• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

Executive Coaching

  • Home
  • Capabilities
  • Associates
    • Ira Chaleff
    • Emily Barnes
    • David Grau
    • Mandeep Singh
    • Marsha Hughes-Rease
    • Beverly Jones
    • Rosa María Barreiro
    • Kari Uman
  • Articles
  • Facilitation
  • Workshops
  • Case Histories
  • Blog
  • Coaching Enquiry

executive

Preventing Executive Burnout

January 23, 2012 By David

Published in Leadership Advantage Newsletter, Vol. III Number 1

by David Lassiter

The atmosphere at work has changed in recent times. The pace of change keeps accelerating. As companies continue to search for ever higher levels of quality, service and overall business agility, the pressures are felt on individuals at all levels of the organization. The treadmill moves faster, companies work harder, improvements are made only to be changed again and again. Today’s managers are experiencing a whole new order of exhaustion.

Performance targets become tougher to meet in each succeeding quarter and fiscal year. Managers have ever-widening spans of control. In the boundary-less organization, work goes on round the clock. The post-dinner time zone has become prime time for answering e-mails, voice mails, faxes and the rest of what didn’t get done during office hours. Thanks to technology, work is now very portable.

It’s easy to see why many managers feel overwhelmed. The only way they can get it all done is to take the writing, reading and reviewing tasks home. Finding personal fulfillment through one’s work is becoming more of a challenge. Job burnout is a reality for many people.

The incidence of job burnout has reached epidemic proportions as:

  • corporations merge and the interests of the stockholders come to predominate business policies,
  • jobs are eliminated or combined because of technological innovations,
  • individuals often cover two or more jobs because of shortages in the labor market,
  • more production moves overseas where labor costs are cheaper,
  • layoffs occur with alarming frequency.

Managing people is the most difficult administrative task and is an unending source of stress for executives. The manager must cope with the least capable of the employees, with the depressed, the suspicious, the rivalrous, the self-centered and the generally unhappy. He or she must balance conflicting personalities and create from them a motivated work group. He or she must define group purpose, organize people around it, resolve conflicts, establish priorities, make decisions about other people, accept and deflect their hostility, and deal with the frustration that arises out of the continuing interaction. That frustration causes many to burn out.

Adding to the stress at work is the complexity of modern organizations. The bigger and more intricate organizations become, the longer it takes to get things done. Along with increasing complexity comes an increase in the number of people with whom a manager has to deal. As companies grow, merge, or reorganize, some managers feel as though they are adrift. There is a threat of obsolescence when a position or assignment demands new skills and they are put into a position of “not knowing.”

Change can also mean that managers have to trim jobs and demote people or even discharge them. Managers whose job it is to close a plant or a department may feel enraged at having to pay for the sins of their predecessors. At the same time as this, a rapidly changing marketplace means intense pressures on managers to come up with new products, innovative services and novel marketing and financing schemes.

Burnout occurs when managers are deluged with sets of competing demands. Not only is work intense, but there are also demands to participate in family life, keep up with friends, and complete normal chores of everyday living. Managers may feel a decreased ability to set limits on these various demands. They then begin to feel a vague sense of just not caring so much about work, or maybe anything, anymore. They feel overwhelmed and retreat.

Unfortunately, it is often those who show the most promise at the beginning of their careers who later succumb to burnout. They are idealists, perfectionists and highly conscientious. They are achievers who have high energy levels and positive attitudes. They are dedicated and committed to doing well. Over time, however, stress and the inability to cope with the demands of the job lead to dissatisfaction and pessimistic attitudes.

High achievers in management may feel it is not acceptable to admit to stress and burnout. This compounds the problem because there is no room to talk about it. With whom is the executive going to discuss a personal sense of discouragement? Hopefully, with an executive coach who can spot and deal with the issues before they become severe. Even then, denial may be too strong and personal pride too great to fully explore the possibility of encroaching burnout until after it becomes a serious impairment.

