Recently, when visiting with a wide diversity of team leaders, I am noticing a rising tide of exhausted engagement. Often, this is referred to as engagement fatigue or passion burnout. It occurs when employees are highly engaged, passionate, dedicated, and committed, yet they are experiencing high levels of burnout. It often affects high-performing individuals who are deeply invested in their work, resulting in a dangerous paradox of being highly motivated yet simultaneously psychologically exhausted due to prolonged and excessive demands for participation, and consultation related to complex, and often protracted issues. The outcome of this situation is that these key individuals are likely to leave the organization, because they can not see a sustainable path forward.
This is all deeply troubling for their colleagues and for people in senior leadership positions. Everyone understands that teamwork and collaboration are vital to mission success. They also know that exhausted engagement can become malignant if not treated at an early stage, causing a cascading exodus of highly qualified and committed team leaders.
So, what can we all do to deal with exhausted engagement?
I think the initial solution happens at three different levels. First, acknowledge that this is happening, and that it is real. Denial is not a coping strategy, or a long term solution. Second, begin with the end in mind. The desired outcome of this situation is that people and the teams are better able to deal with the current tsunami of prolonged and excessive demands, and can solve the complex, and often protracted issues and problems before them. Third, we want our team leaders to stay engaged, but in a manner that leads to less fatigue or burnout. In essence, we want improved teamwork in the midst of all that is taking place.
So, in the beginning, we need to recognize that if we want to create stronger teams and improved teamwork, we, first and foremost, must become better team players. Yet, when this becomes clear to us, I am reminded of something that Brené Brown wrote about in her book, Strong Ground: The Lessons Of Daring Leadership, The Tenacity Of Paradox, and The Wisdom Of The Human Spirit (Random House, 2025): “What you’re trying to achieve will require a deep, broad, and disciplined commitment to individual change, team change, and systems change.” If it only took change on one level, I think most people would have moved through their exhausted engagement and into a new stage of leading, living, and working. However, this is rarely the case because this kind of change needs to happen on so many different levels.
Therefore, recognizing this insight, I believe we need to engage in a discovery process before we move to solving the problem. As Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
Einstein’s approach to problem-solving is focused on creating an in-depth and holistic understanding of what is taking place at the operational and strategic levels within the company. For when we dedicate time to defining the core technical problems and adaptive challenges that are taking place, then we can recognize that past solutions may be causing current problems at the individual, team, and/or systems levels within the company.
This week, when we question whether or not we can continue, even when the work is meaningful to us, we need to pause, reflect, and ask new and different questions in order to create solutions that result in a deep, broad, and disciplined commitment to change.
© Geery Howe 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment