TL;DR

• Burnout is not a personal failure

• Stabilize your health first

• Shrink your workload and cut meetings

• Reset expectations with leadership

• Rebuild focus with small, repeatable systems

• Decide if this role or company is still a fit

I Burned Out as a Manager, What Do I Do Now?

Take care of yourself first, then cut your workload and focus on what matters most. Burnout means you have been overloaded for too long, not that you are broken.

Let's break this all down.

What burnout looks like in managers (and why it is so common)

Managers often burn out when their role quietly shifts from “lead a team” to “absorb the organization’s chaos.” It can show up as:

• Constant fatigue that sleep does not fix

• Anxiety, irritability, or panic symptoms

• Missing deadlines or struggling to focus

• Feeling emotionally unavailable for coaching and feedback

• Losing interest in hobbies and relationships

This is especially likely during reorganizations, acquisitions, or “transformation” programs. The work multiplies, the rules change weekly, and managers become the glue holding competing priorities together.

First, treat this as a health and safety issue (not a performance issue)

Burnout is not a motivation problem you can push through.

It is a sign that your body and mind need recovery.

Before you try to fix your workload or leadership dynamics, acknowledge that rest and support come first.

Talk to someone you trust, take any leave you have available, and give yourself permission to stop performing at 100% while you recover.

Stabilize your day so you can think again

You do not need a perfect routine. You need a minimum viable routine that protects your nervous system.

Try this for one workweek:

• Pick a fixed stop time for work (even if it feels imperfect).

• Take one short walk every day, ideally outdoors.

• Eat something with protein earlier in the day.

• Reduce stimulants that spike anxiety (extra coffee, energy drinks) if they worsen symptoms.

• Put a 10-minute buffer between meetings when possible.

These do not solve the organizational problem. They help you regain enough steadiness to make decisions.

Shrink the job back to what actually matters

In burnout, your brain treats everything as urgent. Your job is to reintroduce hierarchy.

Make a one-page list:

• Must-win outcomes (1–3): What absolutely needs to succeed in the next 2–4 weeks?

• Minimum standards: What is “good enough” for everything else?

• Stop/slow list: What can be paused, delegated, or reduced?

If your calendar is 5–6 hours of meetings per day, your week has no oxygen. The fastest lever is meeting load.

Meeting triage questions:

• Do I need to be in this meeting, or can I send an update asynchronously?

• Can I attend only the first 15 minutes to unblock decisions?

• Can this meeting happen every other week?

• What is the decision we are making, and who owns it?

Reset expectations with your leadership (without oversharing)

Many managers avoid speaking up because they fear punishment. You can still advocate for reality in a professional way.

Use a simple script:

• “Given the current priorities, I can deliver A and B by date. If C is also required, I need you to help me choose what drops or who to resource.”

This keeps the conversation on tradeoffs instead of emotions.

If your environment truly punishes reasonable boundary-setting, that is important data about fit.

Rebuild your focus with micro-systems (because motivation is offline)

When you are depleted, “just be disciplined” does not work. Build scaffolding.

Try these two practices:

1. One 30-minute focus block per day

   • Put it on the calendar.

   • One task only.

   • Stop at 30 minutes even if you want to keep going.

2. Daily shutdown list (3 bullets)

   • What I finished.

   • What I will do first tomorrow.

   • What I am intentionally not doing.

These are small on purpose. You are rebuilding trust with yourself.

Protect your team without trying to be a hero

In burnout, managers often feel guilty for not coaching well. The solution is not heroic effort. It is simpler leadership.

• Communicate priorities clearly and repeat them.

• Hold shorter 1:1s with a consistent structure.

• Ask: “What is your biggest blocker?” then remove one blocker.

• Delegate decisions that do not require you.

Your team does not need a perfect manager. They need a steady one.

Decide whether you need a change of role, company, or space

Sometimes the right answer is to leave. Sometimes the right answer is to stay but redesign the job.

Signs you may need a bigger change:

• The workload is consistently unmanageable with no plan to improve

• You are punished for raising risks or setting boundaries

• The reorganization chaos is treated as normal forever

• Your health is deteriorating month over month

You do not need to decide everything today. Start with stabilization and load reduction. Then reassess with a clearer mind.

Burnout can convince you that you are failing as a person. You are not. You are responding normally to sustained abnormal demands.

You can recover, but recovery usually starts with one brave decision: stop treating this as a private problem you must endure alone.

Feeling the weight of managing compounding?

Take 5 minutes to see where you’re strong and where you’re stretched.

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