“Congratulations!”
Vivian opened the door to her new office and got surprised by her coworkers throwing confetti at her. She was handed a cake that had written in frosting, “You got promoted!” Vivian was the new manager at her organization and she was so excited to start.
Vivian’s first week was a lot of learning curves, then her second week she was getting settled down into the routine. Her third and every week after that was nothing but deadlines and hard expectations. It didn’t take long until her goal was to survive for the weekend.
She looked down at a paper survey on her desk she received from one of the workers. They were asked to do an exit survey and what they had to write was mildly concerning. Vivian remembered from before she got promoted being in the same shoes as this prior employee, burnt out and on their last leg. The difference was Vivian vowed to herself that she would stick it out long enough so she could get promoted and change the way the environment was. Then deadlines overwhelmed her and she couldn’t focus on anything else. She felt a pang of guilt.
Looking over at her calendar and list of things to do, there was no room for her to even squeeze in a new implementation. Her brain was fried as it was and couldn’t think of something new they could even implement.
There was a reason they had a system, as unsustainable as it was. It worked, after all. Vivian decided to stick to the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” She turned back to her computer and continued working, ignoring the stack of other exit surveys accrued over the past 2 months.
Burnout is often framed as a personal struggle. Individuals must manage better boundaries, more resilience or stronger self-care routines. But no amount of mindfulness can compensate for a culture that normalizes overload and emotional depletion. When the environment is broken, people are forced to carry the consequences.
Burnout does not begin with stress. It begins with systems that reward overwork, punish honesty and treat emotional labor as without limits. It grows in cultures where people feel pressure to perform rather than permission to be human. Over time, employees disconnect from the mission, not because they are lazy or no longer care, but because caring without support becomes unsustainable.
Culture is not created by posters or values statements, it’s created by what leaders tolerate, measure and reinforce every day. When managers are expected to drive results without regard for capacity, they unintentionally become enforcers of harm. Teams learn that burnout is the price of commitment and it is inevitable. To them, silence becomes a survival strategy.
Sustainable organizations look different. Leaders are accountable for outcomes and how they are achieved. Workload expectations are examined instead of assumed. Emotional labor is acknowledged rather than ignored. Feedback is welcomed and acted upon. People trust that speaking up will lead to change.
When leaders redesign the systems that shape daily work, they give people permission to stay whole while doing meaningful work. When culture supports humanity instead of eroding it, burnout no longer feels inevitable, it turns into a signal for change.
Pulse For Good can help organizations alleviate burnout in their workplaces. To find out how we accomplish that, check out our white paper that explains how burnout hurts organizations.