Emotional resilience and burnout in leadership | Hacker News Reader

Emotional resilience and burnout in leadership

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207 pointsjonnymiller49 comments

As someone who has just started a 4 week break spurred on by a burnout-induced breakdown at work, this is very timely. I do wonder if it’s reasonable to think that 4 weeks is enough.

I’ve struggled with mental health issues for most of my life due to complex developmental trauma during childhood, and in 2020, I’ve found that it’s very difficult to tell the difference between work burnout, residual issues due to my trauma history, impact of world events, etc.

One thing I do know for sure: research like this is so encouraging. Normalizing the conversation about mental health is so important.

Hey, I've gone through a very similar situation recently, and my history is similar to what you describe here, as well. My email is in my profile, and I'd love to chat with you about it -- just put something in the subject to identify that you're haswell@HN.

Thank you for the reply and offer to chat! I'm also very interested in chatting about this and I sent an email.

I have had burnout in the past, and I’m sorry to say 4 weeks is likely not enough.

For me it was about 1 year to recover.

Sure I could have returned to work after a month or two, because I would no longer have been “exhausted” physically, but going straight back into it would have burnt off that top layer of rest, and still revealed the ruined core within, to truly heal it took a year, then my excitement for programming came back, the excitement about not being able to sleep because there’s so much to enjoy, and the pure joy of creation

I hate that it took a year to come back, being hyper industrious this long period killed me. But I am grateful that it came back.

I appreciate not everyone has the financial ability to take a year off. I didn’t either, but I was lucky that I could adapt a simple, frugal existence to survive. I support UBI or whatever form of support anyone can give people who burnout because it’s real and it’s painful.

I wish you all the best in your recovery, and wrote this to tell you there is light at the end of the tunnel

I took 6 months off after a bad case of burnout and I think you are spot on at 1 year. About 6 months after going back to work (and clearing my plate of a lot of superfluous BS) I finally felt like I was beginning to hit my stride again. It was a big financial hit, but in the grand scheme of things it would have been far worse on my long term career prospects had I not taken that time away. Six months was, in my opinion, the bare minimum for the kind of burnout I was experiencing.

Just a showerthought, could it be like everyone accumulate mental “age” at a constant rate from birth, such that people of same generation has roughly same mental age, and so burnout state is observed when those ages become mismatched?

I've also burnt out, a couple times really deeply, in the last decade or so. Everything broke down then, and I ended up taking about a year off, with occasional part-time work to sustain me.

Emotional and psychological trauma have a way of affecting you "forever", skewing who you are inside. I believe it's a life-long practice to learn your own physical and mental limits, to develop a habit of continuous improvement and awareness.

Fortunately, after I came back to the workforce, I eventually found a situation where I can pace myself, take a step or two back as needed, to keep an eye on my mental condition and ensure a smooth, consistent productivity.

Your mention of UBI was surprising in the context of burnout, but it totally makes sense. Not everyone can afford to take time off work, especially for mental health, which is not widely understood, as a "taboo" subject in some cultures.

I barely made it financially through my burn-out recovery, and it would have saved a ton of grief if there was a safety net that ensured at least food and shelter, while I focused on rehabilitation.

One thing that bothers me, is that research (as skeptical as I am of social sciences right now) seems to suggest that "ego resources" don't exist. However burn out does exist.

Therefore it's hard to reconcile and find a balance between "I can push myself a little more, I'm just unmotivated" and "I need to switch off right now or I'll burn out"

There is a delicate balance between what the author of Reboot Jerry Colonna describes as 'Foolish Grit' vs. 'Healthy Drive + Ambition'. In my own experience I find it helpful to enquire into the underlying motivations for the work.

i.e am I driving myself from a place of fear? How does my body feel when I begin working on this? What is the source of the resistance? Whilst fear can certainly be a powerful motivator in the short term, it is not a sustainable fuel source.

