Burnout is rampant in today’s workforce, yet the very people who have the power to prevent it—the top leaders and decision-makers—often refuse to invest in solutions. Meanwhile, middle managers recognize burnout as a significant issue for frontline employees but find themselves stuck between advocating for their teams and dealing with leaders who don’t see burnout as a priority. This disconnect creates a cycle that perpetuates burnout, leading to disengagement, high turnover, and decreased productivity. Leaders don’t prioritize burnout, and employees, leadership, and the company suffer.
So, why won’t senior leadership invest in burnout prevention? And what can middle managers do to bridge the gap and push for change?
Why Senior Leaders Don’t Prioritize Burnout Prevention
1. They See Burnout as an Individual, Not an Organizational, Issue
Many executives believe burnout is a personal failing—something that employees should manage on their own through better time management, resilience, or self-care. The misconception that burnout is an individual problem rather than a systemic one prevents leaders from addressing the structural causes, such as workload, unrealistic expectations, and poor work-life balance.
2. They Don’t See an Immediate ROI
Executives are often driven by numbers, and burnout prevention initiatives can seem like a cost with no clear or immediate return on investment. They may recognize the long-term benefits, such as reduced turnover and higher productivity, but without an instant financial payoff, many hesitate to invest in strategies like burnout programs, mental health resources, or leadership training.
3. They’re Out of Touch with the Frontline Experience
One reason leaders don’t prioritize burnout is because they are often far removed from the daily struggles of frontline employees. They may have climbed the corporate ladder at a time when burnout wasn’t as widely discussed, or they may simply not hear about burnout issues due to a lack of communication channels between leadership and employees. If they don’t experience burnout firsthand, they’re unlikely to prioritize it. Even when they do experience it, they likely have a hustle, grind, go, go, go mentality.
4. Burnout Is Embedded in the Company Culture
In many organizations, long hours, overworking, and constant availability are seen as badges of honor. Leaders who have built their careers on these values may resist efforts to change the culture, viewing burnout prevention as a sign of weakness rather than a necessary step toward sustainable success.
5. Budget Constraints and Short-Term Thinking
Even when leaders acknowledge burnout, budget restrictions often become an excuse to avoid action. With pressure to hit quarterly earnings and financial targets, investments in burnout prevention are often sidelined in favor of immediate cost-cutting measures, even if those measures contribute to long-term burnout and turnover costs.
What Middle Managers Can Do to Drive Change When Leaders Don’t Prioritize Burnout
While middle managers may not have the final say on organizational budgets, they do play a critical role in influencing leadership and advocating for burnout prevention, especially when leaders don’t prioritize burnout. Here are actionable steps they can take:
1. Translate Burnout into Business Metrics
To get leaders on board, middle managers need to present burnout in terms executives care about—numbers. Show how burnout impacts key business metrics like productivity, retention, absenteeism, and engagement. Use internal data, industry research, and case studies to demonstrate the financial cost of burnout and the potential ROI of investing in prevention strategies.
2. Share Employee Stories and Data
Leaders may dismiss statistics, but real employee experiences can be more compelling. Gather anonymous feedback from employees about their burnout experiences and share it in leadership meetings. Show how burnout is affecting morale, performance, and turnover rates. You can begin this process through a taskforce. Create a burnout taskforce within your company, who can be the eyes and ears for management, gathering important information to share with leaders.
3. Start Small and Prove Success
If leadership resists large-scale initiatives, propose small, low-cost pilot programs to demonstrate their effectiveness. Simple interventions like incorporating more fun at work, flexible work schedules, workload adjustments, or manager training can show immediate positive results, making it easier to justify larger investments later.
4. Empower Frontline Managers to Make Changes
Even without top-down support, middle managers can implement changes at their level. This might include adjusting team workloads, developing acknowledgement and appreciation practices, encouraging small, frequent breaks, and creating a culture where employees feel comfortable discussing burnout.
5. Leverage External Pressure and Trends
Executives pay attention to what competitors and industry leaders are doing. Highlight companies that have successfully implemented burnout prevention strategies and how they’ve benefited. Share articles, reports, and case studies to show that addressing burnout is becoming a competitive advantage. If your competition is doing it, they will also have a better chance of recruiting top talent.
6. Frame Burnout Prevention as a Retention Strategy
With labor shortages and high turnover rates across industries, retaining talent is more critical than ever. Make the case that investing in burnout prevention is an investment in keeping skilled employees, reducing costly turnover, and maintaining institutional knowledge.
7. Push for Leadership Accountability
Encourage senior leaders to take an active role in addressing burnout. This could include having them participate in employee listening sessions, conduct regular engagement surveys, or commit to leadership training that includes burnout awareness.
The Bottom Line: Leaders Don’t Prioritize Burnout
Burnout is not just an employee issue—it’s an organizational issue with direct impacts on productivity, retention, and overall business success. Yet, many top leaders fail to recognize its urgency, leaving middle managers in the difficult position of advocating for change.
By framing burnout prevention in terms of business impact, sharing real employee experiences, and implementing small-scale changes that demonstrate success, middle managers can push leadership to take burnout seriously. The goal is not just to convince decision-makers to invest in burnout prevention but to shift organizational culture toward sustainable success—where employees thrive, not just survive.
Leaders don’t prioritize burnout, and it’s time to change that. They need to stop seeing burnout as a personal problem and start treating it as the business crisis that it is. And middle managers are the key to making that shift happen. When leaders don’t prioritize burnout, everyone suffers.
If you’re ready to build a resilient, high-performing workforce that thrives without burnout, let’s talk. The future of work belongs to companies that put well-being first—make sure yours is one of them. Burnoutable.com>> Info@Burnoutable.com
ABOUT JESSICA:
Jessica Rector is on a mission to help others truly live.
Founder of Burnoutable, the first comprehensive SaaS platform to prevent and end burnout, Jessica empowers you to get out of your comfort zone and into possibilities, so you can break through burnout and tackle your negative thoughts to turn them into positive action and bigger outcomes!
Through their research, The Burnout Institute consults with companies and train teams to create a culture that no one wants to leave by enhancing mental health and eradicating burnout. They have worked with clients such as Scotiabank, NBCUniversal, the Dallas Mavericks, and Fortune’s #2 “Best Company to work for.”
As a #1 best-selling author of 12 books, Jessica has been interviewed on NBC for her research and work on burnout. As an HR.com Future of Employee Well-Being Advisory Board Member, Jessica helps to change the conversation around burnout and mental health with senior leaders and executives.
When she is not traveling around the world for work, Jessica enjoys creating more Say Yes experiences, while learning about the exciting world of Transformers, so she can carry on real conversations with her CFO, Chief Fun Officer, her twelve-year-old son, Blaise, who is also a #1 best-seller author and the youngest published author in the United States.
Get Jessica’s recent book, Blaze Your Brain to Extinguish Burnout: 52 Tip to Prevent, Break Through and Eliminate Burnout at jessicarector.com. Connect with her on LinkedIn by CLICKING HERE.
