Burnout for Business Owners – Cause and Effect

We’ve got to flip the script on burnout!

On They Don’t Teach This In Business School, I want to deliver thought-provoking ideas and flip the script on some things that can help make business owners healthier, happier, and more successful. Burnout was something I wasn’t taught in business school – probably because they didn’t want to scare away future business owners – but I still don’t think we talk about it enough in the business owner world.

Today I’m going to talk about burnout, which definitely isn’t something I was taught in business school. Specifically, I’d like to discuss two elements of burnout for business owners that often get lumped together as one, but really shouldn’t. 

Hey there, you’re listening to They Don’t Teach This in Business School, and today I’m talking about burnout for business owners. I just shared how easy it is for business owners to blame themselves for the burnout, when it’s usually not their fault. 

I think somewhere along the way, the cause and effect of burnout for business owners has gotten reversed. Instead of recognizing a crisis in the business as the source of the burnout symptoms, we often hear business owners talk about their symptoms as the reason the crisis happened in the first place.

When you’re dealing with burnout, never forget that the crisis is the cause, and the effect is whatever that burnout is costing you in your business or your personal life. 

Now, there are times where a medical diagnosis could indeed be the crisis. For a business owner, that might sound like, “I’m dealing with this medical diagnosis, I don’t have the emotional resources I need right now to show up as a leader. I get irritable with my workforce too quickly. I’m just burned out.”

And I will admit that sometimes the business owner can be the cause of the burnout in other scenarios – but that’s rarely the case. 

The sequence of events is usually caused, or the crisis; then the effects, or the symptoms; and then burnout.  

Crisis, symptoms, burnout – that’s the order of how burnout happens.

On They Don’t Teach This In Business School, I want to deliver thought-provoking ideas and flip the script on some things that can help make business owners healthier, happier, and more successful. Burnout was something I wasn’t taught in business school – probably because they didn’t want to scare away future business owners – but I still don’t think we talk about it enough in the business owner world. 

When it comes to burnout, I want business owners to drop the guilt about it, stop blaming themselves for it, and also have resources to address it. 

Also I would highly recommend you sharing this idea with your employees and staff, as well. Giving people language to talk about things like this is one of the most powerful leadership tools you can offer. Make it ok for you and for your staff to say, “This stressful thing happened, I’m overwhelmed now, and I’m experiencing some burn out.” If your team feels like they can bring their burnout to you, that it’s a safe space to do so – you’ll have a happier, more loyal workforce in the long run (as long as you do something to help them address their own burnout). 

And as I mentioned at the start of the episode, I have a Braving Burnout Program for women business owners. If you’d like to delve deeper into this and really untangle it for yourself, be sure to check it out – the info is in the show notes. 

Thanks so much for listening to They Don’t Teach This in Business School. It really means a lot to me and I hope you’re finding the topics helpful! Stay tuned for another episode on lessons learned from the entrepreneurial journey, and have an awesome day!