Jonny (one of the report co-authors) here, thanks for sharing this—I entirely agree that normalising this conversation around mental health is essential, yet often requires courage to do so, especially in a work context. Yet, as our research illustrated, you are very much not alone in experiencing pre-existing mental health challenges that were amplified by the events of 2020.

re: 'telling the difference between work burnout vs. residual issues from a traumatic history', this is a nuanced topic but from the perspective of your nervous system, there really isn't a difference—the emotional debt (which could also be labelled as 'micro-trauma') that accumulates doesn't neatly distinguish between work + life as we have a tendency to do (the RED framework in the report was our attempt to describe this process in more detail).

Taking an initial 4-week break is really important step—I would encourage you not to commit (at this point) with a date for when you will return but see how the coming weeks unfold. It's also critical to seek help during the recovery process, ideally from someone trained in a form of therapy that addresses the body (Somatic Experiencing Therapy being a good example). Did you notice the [Resilience Wiki](http://resilient.wiki/) that we've started towards the end of the report? Hopefully some of those resources are useful. Also, please feel free to get in touch directly: jonnymiller[at]mac.com

Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply. I had not noticed the Resilience Wiki. This looks excellent, and I will be exploring it thoroughly.

> I entirely agree that normalising this conversation around mental health is essential, yet often requires courage to do so, especially in a work context

Broaching this topic and some of the reasons behind the extended break were terrifying in the work context. I've grown into a leadership role after many successful years with the company, and the thought of "admitting" to my mental health issues was daunting at first. Like it would somehow undo my years of professional progress. I'm grateful that my upper leadership was actually quite receptive, and others have shared that they feel more empowered to address their own issues when they see other people willing to share more about their own struggles.

But even with that, there's still incredible pressure to rise above it and lead the product.

I've been working with a trauma-aware therapist for a few years now (amazingly helpful), and they provided input as I planned the 4 week break. I do plan to explore some of these topics more explicitly in upcoming sessions.

> "Like it would somehow undo my years of professional progress. I'm grateful that my upper leadership was actually quite receptive, and others have shared that they feel more empowered to address their own issues when they see other people willing to share more about their own struggles."

This is a powerful reflection. Vulnerability often feels like weakness to us but looks like courage to others. IMO real change is contingent on a deeper cultural shift that begins with leaders like yourself being willing to step into honest conversations about their inner + outer struggles.

And really great to hear that you have someone experienced working with you to help navigate the coming weeks. Please do reach out if you have curiosities or further questions about any of the emotional regulation activities listed in the wiki (or wish to contribute suggestions of your own).

I know a handful of people who needed time off to recover from burnout - it ranged between 8 weeks to 2 years - depending on if they could convince their Doctor to officially recognise it for government support.

This is key. I was all but completely blind, in bed 18 hours a day in extreme pain, recovering from stokes and various clots. Doctor absolutely would not feel out any paperwork. Claimed that was for specialist. Specialist all claim that was a job for primary.

Disability straight up laughed at me.

Eventful worked through the worst of it, but wow, it’s shocking how bad doctors can be.

I hope you've recovered to full strength. Burnout (and mental health in general) is not talked about nearly enough.

For me (who succumbed to some alcohol and amphetamine abuse to keep working), it took 3 years, and I still get anxiety when I code. But, I also have a history of trauma, so YMMV.

Ya I had burnout so bad 2 years ago that it cost me my job. Your comment about burnout spanning multiple causes and contexts resonates with me. I reached a point where everything felt like work (even recreation), and the news on my social media feed in these times just dragged me down further. Just to warn you, 4 weeks will probably not be enough time to climb out of burnout (it took me more like 6 months), but you can certainly hone your coping skills enough to have a healthy strategy in place going forward. Here's what worked for me:

* Finding and treating health problems you might not have known about (ADHD, sleep apnea, IBS, hypothyroidism from low iodine, low serotonin due to age or not eating enough meat/tryptophan)

* Using positive self-talk (see cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT)

* Separating planning from execution (keeping temporary todo lists and using https://www.depression-chat-rooms.org for tasking sessions with others)

* Eliminating technical debt outside of work (picking the low-hanging fruit of cleaning up your surroundings, your finances and your relationships)

My working theory right now for how burnout works is that it's about a rift between your subconscious and conscious mind. In my case, I had come to rely upon my subconscious to do most of the heavy lifting. So I'd think about a problem and sleep on it, then write the code that came to me in the morning. I took being a lazy programmer to the absolute limit and avoided consciously working through the crux of problems. Basically I mistook going with the flow for being in the zone.

