportunities?

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: What are their career goals? How do they like to be managed? Right? Like, are they somebody who is a high performer that they really want full ownership of something so they can go run with it? Or are they somebody who actually needs a little more hand holding? And gets overwhelmed if you don't walk them through step by step by step how to do something.

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: Like those are two different spectrums of leadership style. And I always tell

Archana Tedone: Totally.

Erica Pieczonka: new leaders, I'm like, you can you can go to all the little workshops about your leadership style, but if you don't know how to flex your leadership style for everybody on your team, you will fail. Because leadership is not one size fits all. Like that's not

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: the way to see it. It's how do I adjust my leadership? for the individuals on my team. So knowing how they like to be led, but also knowing how they like to be recognized, that is critical. Because if somebody is very private and you're giving them a an award in front of everybody, you might think, this is wonderful. Like they're gonna love this. They might be like, my gosh, I hate this. I like that was the I'm mortified.

Archana Tedone: Mortified. Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: So really understanding how people like to be recognized, what's meaningful for them. There's actually this tool I use all the time. it's called the work the five work appreciation languages. It's based on the five love languages. and actually it's a great way of like

Archana Tedone: okay. I'm gonna write this down.

Erica Pieczonka: yeah, a great little exercise you can do with your team just to get to understand what they like. And then it's just like a good conversation starter to say, okay, here I see that you really like quality time. I did this with my team and it was like, okay, so let's go and on our one-on-ones, like let's actually just go for a walk and grab coffee and use the time to just like catch up and not worry about work. Like that was really meaningful

Archana Tedone: I love that.

Erica Pieczonka: to to a couple of my to my directs. So yeah, it's just being really understanding how can I motivate this person and meet them where they are, because that that's that element has such a huge relationship to burnout.

Archana Tedone: I love that. And this also brought to mind a conversation I was having with one of my MBA students just the other night. he is a he's a he leads a team with maybe a bunch of people, I don't know how many, but he was telling me, he's like, it is exhausting because each person on my team wants to be led a different way. So I have to keep

Erica Pieczonka: Mm.

Archana Tedone: switching back and forth. I wear so many hats. He's like, I am drained because I need to treat everyone differently. so how do

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah.

Archana Tedone: we how do we deal with that? Preventing our own burnout and exhaustion from being a good leader, essentially.

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah, I hear that. I hear that. I I think it comes back to a couple things. So one is I I mentioned energy management. I do think it's so important. And I've become kind of a zealot around this a little bit because everyone always talks about time management and how you know you really need to manage your time. But if you think about it this way, let's imagine you didn't

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: sleep the night before you didn't eat well and you've been in back-to-back meetings and you arrive at that hour. How effective are you gonna be at research in that moment?

Archana Tedone: Like a two percent. Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah, exactly. And so, but if you slept well, you went for a little bit of a walk, you felt fresh, it was early in the morning when you have the best availability for deep work because your cognitive resources are fully stocked, you're gonna walk into that hour and be incredibly successful, right? Yeah, so that's why I think energy management is so important. So He's saying he's depleted. I get that. That's a lot. It is a lot. Being a leader is the hardest job and I think such an initiation into personal development, in a professional setting ever.

Archana Tedone: Right. Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: Maybe entrepreneurship comes a little bit higher on that, but they're both hard. and then the other thing is having management systems, because I think a lot of the things that we do manually, we can have The team support us in doing so that

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: we're not keeping so much on our plate. And what I mean by that is like keeping you up to date, giving you information, making sure that you understand what's happening without you needing to be in the weeds all of the time, that you have

Archana Tedone: Yes.

Erica Pieczonka: like the right level of check-ins with people. So they're getting the attention they need, but you're not over, you know, over indexing yourself.

Archana Tedone: You're not micromanaging.

Erica Pieczonka: Yes. So all of these things are systems that you set up. Both for your energy, but also for your team. So that they sort of run on autopilot. That

Archana Tedone: Right.

Erica Pieczonka: is that is how I work with leaders and how I manage myself. Because if you're constantly reinventing the wheel on these things, that's just more energy and resources you're putting into it. You

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: wanted to sort of run on an autopilot. Yeah. Yeah.

Archana Tedone: That is so true. Yeah, you almost have to sit down and be like, Okay, this is my one hundred percent. How do I want to divvy that up? Right. And once that one

Erica Pieczonka: Correct.

Archana Tedone: hundred percent's done and accounted for, like you have to stop. You have to stop adding things to your plate, essentially, right?

Erica Pieczonka: Exactly. Yeah, you have to have that 30,000 foot view of like, can I manage this? And I work with a lot of leaders who I don't even know how they have so much energy, right? Like they have just a a huge capacity and so they they can they can do a lot. But there

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: is still that moment of and is this reasonable? Because when we put these incredible expectations on ourselves and then we're not meeting them, is that fair?

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: Because we're gonna constantly feel like we're failing, but we're not. We just have the wrong expectation of ourselves.

Archana Tedone: Yes, absolutely. I think and you know, it comes it really does come down to that self-awareness of

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: really knowing yourself, knowing what your limits are, what your boundaries are. It's a difficult conversation to have with yourself sometimes, but it can be so

Erica Pieczonka: Yeah.

Archana Tedone: so fruitful. Like you can learn so much about yourself and how you work best, essentially,

Erica Pieczonka: And you can also build in ways of building that self-awareness. I think every you probably have seen this. I think every leadership program that I've ever participated in starts with self-awareness. Like understand yourself, be able to see yourself clearly. One of the

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: things that I think is really helpful for that is just implementing a simple review process at the end of the week and ask

Archana Tedone: Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: yourself what went well. What didn't go well or where was I most challenged?

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: What am I learning about that? And what do I want to do differently next week? Because I think if you start to implement a very simple reflection process, you can continue to get better and better and better about whatever it is that

Archana Tedone: Yeah.

Erica Pieczonka: you're focused on. And it does start to build this self-awareness. You start to notice things that maybe you didn't quite notice because you're

Archana Tedone: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Erica Pieczonka: not building in that reflection time. And for my leaders who are back to back to back and like overload, like, I don't have time for that. I'm like, You have five minutes. I guarantee it. You have five, you have ten, like you can do it. I promise.

Archana Tedone: Yes, for sure. I love that reflection. I know I saw you at some point doing like a end of year reflection that's similar like something

Erica Pieczonka: Mm-hmm.

Archana Tedone: similar to that. And I was like, that is such a cool practice to be able to reflect on the year. But even doing it weekly, I think could give you so much cool insight into your patterns of thinking and and doing.

Erica Pieczonka: Absolutely. Yep.

Archana Tedone: Awesome. Well, what a great conversation. I love talking to you as always. Can't wait to dig in on more topics as well. But thanks for comparing notes with me today, Erica.

Erica Pieczonka: Absolutely Arch, any time, thanks for having me.