What can help to prevent executive burnout, either in yourself or in the people you manage and work with?
The first step is to become more aware of the signs of burnout. The next is to recommend talking with someone, preferably a trained coach who can help make a plan to turn the process around. Dealing effectively with the symptoms of burnout can lead to increased self-awareness and a renewed sense of direction, energy and enthusiasm for career and life.

Some Common Signs of Burnout

Interpersonal Problems – When emotionally drained at work, it becomes more difficult to deal with other people. When conflicts occur, a person may overreact with an emotional outburst or increased hostility. Because of this, they may then start to isolate from other people.

Emotional Fatigue – It is common to feel dissatisfied, angry, frustrated or depressed from time to time. When caught in the burnout cycle, however, these negative emotions become predominant. Maintaining oneself throughout the day becomes tiring – a person can lose the ability to face challenges with a positive attitude. They may eventually experience numbness and have difficulty in feeling much of anything.

Low Productivity – During the burnout phase it is common to experience boredom and a loss of enthusiasm for projects. A manager may feel disillusioned or cynical. They may find it difficult to concentrate and harness the energy required to produce quality work. They begin to question whether work is meaningful.

Health Problems – As emotional reserves are depleted, a person may begin to experience physical problems. They may feel constantly tired and run down. Some common physical symptoms include headaches, back pain, colds, insomnia, rashes or hives, chest pains or palpitations, gastrointestinal problems, and nervous tics. Sleep problems are common. Research shows that when people are experiencing stress in their lives, they are more prone to not only illness, but to accidents. Car accidents are an increased risk since thoughts are not focused on driving.

Addictive Resolutions – To cope with the chronic stress, some may resort to substance use. An increased intake of caffeine on the job is common, along with nicotine, and drugs such as prescription medication and/or alcohol. Some people resort to illegal drug use. Normal activities such as television or computer use can also become addicting. An increase or decrease in food intake may accompany job burnout. These attempts at self-soothing, however, further compound the problem and fail to address the real issues.Obsessive Thinking – During non-working hours, work continues to preoccupy the mind, even when one is physically involved with other pursuits. Usual spiritual, religious or recreational practices fail to offer relief. Thoughts continually focus on problems rather than on solutions. Some people “work harder,” increasing time spent on tasks, just to try to increase a sense of satisfaction. Often the tasks completed are not the most essential, as judgment becomes impaired with increased stress.

What can executives do to prevent burnout, either in themselves, or in the managers and people they work with?

First, they must recognize that burnout can, does and will happen. This ought to be acknowledged up-front by the people in charge of orientation programs, management training courses and discussions. Let people know that the organization recognizes and cares about preventing it.

Personnel managers should be candid with new employees about the psychological aspects of the work and the intense pressures they may come to feel. The more people know, the less guilt they are likely to feel about their own perceived inadequacies when the pressures begin to mount.

Managers can also keep track of how long people are in certain high pressure jobs and rotate them out of potentially exhausting positions. Don’t allow people to work extended hours for any length of time. Changes of pace and demands can shift energy and allow people to replenish and revitalize themselves.

Make sure the organization has ways of letting people know that their contributions are important. Many performance appraisal programs actually contribute to people’s sense that their efforts are unrecognized.

Managers should provide avenues through which people can express not only their anger but also their disappointment, helplessness, hopelessness, defeat and depression. Salespeople, for example, face defeat everyday; others experience frustration when a contract is lost, a product fails, or when competition is strong. When people in defeat deny their anger, it contributes to burnout.

Executives may have a need for peer support. In recent years several groups have formed with members from non-competing industries. The purpose of such groups is to exchange ideas, get feedback, discuss challenges and opportunities, establish compelling goals and to take action. This offers executives an opportunity to receive support that can stave off burnout.

Offering recreational breaks can help. Informal off-site retreats can help revitalize teams as well as individuals and they serve as reward and recognition for hard work.

Offering workshops and regular retraining to upgrade skills is vital. Leaders must actively offer opportunities for people to keep up with rapidly changing demands in order to offset feelings of “not- knowing.” When people feel they lack knowledge and skills, they are prime candidates for helplessness and burnout.

