The Leadership Paradox Behind Burnout

In this episode, Lauren Davis unpacks The Leadership Paradox — why today’s leaders operate under Olympic-level expectations with almost no built-in support. We explore the hidden cost of resilience, the emotional labour leaders and HR carry, and how high performance quietly becomes burnout in slow motion.

Through psychological insight and decades of coaching high-performing executives, Lauren reveals why coping isn’t leading, the early signs of leadership burnout, and what it takes to build sustainable capacity in a culture addicted to busyness.

If you’re a leader or HR professional navigating decision fatigue, emotional overload, or the pressure to “hold everything together,” this episode offers a grounding pause and a practical reflection tool to help you check your capacity before burnout checks it for you.

What You’ll Learn

• Why resilience is quietly becoming a liability
• The difference between coping and leading
• Signs of leadership burnout and capacity erosion
• The emotional and psychological load HR carries
• Why leaders need support structures similar to elite athletes
• How psychological safety and recovery fuel performance
• A simple reflection tool to assess your leadership capacity

Key Topics

• Leadership burnout
• HR burnout
• Emotional labour at work
• High-performance psychology
• Sustainable leadership
• Capacity building
• Resilience vs recovery
• Leadership mental health
• Organisational wellbeing
• Preventing burnout in leaders & HR

Mentioned in This Episode

• The Leadership Paradox
• Decision fatigue
• Compassion fatigue
• Purpose fatigue
• The Olympic analogy for leadership
• Season 1: “Busy Is the New Lazy”
• Season 2, Episode 4: Caring Without Crumbling (teaser)

Who This Episode Is For

• Senior leaders
• Executives & founders
• HR & People Partners
• High performers navigating burnout
• Coaches & wellbeing leads
• Anyone holding a system together while feeling unsupported

Highlights

• “Leadership may be the only high-performance role where support isn’t built in.”
• “We reward depletion and call it dedication.”
• “Coping isn’t leading — it’s a holding pattern.”
• “You’d never send an athlete onto a field without support; why send leaders into complex systems alone?”
• “High performance isn’t built on coping alone — it’s built on support.”

Thanks for listening!
If you’re ready to take this further, here are a few ways to connect or go deeper:

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Say hi / share a takeaway
→ Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn.
→ Message Lauren directly here.

Work with Lauren
→ See how Lauren supports senior leaders and HR professionals in building mentally healthy teams and organisations.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the leadership paradox
• 2:27 Understanding the Burden of Leadership
• 5:48 The need for support in Leadership
• 7:44 Building as supportive Leadership Ecosystem

