Some advice on thriving and avoiding burnout
A useful excerpt from a recent interview with Authority Magazine
I recently had the pleasure of being interview by Authority Magazine and I thought I’d share one of the most important answers. The question was -What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?
It’s so hard to recognize burnout from the limited signals we get in remote work, so I wanted to work through some of the tools managers have to recognize and mitigate this.
To see the whole interview, click here
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?
For managers, it’s giving your team direction, agency, and community. Direction means being really clear about goal-setting, the “why” of the work that needs to be done. But if that is done well, managers need to get out of the way. Micromanagement doesn’t work, in remote offices or in person. Agency means teams feel in charge of their own efforts. Employees need to feel entrusted to work on their goals to contribute effectively to the business.
Community is the most challenging aspect for leaders to build. How do you create an environment where everyone feels part of a vibrant team? Some of this is Slack or comms etiquette, finding the proper channels to keep it lighthearted and personal without being a distraction. Some of it is in-person gatherings at a regular cadence because there really is no replacement for face-to-face time.
Burnout can happen when managers aren’t paying attention to the balance in their team’s lives, whether that’s work-life balance, collaborative work versus solo work, or fun-at-work versus output-focus-work. Each of these delicate balances has to be acknowledged and monitored by managers. Making sure the team’s meeting calendars aren’t overwhelming, that the ratio of “work” to “fun” messages in shared comms spaces stays about the same, and that people in general show up to team meetings with enthusiasm can help managers ensure their team members are enjoying their roles.
Read the rest of the article here
And if any of my readers are going Women Lead Change in Cedar Rapids next week, let me know! I’ll be on stage talking about the culture of communication mediums and why document commenting is such an etiquette pitfall ;)