One of the most effective measures against burnout is offering the services of a professional coach. Through weekly sessions, the individual is allowed to express things that might otherwise be repressed and denied because of organizational politics. The person can explore what really matters the most, what strengths and needs are available, and how best to handle stress and challenges. When there is a mismatch of an individual and the job, an effective plan can be made that benefits both the individual and the organization.

If executives fail to see these problems as serious, they may worsen. If executives fail to see that organizational factors can cause burnout, their lack of understanding may perpetuate the problem. Sufferers need to know that their problem has to do with the nature of the job and not their capacity to handle it.

Burnout As a Gift

Burning out at work can be a frightening experience. After all, most people spend the majority of waking hours on the job – more hours, in fact, than is spent with families and friends. When this enormous part of life brings stress, worry, self-esteem issues, anger, depression and detachment, a major personal crisis is generated.

The first impulse is to deny that job stress is finally getting to us. To persevere and keep doing the same things every day, working even harder, is not the answer to finding relief. The cycle is futile. More work is not going to alleviate the problem of working too hard.

Think of a job burnout crisis as a gift. This is a gift which tells us that something is wrong. We must look to find answers. Without the burnout crisis, we may never feel prompted to finally answer some critical questions about career and life:

  • What really matters to me?
  • What do I like the most about my work?
  • What part of my job am I really good at?
  • What causes me the most stress and fatigue?
  • What can I do about delegating or teaming the parts of my job I dislike the most?
  • What do I enjoy doing at work so much that I’d do it even if I weren’t paid for it?
  • What natural strengths and abilities do I carry into this work?
  • Are my strengths and talents applied in my present position, and if not, how can they be?
  • If my present position were to disappear, what would I create for my next ideal project?
  • What can I do to change my present responsibilities to match my natural abilities?
  • What can I do to eliminate the stressful energy drains?
  • What can I do to get my personal needs met in light of organizational demands?
  • How will I look back on this present situation at the end of my career or life?

It helps to address these questions with a professional coach who provides a safe, nurturing and enlightening setting for exploring these critical life issues.

David Lassiter is the founder and president of LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGE, a consulting organization providing state of the art programs and technology for managing the human side of change. An international practitioner, David has extensive experience in executive coaching, leadership development, team performance, and organizational culture mapping and change. Over the past ten years, he has conducted scores of 360° feedback workshops with executives, managers, and individual contributors. For more information, please contact David directly at LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGE, 17212 Blossom View Drive, Olney, MD 20832.

Website: www.leadershipadvantage.com
Tel: 301/924-2936
Fax: 301/774-4132
E-Mail: dlasiter@erols.com

© David Lassiter 2004

Filed Under: Articles, David Lassiter, Leadership Development Tagged With: burnout, david lassiter, executive, prevent

Executive Development

January 22, 2012 By Ira Chaleff

Executive development coaching can produce a high payback at various stages of an individual’s career including:

  • when newly appointed to a senior position
  • when struggling with performance expectations
  • after mastering a position and preparing oneself for the next career challenge
Our services are tailored to individual needs and may include a combination of the following:

  • 360% assessment by survey or interview process
  • Management style feedback
  • Management development coaching
  • Leadership development
  • Interpersonal skills coaching
  • Workload management coaching
  • Senior executive counsel
  • Sensitivity coaching
  • Fair employment practices counsel
  • Conflict mediation
  • Succession planning
  • Career counseling

Filed Under: Capabilities Tagged With: career, coaching, development, executive

Case History: Leadership Development, Athlete to Executive

December 28, 2011 By Ira Chaleff

ISSUE:

After suffering a career halting injury, a former professional athlete was hired to manage a staff of six in a small department within a financial services firm. Although he is a quick study, and extremely disciplined in his work, he was having difficulty feeling comfortable in his role, communicating his vision, establishing staff routines and procedures, and generally asserting himself as a leader in that environment.

INDUSTRY:

Financial

SIZE:

Mid-sized Business

CLIENT:

New Senior Manager

SOLUTION:

We focused the work on two issues: leadership development and employee performance/management. In addition, we agreed to integrate practices related to maximizing productivity and minimizing stress for long-term success.

