Workplace

Let's talk about burnout — and what it really is

Leaders often reach for familiar explanations and fixes. But this misdiagnosis frames end-of-year burnout as seasonal laziness or a motivation gap

ByMatthew Fray

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A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest leadership news and insights straight to your inbox.

As it always does, December seemed to arrive faster than anyone expected, and with it the telltale signs of the weirdest month on our work calendars: There’s often less energy, fewer new ideas, and more absences.

Nothing is ever one-size-fits-all, but it certainly can look and feel as if people are checked out and waiting for the calendar to flip.

This is how misdiagnoses happen. Leaders often reach for familiar explanations and fixes, like pep talks and group emails designed to re-energize the troops. I had an old editor who liked to tell his reporters to “run to the finish,” even though news events rarely honor the holiday schedule.

This misdiagnosis frames end-of-year burnout as seasonal laziness, or a motivation gap. But if it was simply a motivation problem, it wouldn’t repeat like clockwork every holiday season. Explaining this as a motivation deficit is easy, because the answer is simply for everyone to get motivated again. It gives our organizational systems a pass.

But if the actual problem is burnout, then........

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