What do you do if your team leaders are experiencing burnout?

When team leaders show signs of burnout like being overwhelmed, low mood, lack of focus, or neglecting self-care, it's crucial to have an open and supportive conversation with them. Explore the root causes together, whether it's excessive workload, lack of work-life balance, or other factors. Collaboratively implement solutions like temporarily redistributing tasks, encouraging time off, providing counseling support, and fostering a culture that prioritizes well-being. Addressing burnout proactively through recognition, dialogue, and supportive measures is vital for the health of team leaders, overall team morale, and organizational productivity.

I find regular 'feedforward' ( a phrase I heard once and love - as opposed to feedback) - meetings just casual coffee catch ups with team leaders very effective. This can help a Manager recognise the early signs of burnout and implement light touch strategies to assist

As a leader, I would initiate open conversations, actively listen, offer support, explore solutions together, promote a supportive environment, and monitor progress when identifying signs of burnout in my team.

From my point of view, to help prevent burnout in team leaders, managers should take steps to reduce their workloads. This includes prioritizing and delegating tasks, setting realistic goals, providing adequate resources, allowing flexible schedules and remote work, and encouraging time off and breaks. By implementing these workload reduction strategies, team leaders will have more manageable responsibilities, better work-life balance, and increased autonomy, ultimately leading to higher productivity, morale, and retention of talented leaders.

Absolutely reduce the workload, but in the right way. Helping the manager to learn and practice priority management. Take them through the process of identifying the most important in the sea of important things. Effective productivity is not about getting more things done, it's about getting the right things done.

Reducing the workload is not always a great solution, some Team Leaders might feel this is a sign they've failed or are letting you down. I think the right way to do this is to discuss ways you can support them, asking them if there's anything you can help fast track, if you as the Manager are holding anything up, if processes need refining to improve efficiencies. Often, it can also be a sign of the Team Leader's team contributing to the workload, in that case, coaching the Team Leader to work with their team members to maximise output and reduce workload stressors is another good place to start

A simple solution would be to implement a task management system, such as a Kanban board, where tasks are visually organized into columns representing different stages of completion. This allows team leaders to easily see which tasks are in progress, which are completed, and which need prioritization. Additionally, clearly defining the expectations for each task and the delivery dates will help prevent overloads and ensure an equitable distribution of work.

La première démarche sera un entretien. Je mettrai mon collaborateur totalement à l'aise, moi dans une posture de Serviteur (oreille attentive) pour comprendre clairement la cause du problème. Ensuite, je lui demanderai s'il est intéressé par le fait que nous travaillons ensemble pour passer cette étape. Je lui demanderai ce qu'il pense être possible de faire pour sortir de cette phase. Je lui rappellerais ce qu'il a déjà accompli et toutes les qualités que j'ai pu identifier chez lui. Une fois la flamme rallumée chez lui, il engagera son plan d'action moi restant toujours dans ma posture de Serviteur. L'objectif de fin qu'il ressorte avec la satisfaction pour ses efforts engagés, pas uniquement la reconnaissance envers une main externe.

Building a culture based on open communication, recognition and appreciation, work-life balance/boundaries, clear expectations and goals, constructive feedback, supportive leadership, learning and development opportunities, collaboration and inclusiveness, and wellbeing will go a long way in alleviating burnout.

I was told once that "fish stink, starts at the head" - an indicator of team culture starting with the top leaders. Be the beacon, lead the way. Start as you intend to finish, do what you say you'll do, and set realistic goals for the team. Celebrate successes and create opportunities for collaborative learning when areas of development appear. Lessons learnt or post mortem exercises are also good in this instance.

A simple solution to promote a positive culture and prevent burnout is to hold regular team meetings where everyone can share successes, challenges, and ideas. This fosters transparency, encourages collaboration, and strengthens the sense of community. Additionally, dedicating time to social activities such as lunches or team-building events can help strengthen bonds between team members and increase group cohesion.

La formation professionnelle est effectivement un élément clé et sous mobilisée par le middle-management. À mon sens il faut prévoir un cycle annuel à minima. C’est un levier que j’utilise beaucoup et que j’ai régulièrement actionné lors de mes premières années . Une espèce de RESET et de retour sur soi qui permet d’apporter de la perspective et du recentrage .

A simple solution to prevent burnout among team leaders is to establish a mentorship program within the team. Pairing experienced team leaders with newer or less experienced ones allows for knowledge sharing, guidance, and support. This fosters a sense of community and growth, empowering team leaders to learn from each other, develop new skills, and navigate challenges more effectively. Additionally, regular check-ins and feedback sessions can ensure that the mentorship program remains beneficial and supportive for all involved.

Developing your team leaders into the managers of tomorrow is a key to keeping them engaged and motivated. Finding out what they want to learn, giving them exposure to new opportunities and discovering all their hidden talents.

Live by example, leaders who demonstrate effective self care inspire their teams to follow suit. Encourage outside lunch breaks, don't interrupt staff lunch breaks, and personal days. Send emails on delay send rather than with a 'note' on the bottom. It's also the little details, remembering birthdays, partners and kids names, cats and dogs too. Taking care.

Encouraging leaders to respect schedules and maintain a quality of life outside of work is crucial for balancing personal and professional life. Emphasizing the importance of setting clear boundaries between work and leisure, promoting healthy habits, and allocating time for personal activities helps reduce stress and prevent burnout, resulting in more effective and happier leaders.

Listen to them! Find out what they believe is the cause for the exhaustion and the overload and then fix the source. There is no point giving people time off if they come back to the same reality... Leverage organisational empathy to really understand the pressure points and work together to solve for them.

Discuss & Talk in details with the team leaders and your internal sources with full empathy with them and let them speak out fully as their colleague to you. Once you know the root cause then plug it fully by taking them into confidence and do regular reviews with TL's, so that they are not experiencing burnout. This will motivate them support them on regular basis for such issues.

Burn out are comman. Ide tiny if they are problems specific or due to being in the team!!! Address it while you keep the issue in picture. Talk to the person individually and then with team with the focus which would be aimed at solving the issue together for best end results for the organization.

Averigua el origen de ese agotamiento, de lo contrario estarás poniendo parches constantemente que no solucionarán nada. El mayor error que puedes cometer es suponer o infravalorar los motivos que afectan al líder para estar en esta situación. Como siempre la clave es preguntar y escuchar de manera activa Salud.