Supporting Manager Burnout in the Age of Doing More With Less

Almost every workplace is running on tighter budgets and leaner teams, yet facing rising expectations. Managers are expected to deliver results, motivate their people, and adapt to constant change. And do so while facing reduced resources. The pressure to “do more with less” has become the norm, but the cost is clear: manager burnout is on the rise.

Harvard Business Review estimates that 50% of managers are experiencing burnout at work. Additionally, The Wellbeing Project claims that managers facing burnout are 5.3x more likely to leave a role. Beyond the personal toll of burnout on managers, this strain has ripple effects on team morale, performance, and recruiting costs.

These days, managers are under relentless pressure: they’re doing more with less. Current hiring freezes mean that managers’ roles are being stretched to cover more responsibilities. Unfortunately, this increase in tasks means higher anxiety in leaders by 21%, according to Culture Cloud, which increases the odds of manager burnout 6x. Not to mention negatively impacting engagement by 51%.

They also face an emotional load from leading teams, supporting people also coping with increased responsibilities. All while trying to stay steady themselves. It piles on. Eventually, work-life balance is impacted, and even physical health can be at risk.

I’ve seen this in the trenches myself. Leadership roles aren’t just about tasks; they’re about people, which means emotional labor is often invisible yet exhausting.

Here are six common (and sometimes subtle) signs that organizations often miss for manager burnout:

I’ve coached managers who thought they were just tired, only to realize they were on a burnout trajectory. Unfortunately, these are quiet alarms that often go unnoticed until morale dips or people leave. They may not hit all at once and an employee may dip in and out of them with sudden waves of high-performance and drive. But make no mistake, burnout is there and it needs to be addressed.

Manager burnout has three levels of impact:

Firstly, managers, with overly complex workloads, tight teams, tighter budgets, yet higher expectations face mental and physical health concerns. As they try and cope with more and more, engagement slips. Decisions slow. Mistakes creep in. It’s inevitable.

Secondly, when a manager is burnt out, the team feels it. A manager who’s burnt out can’t provide the support more junior team members need. So morale drops, engagement drops, productivity drops.

Finally, once an entire team’s performance is impacted, the ripple effect can be felt across the whole organization.

In short: manager burnout is both a human risk and a business risk.

If we want to change this, HR and senior leadership can help by:

However, these initiatives need to be embedded into your culture and regularly pushed, reviewed, promoted and improved.

Doing more with less doesn’t have to mean burning people out. A supportive culture can make all the difference.

Incorporate the following into your cultural activities to keep burnout at the fore of your agenda:

Manager burnout is both a human issue and a business issue. It’s about caring for people and protecting performance.

So here’s what I hope: that organizations will decide wellbeing matters as much as productivity. That HR, leadership, and managers work together to make burnout prevention proactive, not reactive.

We can build cultures where managers are supported, not stretched thin. We can prove that investing in people benefits the bottom line. Let’s support our managers because when we do everyone wins.