My struggles started when my ADHD issues (which I thought I kicked as a teen) crept up and when I lost interest in my work, my subconscious mind refused to solve problems it wasn't passionate about. I found that tasks that previously happened through muscle memory had to be done by my conscious mind. So I started noticing every single little step. Not just brushing my teeth, but opening the drawer, getting out the toothbrush, opening the toothpaste, squeezing it out, and so on. Working through a day in my home life became almost insurmountable as I was faced with 10,000 grueling steps.

Anyway, that was the year before COVID-19. I survived on my savings and by donating plasma. Luckily I met someone who hired me to do handyman work, and the physical labor was a godsend since I haven't been able to go to the gym.

My health began recovering around Thanksgiving of last year, and I would say I was 85% recovered by around May. The last few months have been great, and I've been able to start programming again in recent weeks. Thankfully the brain circuits that had shut down have reawakened so I don't have to relearn how to code. My mood has risen from a 2-4 out of 10 last year, to a consistent 7-9 the last few months, without medication. When I start slipping down the road towards negative self-talk and darkness, I take time to breathe, slow down, and ask if I'm respecting myself in the situation. I've learned that a big part of my burnout was bad communication and spending too much time dwelling on other people's expectations and my own past mistakes.

Hope this helps someone.

Just wanted to thank you for sharing details about your personal experience.

> So I started noticing every single little step. Not just brushing my teeth, but opening the drawer, getting out the toothbrush, opening the toothpaste, squeezing it out, and so on. Working through a day in my home life became almost insurmountable as I was faced with 10,000 grueling steps.

This really resonated with me. The 10,000 grueling steps thing hits close to home.

My difficulty dealing with such mundane things - things that I told myself should be trivial for a "functioning adult" (some negative self-judgement, but that's another topic) - was a big part of my realization that I had to take more active steps to address the issue.

It's really great to hear things are looking up.

Ya it's hard. Something that helped me was the realization that doing manual tasks for 2 weeks converts them into a habit.

The first thing I'd recommend doing is writing out everything on your todo list. This is just a flow state thing, I don't care if one of the tasks is "put pants on today" or "make my bed" or "remodel the bathroom". Just get at least a dozen (maybe even 100) tasks written. Stop reading here until you've done it :-)

Now go through and tag them as: Recurring, Soon, Tomorrow, This Week, This Month, This Year. Or whatever timescales you prefer to think about. Also give them a rough estimate like 5, 10, 15 minutes, N hours, etc. You can also rate each task on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10 for how urgent they are to you. It might help to move them to the rows of a spreadsheet or use an app (I used Google spreadsheet).

Now you can sort your tasks by column in various ways, and SUM() the estimates to get an overall idea of how long they will take to complete. You can also begin breaking tasks up into subtasks. As a rule of thumb, each task can be separated into lower timescales. So days to hours, hours to minutes. If that's too nebulous, just mark unknowns as TODO.

It helps to reflect periodically on what you are dwelling on, and work to get it out of your head into the TODO list. If you're thinking about it, write it down. It's ok to let the list build up over a few days. This is your time to recuperate and heal from burnout.

At this point, I used the 3 second rule as motivation to do something. The idea being that the body can't perceive the difference between anxiety and excitement. If something caught my fancy, like I could at least gather the papers on my desk into a box, I just did it immediately. Cross that off the list. Sorting could be postponed till later.

So rather than dwelling on brushing my teeth for 2 hours after my girlfriend went to bed, I brushed them immediately after tucking her in. I basically assumed that I had no working memory, and that I was an automaton following a script.

Checking items off the list helped me move up through levels of abstraction. I kind of went from the seconds timescale, up to minutes, hours, and finally days. I realized I had been so knee-deep in my work over 4 years that I had put off like 1 year of chores around our property. The things that seemed so insurmountable (like brushing my teeth) gradually moved from my conscious mind back to the subconscious. It also helped that my girlfriend kept me on task but understood that it was a process.

