MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Four Leadership Loads That Keep Getting Heavier

You dreamed of being an inspiring leader, but you’re fighting fires every day instead. Here are no-nonsense tips for managing the stress of leading in “interesting” times.

Feeling emotionally drained at work? Is your patience exhausted? Your energy low? If so, you’re showing clinical markers of burnout.

And you’re not alone. In a January 2024 mental health survey conducted by NAMI, more than half of all managers (54%) indicated that they had felt burned out during the past year because of their job. Among employees of all levels, 36% said their mental health had suffered due to work demands. Even folks in the C-suite are heading for the exits.

No one ever said leadership was easy. But in recent years, as with so many jobs, being a leader has, in fact, become harder. Leaders rush from meeting to meeting feeling like lunchroom attendants for an unruly junior high. With exponentially escalating business complexity; diminished civility; and intrusive, pervasive technological interruptions, you may feel like it’s barely possible to keep order, let alone lead employees on an inspiring journey.

About the Author

Melissa Swift leads Capgemini Invent’s Workforce & Organization practice for North America. She is the author of Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace (Wiley, 2023).

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