6 Essential Ways to Recognize Burnout on Your Team

The winter in Ensenada, Mexico, is unbelievably temperate: sunshine over clear skies counted down December 2016 as I prepared to spend the holiday season in a lovely country villa. Some of the best meals of my life were a stone’s throw away, and with the film and television industry in its seasonal wind-down (auditions for film and television roles traditionally trickling as executives and casting directors go on holiday), there was little else on my daily agenda than reading and taking in the scenery.

So why couldn’t I relax?

One upside stemming from the rising issue of burnout (conservatively estimated to have increased from 19% to 30% in recent years) is a growing understanding of its causes, symptoms, and effects on an individual – and on their workplace community. My inability to relax wasn’t an individual professional preoccupation, but a biological state – a very real stress response to the realities of my industry, and one that needed time to work itself through my neurological system (for more on this, check out Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski).

According to the World Health Organization, the nature of burnout isn’t an individual failing, nor a synonym for exhaustion — it’s a systemic issue. A result of the biological response to constant stress and being overwhelmed – hijacked really – by the modern schedules and expectations of our classrooms, offices, and organizations. Burnout’s presence signals deeper misalignments in leadership, workplace culture, and organizational priorities.

“Our culture has taken wellness and foisted it on the individual—where it can be bought, measured, and held up as personal success—instead of investing in making our social systems healthy.”

― Pooja Lakshmin, Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness

Burnout’s psychological impact is such that ‘self-care’ and vacation time can prove insufficient (even in the glow of the Mexican coast); and for leaders who guide and shape workplace culture, prioritizing the health and well-being of those in your charge is a social, ethical, and economical imperative.

However, these categories rarely remain siloed in neat categories, or even amongst individuals: burnout is systemic, and affects everything — and, more importantly, everyone –– in the organization. Of course, if you’re going to mitigate burnout, you’ll need to know how to recognize it, and recognize it for what it is: a growing problem, but one we can solve together.

“Rest is, quite simply, when you stop using a part of you that’s used up, worn out, damaged, or inflamed, so that it has a chance to renew itself.”

– Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

As a preview, here are a few red flags that might be signaling burnout on your team:

1. “The Cloud,” or when emotional exhaustion hovers:

Watch & Listen For:

• • • Employees seeming constantly drained, regardless of workload, reward, or achievement.
    • Decreased enthusiasm for projects they once enjoyed; reluctance to recognize small wins en route to big initiatives.
    • Constant complaints about feeling overwhelmed, tired, or ‘lack of communication.’

“The Cloud” is just that – a fog that slows interaction and collaboration, and obfuscates connection. If ‘lack of communication’ is a frequent complaint, maybe there’s a bigger issue not being mentioned, or not being heard by management.

What the Research Says:

• • • A 2023 Gallup study found that 44% of employees report feeling burned out at least sometimes, with 23% feeling burned out very often or always.
    • Chronic workplace stress leads to higher rates of absenteeism and a 50% increase in healthcare costs.

2. “The Black Hole,” or when cynicism and detachment become the norm.

Watch & Listen For:

• • • Team members withdrawing from conversations, seeming emotionally distant, or reverting to circular discussions of grievances.
    • Increased sarcasm, negativity, or expressions of hopelessness, especially when improvements to workflow or beneficial changes are made.
    • An inability to draft or imagine solutions; a reflexive ‘no’ to any proposals.
    • Stalling conversations about positive change; a fervor for negative piling on.

If you’re doing your best Ted Lasso impression, and find the conversation reflexively steers toward negativity, it’s a clear sign of burnout. Imagination, hope, and positivity are compounding forces and need community to thrive––but a ‘black hole’ culture can just as easily suck them into a spiral of hopelessness.

What the Research Says:

• • • Employees who experience high stress without support are three times more likely to be disengaged at work.
    • Burnout contributes to an 87% increase in the likelihood of quitting within the next six months.