You can also add in new recurring tasks that don't take effort, but might have been weighing on you for some reason. Things like: going on a 20 minute walk each day, meditating for 20 minutes a few times each week, remembering to eat every 3 hours, taking your B vitamins, etc etc etc. Control the things you can, so you can work up to things that feel outside your control. I strongly believe that as you get your recurring tasks back into your routine, you'll feel a lot better.

The term for all of this is "executive dysfunction". It's getting really common in young people because we're so saturated with multitasking and interruption that it's shortening our attention spans. And in my case, I was trying to hold these huge problem spaces in my head too for work. So my motivation was completely exhausted day in and day out, and I couldn't even manage to do something as minor as getting a letter in the mail (I'd put it off for weeks).

But ya, as I climbed out of my hole, I started realizing that much of my burnout revolved around an emotional issue. Cleaning my home office wasn't the problem, going through 10 years of old bills/paperwork and reliving some difficult times in my life was. I guess I had hoarded that baggage in my mind. You'll have your own insights though.

And it will absolutely get better, even though it feels rough right now. Just move at least 1 step forward each day and you WILL reach your destination.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I don't have to use my TODO lists anymore. I do use the iOS calendar app, or jot things down occasionally in Slack, but it's few and far between. So put aside any worries of lists coming to dominate your life :-)

If you are recovering from burnout wtf are you reading HN? Take a break already.

Reading HN is fun and interesting.

Fun, interesting, and in this case, very timely.

Taking this break isn't just about not doing anything, but is also about actively seeking new ways to handle my current situation. Had I not been on HN, I wouldn't have found this treasure trove of a document :)

I wish I could get four weeks off. I'm in a company that switched over to "unlimited vacation" which in practice means no vacation, and also working most weekends and some holidays.

Been thinking about leaving, but I can't. I have to pay medical bills for the family. But I'm not qualified for my current job -- I can't be a full time programmer and a part time manager too. All of the lying about progress I can't make is killing me. I've asked to change to a different job, but the CEO told me that I would not be considered for another job in front of the head of HR. By definition, I guess I'm stuck in a dead-end job.

I know I'm in burnout, burnoutindex.org gives me 5.6 out of 6. But there's nothing I can do to improve the situation.

While I see that this research is aimed at leadership positions and this must surely be a problem, I feel obligated to point out that the issue of burnout could be an even worse problem in non-leadership positions.

It seems that a lot of the suggested solutions (take time off, be more honest about your emotions, etc.) are necessarily things that are difficult to do for people who are not in management positions. Requesting long blocks of time off or being forthcoming about your emotions are easily things that can be used against you in employee reviews and other similar situations.

In cases of severe burnout, the situation is more dire since people earning a lower salary might simply not be able to step back from work to take a year off, for example (something that was suggested by another poster here).

While I understand the intention to highlight the other side of the problem, all these issues are significantly more severe for people in leadership positions.

I can't imagine taking more than 2 weeks off from work. These solutions aren't really solutions unless the person in question decides to quit their job. There is no snowballs chance in hell that a company will tolerate absence of their management staff that is longer than 4 weeks. A replacement or substituion would be required fairly soon.

Being open about one's emotion in a leadership position is a ridiculous advice, it's obvious that the authors have no idea what they're recommending.

> There is no snowballs chance in hell that a company will tolerate absence of their management staff that is longer than 4 weeks.

I've worked in places where, at any given time, at least one something-something manager was on a one-year sabbatical. One of them literally requested it -- and got it -- in order to spend more time with their daughter, who was going to college the following year, since that was their last chance to spend quality time with her for a few years. Lots of people in a non-management positions have trouble attending their kids' graduation ceremonies if they're out of state -- getting a whole year off to see them off to college is pretty much science fiction.

Yes, they generally didn't leave smack in the middle of a project, but there's a lot of no man's land in-between projects.

I don't understand how any of this is surprising. Justifiably or not, benefits and perks are clustered around leadership positions, that's literally one of the reasons why people are seeking them.