Transcript

0:03

What would happen if your success came with a warning label that said, caution, operating at high performance, but running on empty? And what if no one, including you, stopped to notice until it was too late? I'm Lauren Davis, and in the next 20 minutes, I'll unpack the leadership paradox, why resilience has become a quiet liability. And I'll also share a simple reflection tool at the end that will help you check your own capacity before burnout does it for you. Welcome back to Beneath the Busy, the space where we look past the hustle and explore what it actually takes to stay well while leading and living in a world hooked on busyness. This new season turns the spotlight on two groups who hold everything together yet are the least supported, the leaders and the HR teams in organizations. Because let's face it, Most organizational well-being programs focus on everyone else, and often they only react once people are already tired and burnt out. Leadership development also focuses mainly on building skills for leading others and the business. Strategy, decision-making, financial acumen, leadership presence. But rarely do they focus on the leaders as a person who also need support. And HR? Well, they often get left out completely. They're the supporter, never the one being supported. So this season is for those expected to cope, to hold everyone else, to keep the system steady even when they're running on empty. It's an invitation to slow down, pause, and build the inner resourcefulness that sustains performance. Because when leaders in HR are well, everyone under their care stands a better chance of being well too. But before we dive in, wherever you are, at your desk, walking, driving, let's just take a moment to pause. Take a slow, deep breath in. And just let it go. Drop your shoulders, unclench your jaw, and just give yourself the permission to be fully present. No multitasking, no planning ahead, just the space to listen, reflect, and breathe. So what is this leadership paradox that I refer to? It's that leadership may be the only high-performance role where support isn't built in. Think about it. A professional athlete barely gets to sneeze without a whole team of people coming in to analyze what caused that sneeze. They have a full team, a coach, a trainer, a nutritionist, a psychologist. The entire ecosystem is built to protect and enhance performance. Leaders, on the other hand, they're just given a vision, a budget, and a calendar, and then told, make it happen. Ask if you need any help. So we're expecting them to perform at an Olympic level entirely alone. And the thing is, it's rarely the big strategic calls that wear leaders down. It's the quiet daily holding. Because leaders don't just manage tasks, they absorb the emotional temperature of the entire organization. And the result is a quiet exhaustion that slowly creeps in sideways, where the mind just gets tired of the thousand small decisions. And the heart just gets tired from caring so deeply, constantly and invisibly. And yet we're calling this resilience as if endless coping and pushing through and digging deep is actually a strength rather than a sign that something is out of alignment. Somewhere along the line, we've actually started rewarding depletion and calling it dedication. We celebrate the leader who never switches off, the HR partner who replies at midnight. We're confusing output with impact and drive with worth. In my coaching work, I see how often high performers link their value to how much they give. And it's noble, but it's a dangerous path to follow. Because when worth equals effort, When worth equals output, rest becomes a guilt. Because when worth equals effort, when worth equals output, rest becomes guilt. And guilt quietly erodes our ability to rest and restore effectively. So the thing is, coping isn't the same as leading. It's just a holding pattern, necessary for a while, but not sustainable. And without appropriate support, the signs start to show up fast, where leaders start to feel decision fatigue from the thousands of little decisions that they're having to make every day. And every choice starts then to feel like solving world peace. Even the decision of just what to choose to eat at a restaurant feels completely overwhelming. We also see compassion fatigue, which comes from the emotional hangover of caring for everyone except oneself. And then there's purpose fatigue, where the purpose and meaning and satisfaction a leader gets from their work just fades into just keeping the lights on, just getting it done, just doing what I have to, to get through this quarter. So if any of this resonates, it doesn't mean you're failing, it just means you're human, playing an elite level game with amateur support staff. So maybe the real question we need to be asking isn't how well are you coping? But we need to go back to the basic question of why has leadership become a solo sport to begin with? Imagine if we normalize leadership coaching the way we normalize sports coaching. If every organization viewed it not as a perk, but as essential to the effectiveness of leadership. You'd never send an athlete onto the field without proper gear. So why are we sending leaders into complex human systems without the appropriate psychological support? And if you're listening as HR, you probably live this paradox twice because you're holding the leaders who are barely holding themselves and you're holding the employees who are relying on those leaders. So you often have to be the coach, the medic, the referee, the confidant, and often all just before lunchtime. You're the safety net beneath everyone else's safety nets. But who's catching you? That invisible load supporting both the system and the humans inside it. That invisible load supporting both the system and the humans inside of it is why burnout rates in HR That invisible load, supporting both the system and the humans inside of it. that invisible load supporting both the system and the humans inside of it is why burnout rates That invisible load, supporting both the system and the humans inside of it, is why burnout rates in HR remain among the highest. A recent study showed that over 80 % report feeling some degree of burnout. So this is why HR needs reflective spaces, places designed to support the supporters. I'll be unpacking this more in episode four, which is gonna... I'll be unpacking this more in episode four, which is called... I'll be unpacking this more in episode four, which is called Caring Without Crumbling. And I'll explore how HR can keep caring without losing themselves in the process. Because ultimately, HR and leaders are part of the same ecosystem. And if one keeps running on empty, the whole system feels it. So here we are, asking leaders to perform at an Olympic level in a system that still treats recovery like a luxury. And we wonder why burnout feels inevitable. What if we changed that? What if psychological support was seen as infrastructure, not indulgence? What if every leader had a coach as standard equipment? Because real high performance isn't about pushing harder. It's about recovering smarter and knowing that you don't have to do it alone. As the season unfolds, I'll be exploring how leaders can rebuild their inner scaffolding and how HR can hold the system without collapsing underneath it. And maybe that's the invitation this season. Let's stop glorifying self-sufficiency and start valuing supported strength. Leadership isn't about proving you can do it alone. It's about building the structures that let you keep doing it well. When we look beneath the busy, we see that performance without support isn't heroism, it's unsustainable. And the most courageous leaders aren't the ones who never falter, they're the ones who know when to reach for help. So as you head into your week, ask yourself, who's in your corner? Who helps you pause before the next decision? And maybe start with one small change. building in a deliberate pause each day, even if it's just two deep breaths before the next meeting. That single pause might actually be the most productive thing you do in a day. So if this conversation struck a chord and you'd like to see where your own capacity stands, you can download the Leadership Capacity Check-in, which is a quick way to notice when performance is starting to outpace recovery. You'll find the link in the show notes. And if you know a leader or an HR partner carrying a heavy load, please share this episode with them. Sometimes just hearing that you are not alone is the first step towards getting help. Remember, high performance isn't built on coping alone, it's built on support. And it's okay to not be okay. But it's not okay to stay that way. As always, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself and others. Thanks for listening. Until next time, be well and take care.