Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building and golachieving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul
Speaker 1: Fello Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode five sixty eight today. I want to talk
Speaker 2: about something I see leaders confuse all the time, burnout
Speaker 2: versus leadership fatigue. They sound similar, they feel similar, but
Speaker 2: they are not the same thing. If you misdiagnose which
Speaker 2: one you're dealing with, you will apply the wrong fix
Speaker 2: and make it worse. Burnout is depletion. Leadership fatigue is
Speaker 2: a load of heavy weight. Burnout is when the tank
Speaker 2: is empty. Leadership fatigue is when the tank still has
Speaker 2: fuel but the engine has been running it redline for
Speaker 2: too long. And if you picture this like aviation, burnout
Speaker 2: is running out of fuel at altitude, leadership fatigue is
Speaker 2: flying for hours in turbulence, constantly adjusting constantly, and they're alert,
Speaker 2: never getting a smooth stretch of air. The plane can
Speaker 2: still fly, but the pilot is exhausted. Burnout shows out
Speaker 2: as numbness. You stop caring, decisions, feel heavy, conversations feel pointless.
Speaker 2: You start fantasizing about quitting, disappearing, or doing something completely different.
Speaker 2: The mission no longer matters because you are spent. Leadership
Speaker 2: fatigue is different. You still care deeply, you still show up,
Speaker 2: you still want to win, but everything feels heavier than
Speaker 2: it should. Small issues drain you. You get irritated faster,
Speaker 2: You find yourself saying I'm tired of having the same conversations,
Speaker 2: or why am I the only one carrying this? That
Speaker 2: is leadership fatigue. Burnout requires recovery. Leadership fatigue requires recalibration.
Speaker 2: Most leaders try to rest their way out of leadership fatigue.
Speaker 2: They take a day off, they take a vacation, they
Speaker 2: unplug for a weekend. Then they come back, and within
Speaker 2: hours they feel the same weight again. That is because
Speaker 2: the problem was never rest. The problem was load distribution,
Speaker 2: decision drag, and emotional leakage. Leadership fatigue comes from carrying
Speaker 2: things you were never meant to carry alone, unclear expectations,
Speaker 2: unfinished conversations, avoided accountability, being the shock absorber for everyone
Speaker 2: else's stress, making every decision big and small, letting problems
Speaker 2: linger because dealing with them feels exhausting. That stuff piles
Speaker 2: up quietly. There's always a hidden chain of events. Fatigue
Speaker 2: does not arrive in one dramatic moment. It sneaks in
Speaker 2: through tolerance, tolerating behavior that you should address, tolerating standard slipping,
Speaker 2: tolerating being the only adult in the room. Burnout, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, is often physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion
Speaker 2: stacked together. Sleep is off, health is off, motivation is gone.
Speaker 2: Burnout does not care how strong you are. It does
Speaker 2: not respond to pushing harder. It demands a reset. And
Speaker 2: here's the dangerous part. Leaders with fatigue think they are
Speaker 2: burned out, so they start pulling away emotionally, they disengage,
Speaker 2: they go quiet, they stop coaching, they stop correcting, and
Speaker 2: that creates more chaos, which increases the load, which accelerates
Speaker 2: real burnout. This is why naming the problem matters. If
Speaker 2: you are burned out, the solution is not a new planner,
Speaker 2: a new system, or a new mind mindset. The solution
Speaker 2: is recovery, boundaries, and sometimes a hard stop. If you're
Speaker 2: experiencing leadership fatigue, the solution is leadership hygiene. Let me
Speaker 2: give you some practical, field tested moves here. First, clean
Speaker 2: up your decision stack, write down every decision that lands
Speaker 2: on your desk. In a week, you will be shocked
Speaker 2: how many of them never needed you. Fatigue comes from
Speaker 2: unnecessary decision ownership. Second, close open loops, unfinished conversations drain
Speaker 2: more energy than hard ones. Every avoided issue is like
Speaker 2: a background app running on your phone. You don't see it,
Speaker 2: but it's killing your battery. Third, reset standards out loud.
Speaker 2: Fatigue grows in silence. When expectations are on clear, leaders
Speaker 2: end up carrying the emotional weight of disappointment. Clear standards
Speaker 2: reduce friction and mental load. Fourth, absorbing emotions that are
Speaker 2: not yours. You can care without carrying. You can listen
Speaker 2: without owning. Leaders who take on everyone else's stress eventually
Speaker 2: collapse under it. Fifth, protect your seven minutes leadership. Fatigue
Speaker 2: is often a signal that you stopped investing in yourself.
Speaker 2: Seven intentional minutes a day to think, reset, sharpen your
Speaker 2: leadership lens is not optional, its maintenance. Here's the quick
Speaker 2: gut check question. When you imagine stepping away, do you
Speaker 2: feel relief or emptiness? Relief points to fatigue, Emptiness points
Speaker 2: to burnout. Both are serious, Both deserve attention, but they
Speaker 2: require different responses. I have led in high stress environments
Speaker 2: where fatigue was constant ems crisis response, command decisions under pressure,
Speaker 2: fatigue was part of the terrain. Burnout was the warning
Speaker 2: light that you never ignore. Strong leaders do not power
Speaker 2: through blindly. They diagnose accurately, they adjust early. They protect
Speaker 2: their ability to lead tomorrow. So if this episode feels
Speaker 2: uncomfortably accurate, that is a good thing. Awareness is the
Speaker 2: first corrective action. Leadership is not about being endlessly strong.
Speaker 2: It's about knowing what you're actually dealing with and responding.
Speaker 2: Like a professional, burnout needs recovery. Leadership fatigue needs structure, clarity,
Speaker 2: and courage. Fix the right problem and you get your
Speaker 2: edge back. 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
Speaker 1: com