The number of incapacity for work leaves due to burnout in Estonia increased by nearly 60% during the year.
This was the news on ERR a few days ago, referring to data from Statistics Estonia. Not six percent. Sixty. And that’s when people go to the doctor. But I believe that most of the time people think that I’m just tired and that a holiday/rest etc. will help. In a bit of irony, the recruitment advert did say that I must have ‘high stress tolerance’.
These burnout numbers are not just a matter of personal choice or “weak stress management” or “low stress tolerance”. It is a cultural symptom. When a work culture demands constant effort, speed and results, but does not create space for depth, self-management and honesty, it is inevitable that people will break. And eventually that culture will saw the branch on which it sits.
In my daily dealings with managers, I hear complaints about this culture very often. But, alas, the saying applies here: “If you’re in a traffic jam and you’re complaining about a traffic jam, remember that you are the traffic jam.” I’m usually pretty blunt in giving this reflection in training sessions.
Today’s organisational operating model is no longer working, whether we want to admit it or not, and we need to bring about very fundamental changes in leadership behaviour in order to stop sawing the branch we are sitting on.
It’s not just the people who burn out, but the heart of the organisation burns out with them and the reason why things are done disappears. The meaning disappears.
Do we dare to look deeper and ask, not how to better ‘motivate’, but how to transform the space in which we all live and work? The whole world is built on organisations and organisations are run by leaders. Perhaps our whole quality of life depends on the quality of leadership. The burnout that is rife in organisations is a dangerous trend for society as a whole.
Leadership does not start with strategy. It starts with the subconscious – and how and whether we dare to see our true selves.
Strategy is technical models and following them. Most of the strategic management tools that have been in use for decades do not take into account that man is not a technical machine. It is time for a change.