Plus, in many large companies, it can easily take 6-12 months to recruit someone for a leadership position. Granting three-month vacations to the people you already have is a really good idea.

Manager? How high up were they?

Way closer to a junior dev than a C-level position ;-).

Edit: one-year sabbaticals aside, which aren't that common outside large companies, longer vacations are normal simply because extra paid vacation days are a standard benefit you get with a promotion.

> There is no snowballs chance in hell that a company will tolerate absence of their management staff that is longer than 4 weeks

That's a very US-centric view.

In some countries, people get 4 weeks vacations yearly, and can take them all in one block. Yes. A full month outside work. Fully outside, not this "I'm away but will be available by mail" BS.

If this is expected, companies will plan for it and will survive just fine. Normalizing the non-stop grind should not be acceptable.

Burn out cost me a job. I was just getting back of on track when they let me go. I'm in a new job and loving being productive again.

of course! however, this demographic most likely doesn't have as much disposable income and thus is not the target audience of the authors coaching program.

I wish every leader gets access to these frameworks and takeaways. The #1 issue I face with every single client I've worked with over the years as an executive coach is exactly what they are pointing out here: that dealing with our emotions and inner worlds is the biggest challenge of all. Learning to deal with that has the highest ROI on both success and fulfillment/happiness compared to any other activity for a leader imo.

Thanks Leo, we have you to thank for introducing us to the concept of 'emotional debt'. I totally agree that for the majority of us, navigating the inner-world + increasing self-awareness has an absurdly high ROI on success/fulfillment.

What I also find fascinating is how running a company or leading a team appear to be an incredibly efficient vehicle for surfacing one's own sh*t—and once this new perspective is adopted—it becomes more potent than any self-help program out there for one's own personal growth.

Really relate to this. I shut down my startup in April. On paper, we ran out of money.

Behind the scenes, I finally paid the toll/ burnt out after 1-2 years of constant unexpected, unpredictable shocks. As a solo founder with investors, there was no escape, no one to run things while I took time off, and no way to leave without ending the company. At points, if my phone buzzed with a text message, I would go into a panic attack, expecting another problem.

I’m now reading a book on the impact of trauma on psychology and while my experience was nothing compared to people who went to war, etc - I see a lot of similarities. Eg there are external triggers that shock your body without your control.

One of the frustrating parts was that I knew it was happening as it was happening. I had the language to identify I was burnt out, had a coach, a therapist, tried to leverage a support network, etc. I do wish there were more solutions for this.

At a minimum, it’s good that this issue is getting talked about more and more. An important requirement to take a sabbatical as in the example in the paper is having buy-in from board members, investors, or team mates, so getting more people on board with mental health is key.

Question - curious if anyone has seen any books on burnout recovery. Thus far, 4 months in, it’s quite a long process.

it's very individual and you may not find a "recovery template". Personally, I find that best remedies are 1) attaching yourself to a bigger goal, where even "at least I tried" and "at least I've advanced X area by a few steps" are fulfilling narratives. 2) finding something no matter how small, where you excel. Hobbies are great. Maybe your startup is a mess, but your bird dog yoga pose is pure perfection. (1) helps deal with the shocks of failures and (2) helps refill your confidence tank to try at the problem one more time.

> I’m now reading a book on the impact of trauma on psychology

It would be wonderful if you are able to share the name of the book. I am interested in giving it a read.

Just my tidbit:

I am 8 months into my journey after severe burnout (decided to take n amount of time off till I felt “right” last December).

I am not a founder, but have worked in high caliber roles for the last few years (I am still fairly early in my career). My last job was at a YC company.

I started out thinking it’d be 2 months. Then 4. Then it turned into 6. I panicked a lot in the beginning, I am used to overworking or nothing. It just took time, and things started to fall into place mentally (and even physically).

Now I’ve accepted that at a year, I believe I’ll be ready. I’m happy to report I feel motivation creeping in - and my creative wheels have been turning. It’s really about where to channel things next. It is the most refreshing and rewarding feeling in the world, to see light at the end of the technical-block tunnel.

