Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building and goala GV.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fellavledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven to seventy three. Today's episode is called
Speaker 2: Emotional fatigue is not Burnout. I think leaders have started
Speaker 2: using the word burnout far too often. Someone has a
Speaker 2: difficult week, They're burned out. A project takes longer than expected,
Speaker 2: They're burned out. One difficult employee shows up every day
Speaker 2: with a new problem. They're burned out. And sometimes that's true.
Speaker 2: Many times it isn't. Many people are experiencing emotional fittig,
Speaker 2: not burnout, and those are two very different things, and
Speaker 2: if you don't know the difference, you'll end up trying
Speaker 2: to solve the wrong problem. Burnout is usually the result
Speaker 2: of long term, unresolved stress. It builds over time. It
Speaker 2: slowly drains motivation, energy, and purpose until someone begins feeling
Speaker 2: detached from their work. Burnout doesn't usually happen because of
Speaker 2: one difficult meeting or one rough shift. It develops after
Speaker 2: months of carrying more than someone can reasonably handle. Emotional
Speaker 2: fatigue is different. Emotional fatigue often shows up after carrying
Speaker 2: everyone else's emotions. It happens when you're constantly listening to complaints,
Speaker 2: constantly managing conflict and absorbing disappointment and delivering difficult news,
Speaker 2: and constantly trying to keep everyone motivated while your own
Speaker 2: emotional tank keeps getting lower. The work itself may not
Speaker 2: even be exhausting people are. If you've ever driven home
Speaker 2: after work and realized you weren't physically tired at all,
Speaker 2: you were emotionally drained, you've experienced emotional fatigue. As leaders,
Speaker 2: we are emotional shock absorbers. Employees bring us frustration, Customers
Speaker 2: bring us complaints, boards bring expectations, Families bring needs, communities
Speaker 2: bring pressure, and eventually all of that weight has to
Speaker 2: land somewhere. Many leaders quietly carry it, Nobody notices, nobody asks,
Speaker 2: and then one day someone says you look burned out.
Speaker 2: Maybe you're not. Maybe you've simply spent six straight weeks
Speaker 2: carrying emotions that didn't belong to you. And here's another
Speaker 2: important difference. Burnout often makes people want to quit. Emotional
Speaker 2: fatigue usually makes people want silence. You don't necessarily want
Speaker 2: another job. You simply want thirty minutes where nobody needs
Speaker 2: anything from you. Think about that. If your first instinct
Speaker 2: after work is to sit quietly in your car before
Speaker 2: walking inside your house, you might not be burned out.
Speaker 2: You might be emotionally overloaded. That distinction matters because the
Speaker 2: solutions are completely different. If you're burned out, you may
Speaker 2: need major changes. You may need staffing adjustments, a different workload,
Speaker 2: better boundaries, time away, or even a redesigned role. If
Speaker 2: you're emotionally fatigued, you may need emotional recovery. You need
Speaker 2: moments where you're not solving problems, where you're not making decisions,
Speaker 2: where you're not carrying everyone else's expectations. One mistake I
Speaker 2: see leaders make is believing every conversation deserves the same
Speaker 2: emotional investment. It doesn't. Every complaint doesn't deserve an hour,
Speaker 2: Every disagreement doesn't deserve your peace, Every crisis doesn't deserve
Speaker 2: your entire emotional reserve. One of the greatest leadership skills
Speaker 2: you'll ever develop is deciding how much emotional energy each
Speaker 2: situation deserves. Some conversations deserve your heart, others deserve five
Speaker 2: minutes in a decision. The most effective leaders I've met
Speaker 2: are not emotionally cold. They're emotionally disciplined. They know where
Speaker 2: to invest themselves. Think about emergency services for a moment.
Speaker 2: As a paramedic, I've responded to thousands of emergencies. If
Speaker 2: I carried every tragedy home with me, wouldn't have survived
Speaker 2: this career. You learn that empathy is essential. Emotional ownership
Speaker 2: is dangerous. You care deeply while recognizing that not every
Speaker 2: burden belongs on your shoulders. That lesson applies whether you're
Speaker 2: running an ambulance service, a manufacturing company, a school district,
Speaker 2: or even a small business. Leadership requires compassion. Leadership also
Speaker 2: requires emotional boundaries. Those two ideas can exist together. So
Speaker 2: here's a simple question to ask yourself this week. Am
Speaker 2: I burned out? Or am I emotionally tired? If you're
Speaker 2: emotionally tired, ask yourself one more question. What am I
Speaker 2: carrying that was never mine to carry? That one question
Speaker 2: may change everything. Maybe you're carrying someone's attitude, someone else's
Speaker 2: poor planning, someone else's lack of accountability, someone else's unwillingness
Speaker 2: to grow. Leaders often become emotional storage units for problems
Speaker 2: that belong somewhere else. You have to empty that storage room,
Speaker 2: hand responsibility back where it belongs. You'll probably discover you
Speaker 2: have far more energy than you thought, because leadership isn't
Speaker 2: about carrying everything. It's about carrying the right things. And
Speaker 2: that's a lesson every leader needs to hear. So as
Speaker 2: you move through your week, pay attention to your emotional dashboard.
Speaker 2: Before you tell yourself you're burned out, take an honest
Speaker 2: look at what's really draining. You may not need a
Speaker 2: new job, you may not need a vacation. You may
Speaker 2: simply need healthier emotional boundaries. Leadership is demanding, but it
Speaker 2: should never require you to carry the weight of every
Speaker 2: person around you. This has been the seven minute Leadership Podcast,
Speaker 2: and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more, Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.