Burnout is contagious
Why my team started dropping like flies, mentally infectious diseases and your ethical obligation to take time off
The burnout contagion
One by one, individual members of my team started dropping like flies. I noticed they were curt in responses, took more time off, and didn’t seem to be enjoying their work anymore. In fact, there were at least four of my team members who got to the point where they almost quit, and two who eventually did. One of them, a cofounder, had a stomach tumor (benign, fortunately) and later left the business because he was sick. Thank god, because it would have likely killed him. Another team member, after going off on me in an unfiltered bout of anger, burned out and left the next week.
Damn.
A lot of this was my fault. As I put more and more work on my own plate, I assumed others would be okay with the same. I didn’t listen to my body nor their needs, and I pushed, pushed, pushed. I bought into the startup narrative of hard work and blah blah. Be grateful that you weren’t working with me at that time.
But partly, it was their lack of boundaries, and their inability to set their feet down and say No. For example, my other co-founder didn’t have this issue with boundaries. He was very firm with what he would and wouldn’t do. He was the only full-time employee who didn’t get burned out.
When I put him into another role, he tried it for a couple of weeks but didn’t enjoy it, so he came back to me and requested to go back to his previous role. “I don’t like this and am going to switch into another role.” Boom. Okay, I hear you. This assertiveness was clear boundary-setting, and when I decided to let go of the business he was the only one who had any energy to keep it going for a while.
And it was no coincidence that my team was burning out.
A fascinating study that came out of the University of Bremen in Germany found that the number of mental disorder diagnoses in their existing workforce increased after hiring newcomers with mental disorders. Those with burnout, depression, and anxiety were causing those same issues in others.
What! Does that mean burnout is contagious? Well, it would explain why almost my whole team got burned out. Not only that, but the same study found that burnout spreads ACROSS organizations too. The burned out person who quits their company, doesn’t fully recover or develop healthy habits, and then joins a new company is spreading the disease.
This is the rise of mentally infectious diseases, a new type of pandemic.
If this is true, there’s a great reason beyond our own sanity to prioritize our mental health— it’s for the betterment of everyone around us. Our drive for success and spiraling further into burnout starts to impact those around us and causes unnecessary suffering.
Simply put, it is our ethical obligation to society, to our colleagues and our workplace to prioritize our own mental health.
No wonder that 70% of people say they are burned out and cite it as the main reason they leave their jobs. They may be getting it from others around them, or at least are more likely to.
Does that mean you shouldn’t work if you are medically diagnosed with anxiety disorder, depression or have burnout?
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