How a manager can recognise their own burnout and raise it with their boss

When tiredness turns into something more worrying

A manager who not long ago patiently helped the team starts answering questions with “Do whatever you like.” Finished projects no longer give them any satisfaction, and every meeting feels like yet another obstacle. It may be temporary overload, but if the change lasts for months, it is worth looking at more closely. In ICD-11, the WHO describes burnout as a phenomenon linked to chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It identifies exhaustion, increasing distance from or negativity towards one’s job, and a reduced sense of effectiveness. In this classification it is not a separate disease entity. A manager does not need to decide what to call their state before taking action. They might notice: “For six weeks I’ve struggled to concentrate after a run of meetings, and I’ve been snapping at the team more often.” That is a fact worth taking seriously. If the difficulties are also affecting your health and everyday life, talking to a specialist will matter, not just changing your calendar.

A healthy boundary is not the same as cynical detachment

Not answering the phone after hours, turning down another project that comes without resources, or delegating decisions are not signs of burnout. They can be sensible boundaries. The situation is different when a manager stops listening to employees, takes every question as an attack and no longer cares about the team’s good results. It is worth checking what has changed compared with how you used to operate. Am I switching off from work to rest, or because everything makes me angry? Am I stepping back more often from responsibilities I used to consider important? Do I still have any influence over the outcome? These questions are for reflection, not self-diagnosis. You can also ask someone you trust about your behaviour: “Have you noticed it’s been harder for me to have calm conversations lately?” It is important not to burden the team with responsibility for how you feel. People need a predictable leader, even when that leader is going through a difficult time.

Six areas of possible mismatch between work and the person

Maslach and Leiter describe six areas of mismatch between a person and their work: workload, control, reward and recognition, relationships, fairness and values. It is worth going through them without psychological jargon. Do my tasks fit into my working hours? Can I decide on the priorities I am responsible for? Is my effort noticed, including in non-financial ways? Is there someone I can talk a conflict through with? Are decisions about workload explained fairly? Do the organisation’s actions force me to keep acting against principles that matter to me? Not every manager will have a problem in all six areas. Often two sources of tension are enough – for example, responsibility without decision-making power and a constant stream of extra tasks. Prepare one fact illustrating each of the biggest mismatches. This gives your manager material for a conversation about the work, rather than a general complaint about stress. It is also worth checking which areas can be changed quickly and which require an organisational decision.

How to start the conversation with your manager without feeling you have failed

Managers often put off this conversation because they fear it will undermine their authority. Yet saying “this way of working isn’t working” does not have to mean “I can’t cope as a person.” Start with a brief statement of facts: “I’m running five projects, three of which have changed in scope. Every week I have more than twenty hours of meetings, and decisions about priorities are made outside my team.” Then name the impact: “Decisions are taking longer and I’m postponing conversations with my team more often.” Finish with a request: “I need a decision on whether we close one project or hand part of it over to someone else.” You don’t have to talk about every emotion or disclose health information if the aim is to agree how the work is organised. It is worth preparing two solutions, their costs and a date for checking the results. Instead of asking only for understanding, propose a change that someone can actually approve.

What to change in the team before the problem returns after your holiday

A single break may help you recover your energy, but it will not fix a process in which the manager is the only person who signs off every minor matter. Check which decisions can be handed over to the team, which meetings genuinely need you there and where a written update will do. Set a regular slot for reviewing priorities with your manager, so that people don’t receive conflicting instructions. It is also worth talking to your own team about how urgency is communicated: “I’ve been responding too sharply lately and I want to change that. Let’s agree which matters need an immediate decision and which we can collect for the team briefing.” You don’t need to tell your team any more about your personal difficulties than you want to. You do, however, need to take responsibility for how you behave towards them. If the company won’t allow your workload to change, it is worth openly naming the risks to quality, errors and staff turnover, rather than hiding them behind yet another appeal for extraordinary effort.

When a conversation with your boss is not enough

If, after a few weeks, the limits you agreed are still not being respected, look into escalating the matter to HR or to the person responsible for how work is organised. Record the facts: hours, the number of projects, decisions and the consequences for quality. Don’t use these records to try to prove that others are acting in bad faith. Changing a role, the division of tasks or the way performance is assessed may require a broader decision, not yet another individual effort. The WHO guidelines on mental health at work point to the importance of organisational interventions and of training for managers. That is not, however, a guarantee that every solution will work straight away. If insomnia, a marked decline in well-being or difficulty functioning persists, a health consultation may be needed regardless of what happens at work. It is worth keeping these two paths separate: improving working conditions and looking after your own health. Neither should replace the other.

A manager may hide their own overload for a long time because they see it as a sign of weakness. It is more useful to describe the changes in your behaviour, your workload and the decisions that are missing. A conversation with your manager can lead to a change in priorities and in how you work. If worrying symptoms appear, it is worth seeking help from a specialist at the same time.

How Em helps a manager talk to their own boss

Krzysztof runs two teams and has noticed that for several weeks every request from an employee has made him impatient. He doesn’t want to tell his director in their meeting simply “I’m burnt out”, because he doesn’t know himself what to call it. He describes to Em his calendar, the number of parallel projects, his lack of influence over deadlines and the constant interruptions. He asks for help preparing an opening that will show the problem without blaming his boss. Em helps him frame two options for change: dropping one project, or appointing someone to handle some of the approvals. Krzysztof rehearses his answer to the question “What will happen to the results?” With Em’s help, he also prepares a short conversation with his team in which he takes responsibility for his impatient reactions and explains the new rules for raising urgent matters. In the Empatyzer diagnosis, he can look at his own working preferences to better understand which situations overload him. The result is a plan for two conversations and the decisions that need to be made – not an attempt at a medical diagnosis of his own condition.