Stretching Too Thin: How To Manage When You’re The Do-It-All Boss

Supporting team members and helping them grow as their manager is a rewarding experience. You might thrive in a leadership role, but being great at your job doesn’t mean you’ll never feel stretched thin. Read more about managing burnout as the do-it-all boss to improve your quality of life without delegating or changing your career.

People in any workplace role can experience burnout because it develops in numerous ways. These are the leading types of burnout that might affect your stress levels: 

• Schedule overload: Staying busy for hours at a time keeps your nervous system too active. Your mind and body stay on alert when you’re more stressed, facilitating harmful burnout-related health conditions, such as immunosuppression and inflammation. 
• Workplace desensitization: Your mind becomes more tolerant of stressful events when dealing with workplace challenges. Although you might think this is a helpful skill in management, gardening yourself over time weakens your empathy skills and affects how you connect with others.
• Misalignment burnout: You may feel burnt out when your values don’t match your job or professional goals. If you aren’t sure about your core values, it even affects the outcomes and behaviors you want for your team.

No matter which type of burnout you’re dealing with, there are always solutions to support your mental health. All you have to do is make simple lifestyle changes.

When you can’t take an extended vacation, use these tips to ease your stress. They’re easy to implement in any job if you consider which would help your mental health the most.

Answering emails after clocking out is tempting, but it increases stress. Use your after-hours time to rejuvenate your mental health with creative or relaxing hobbies. You’ll feel more rested and better able to manage your team the next day.

A five-minute break won’t hurt your team’s goals. Set alerts on your calendar to take short breaks throughout your day. Taking deep breaths or enjoying a quick walk outside lets your mind settle before returning to your team.

Losing hydration can affect your cognitive abilities, which means hydration could be a powerful tool when you’re stretching too thin. Keep a water bottle at your desk or set alerts to drink water throughout the day to improve your burnout symptoms with water.

Tackling your most challenging tasks in the morning might make the rest of your day feel more manageable. Consider shifting your work schedule to oversee your team with less effort. You could also complete your toughest tasks when you have the most energy. Noting your natural energy fluctuations throughout the week will indicate when your brain is at its best each day.

Being with your team at work might not be enough to defeat your loneliness. Your colleagues may be unable to relate to the management stressors causing your burnout. Social isolation causes higher stress through changed oxytocin levels unless you build a community with others in management positions. Talking about your challenges with people who understand might make you feel better even if there’s no apparent solution for your current problems.

You can be the do-it-all boss and live with less stress by learning how to manage your burnout. Once you know which types of burnout are most prevalent in your life, you can try these tips to improve your routine and feel more comfortable in your job again.