If I’m completely honest, there are still days when I dread the thought of returning to the screen, even when I don’t want to - but those days are less and less. I’m extremely fortunate to have been able to do this.

Burnouts are like bad breakups - our nerves are likes wounds, and it just takes time to heal them after putting them on overdrive for extended periods of time. The emotional toll is taxing, a high and illogical price to pay when you consider resting like we are designed to do. Just my two cents, good luck!

This is really insightful, thanks for sharing.

I've had my own challenges with burnout. It's why I ended up leaving the corporate world. I've been working on a startup for about a year and while I feel a lot better, I have noticed that I'm not taking any time off. I fortunately have a good group of coaches & mentors around me now that are looking out for me, which has been life saving. I will definitely dive deeper into the report and use some of these tools to build resilience for myself and my team.

Despite the praise, I don’t see much of value. This is taxonomic in nature, giving you some loose categories to decompose sources of stress and emotional debt, but tons of research has been done in these areas, and this survey is a bit contrived with not very much data in the scheme of things.

None of that is a big deal really, but what bugs me is nothing in the document offers concrete strategy or tactics to resolve emotional debt or burnout. Advice like “be self-aware” and “go for a walk” and “get enough sleep” is terrible because everyone is already trying all that and burnout hits you specifically when circumstances prevent you from adequately “just” doing them.

It’s empty non-advice, very similar to saying “eat right & exercise” to a depressed person.

It reminds me a bit of this discussion of severe life events as a major explainer of most depression,

https://grasshoppermouse.github.io/2018/12/16/seven-reasons-...

It’s the same with burnout.

You can torture out “shadow” reasons all you want, but it’s really deflecting from the big obvious fact that un-live-with-able circumstances are un-live-with-able and you need to actually fix and remove traumatic circumstances. You should not talk about or endorse “being resilient” to them, because it’s just victim blaming “you need to take care of yourself” dressed up in pseudotheory.

Honestly I see more harm than good in analysis like this. Especially in terms of letting corporations and HR departments deflect and ignore fixing toxic work environments rampant with major burnout stressors, by supplying braindead platitudes like “go for a walk” or “be self-aware” and even worse saying, “look our leaders are doing it, so they’re not asking you to do something they themselves aren’t doing.”

Hi, appreciate the feedback (I'm Jonny, one of the co-authors), writing this we were conscious of framing this report not as a finished artefact, but as the beginning of a multi-year resilience research study and we fully acknowledge that it raises more questions than it provides answers.

However, we also did make an effort to outline some concrete strategies for relieving emotional debt in section 7 and also outlined in the [wiki](http://resilient.wiki/), which include daily/weekly/monthly/annual activities (although by no means an exhaustive list and invite readers to contribute additional suggestions).

> re: Especially in terms of letting corporations and HR departments deflect and ignore fixing toxic work environments rampant with major burnout stressors

This may be well the case in some organisations and part of our intention with the 'Shadow Stressors' framework was to shed light on those sources of stress in the 'ambient/external quadrant' which would likely fall under the responsibility of the organisation's leadership to address.

This is a good discussion of burnout overall, but it's missing a key part:

Sometimes you're in a terrible environment and need to leave. The company you work for could be terrible, and no amount of emotional calisthenics will prepare you for trying to breathe on the surface of the moon.

Here's a handy link to the PDF, which is easier on the eyes than google docs: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KaPv-yVxjLb8b4WlF0nsAA5b6ft...

This was a phenomenal read and led me to ask my own question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24265697

Appreciate that Tom, and yes the PDF is a more readable summary for those who don't have time to read all the way through the 60+ page Gdoc ;)

And a support group / Slack channel for Software Engineers sounds like a superb idea.

Protect yourself from Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others)

On a vaguely related note, the 'How I built this' podcast has recently been running a 'How I built resilience' series, focusing on how founders and entrepreneurs are navigating turbulent times. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this

Thanks for sharing this, I'll have a listen!

There are 13 responses from Canada, but 89 from Toronto. Did the author intend to write 9 ?

The author did indeed (fixed) thanks for catching that (it slipped by us & our proof-reader)

cold showers - recommend Wimhoff

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