3. “Resenteeism,” declining performance, and weaponized incompetence

Watch & Listen For:

• • • Unforced errors, missed deadlines, or difficulty prioritizing tasks; especially in those who have been priorly successful.
    • Forgetfulness around key actionables and goals; conversations shifting from tasks to hurt feelings for being ‘out-of-the-loop.’
    • A noticeable shift toward blame, excuses, and exasperation rather than problem-solving in decision-making, especially interdepartmentally.
    • Leaders practicing a malfeasant ignorance of their team’s performance, shifting the blame down the ladder rather than advocating for their colleagues.
    • Reactive gaslighting when things go wrong; a tendency to say things like “I never said that” or “that didn’t happen” on agreed upon benchmarks.

Resenteeism is the active form of what’s known as “quiet quitting,” and can accumulate toxicity that is hard to bounce back from. When departments blame their errors on unrealistic performance expectations for their colleagues, or managers and veteran employees blame their negativity on the work ethic of their cohort, Resenteeism can start to take hold.

What the Research Says:

• • • Employees experiencing burnout report a 63% decrease in work engagement and a 23% increase in performance-related anxiety.
    • According to McKinsey, “Toxic workplace behavior is the biggest predictor of employee burnout symptoms and intent to leave, according to our research. More than 60 percent of negative workplace outcomes are due to toxic workplace behavior.”

4. “Absenteeism,” when the organization is a ghost town.

Watch & Listen For:

• • • Frequent sick days or unexplained absences.
    • Employees logging off early or finding reasons to step away; attendance issues with virtual meetings.
    • A counterproductive lack of connection between parties who need to connect regularly.

What the Research Says:

• • • Burnout contributes to 2.6 times higher absenteeism rates, costing businesses an estimated $300 billion annually in lost productivity.
    • 1 in 5 employees experiencing burnout will take extended leave to recover—often without disclosing burnout as the cause.

5. “The Coffin Corner,” where there is a lack of opportunity for advancement, education, and development.

Watch & Listen For:

• • • Employees expressing boredom or lack of enthusiasm for new projects.
    • High performers seeming uninterested in development opportunities.
    • A decrease in agency, delegation, initiative, and other organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).
    • Lack of passion, “going through the motions” rather than actively contributing.

What the Research Says:

• • • A Harvard Business Review study found that under-stimulation can be just as harmful as overwork, leading to disengagement and emotional fatigue.
    • Only 36% of employees feel their workplace provides sufficient opportunities for growth; career stagnation is a top driver of resignation.

6. “The Big Ache,” or when stress accumulates in the body

Watch & Listen For:

• • • Frequent headaches, digestive issues, or trouble sleeping.
    • Increased irritability, anxiety, or difficulty concentrating.
    • Unexplained muscle tension, high blood pressure, or flare-ups of immune-related illnesses.

What the Research Says:

• • • Chronic workplace stress is linked to a 40% increase in the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure.
    • Unprocessed stress keeps employees in a constant ‘fight-or-flight’ mode, leading to higher cortisol levels, impaired memory, and long-term exhaustion.

“Don’t just climb the ladder of success – a ladder that leads, after all, to higher and higher levels of stress and burnout – but chart a new path to success, remaking it in a way that includes not just the conventional metrics of money and power, but a third metric that includes well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving, so that the goal is not just to succeed but to thrive.”

– Arianna Huffington

Burnout is a Leadership Issue

Burnout is not an individual failure — it’s a leadership challenge. If it’s showing up on your team, it’s a signal that something in your workplace culture needs to change. Addressing it means:

• Redefining success to include well-being, not just output.
• Building time and space into the workday for psychological safety––where employees can voice concerns and dream up solutions.
• Collaborating on ways to provide autonomy and flexibility to prevent chronic stress buildup.
• Recognizing, engaging, and developing employees  based on individual strengths before they disengage. (Learn more about Clifton Strengths® *internal link*)

However burnout manifests in your organization, take it as an opportunity to grow as a leader: not to further burden a struggling team member. If burnout is present in a team, it is a signal that something in the system needs to evolve . The idea that burnout is solved solely through individual self-care — meditation, time off, or personal resilience — is a myth. Prevention, therefore, is a leadership responsibility, requiring workplaces built on trust, equity, and sustainability.

That’s why, no matter where you are in your leadership journey, we want you to take part in the conversation.

Leadership is about more than driving results — it’s about creating environments where people can thrive. Let’s imagine a new workplace culture, and transformative leadership for the humans in our charge.