RESULTS:

Several years later, the client is still performing confidently and successfully after only a few months of coaching. In his quest for continuous improvement, he periodically identifies opportunities for further development and returns for additional coaching. He has proven to be a wise investment for his company, maintaining high retention among a loyal staff and a department frequently cited for performance excellence.

Filed Under: Case Histories Tagged With: athlete, case history, development, executive, financial, leadership, study

How to Choose a Coach – by Ira Chaleff

December 28, 2011 By Beverly

Published in Executive Excellence – January 1999

The value of coaching is permeating the organizational world. Successful senior executives have always relied on confidants to give them honest feedback – a critical element of good coaching. Increasingly, they are inviting coaches into their management meetings to make observations about group dynamics and their implication for creative thinking and organizational decision making. Mid-level managers whose teams, stripped of support staff, are drowning in workload are bringing in efficiency coaches. Senior managers whose workplace behaviors were developed under a set of norms which have changed are being sensitized and retooled by fair employment practices coaches. Career coaches are becoming a standard feature in the landscape of downsizing and out placement.

But what exactly is coaching and how do you know if you have a competent coach? Does the coach have to be able to run your organization better than you? No – most tennis coaches have not achieved the star status of their best performing clients. Does the coach have to be an expert in your industry? Not necessarily. Peter Drucker never ran a high-tech firm. Then what do good coaches have to be able to do?

WHAT A GOOD COACH DOES

A good coach has to be able to do the following for clients:

1) RAPPORT

Your coach must be able to perceive and appreciate the strengths, talents and unique gifts you bring to your job. Only when appreciation and trust exists will you be able to accept coaching. Otherwise you will naturally respond defensively.

2) OBSERVATION

An effective coach is a keen observer. Keen as in HAWK EYED. The coach observes every gesture, tone, hesitation, choice of words, body language, motion, innuendo, tactic, decision. A coaching session is not a casual “Let’s get together and talk.” It is closer to getting an MRI in which you are being observed from every angle. You should be somewhat startled by how much your coach learns about you in a very short time.

3) FEEDBACK

Change requires mechanisms for accurately perceiving the existing state of affairs so you know what needs to be changed . A strong coach will tell you clearly and precisely what he or she perceives about your behaviors and their effects on others. The coach will choose one or two high-payback behaviors to focus on and not overwhelm you with a stream of observations undifferentiated in importance.

4) CHOICE

A skillful coach will articulate the consequences of your current behaviors – the price you are paying for these and the price you are likely to pay in the future. He or she will encourage you to weigh the costs and benefits of your current behaviors and decide if you want to change these. The coach will respect you making a conscious choice to live with the behaviors or work to change them, but will not allow you to simply use the old behaviors by reason of habit.

5) OPTIONS

An effective coach will help you generate options for different behaviors that would be more productive. The coach will pay attention to which option interests you and encourage you to try that option first as, whether or not it is his or her first choice, you are more likely to stick with it over the long run.

6) PRACTICE

A hands-on coach will have you practice new behaviors or difficult conversations before you engage in them. Action plans, strategies, role plays, all have their place in preparing you to do your best in each situation.

7) DEBRIEF

Learning from doing is significantly enhanced by “After Action Reviews” or debriefs. A results-oriented coach will examine with you what went well, what did not, and what are the take away lessons for the future.

8) REINFORCEMENT

A supportive coach will stay alert for instances in which you are using the new behaviors well and will validate these. Perfection is not a realistic goal, but continuous improvement is. Shining a spotlight on an instance of improved behavior helps you use it as a model for future behavior.

9) PROBLEM SOLVING

As knowledge of you and your business grows, a trusted coach becomes a thinking partner. Effective coaches are adept at posing the right questions to help you examine issues from new and often deeper perspectives. Dialogue about problems often leads to detection of the unseen pitfalls or unrecognized potential in situations. As useful as these discussion are, rather than letting them become a substitute for appropriate group collaboration, the coach helps you forge the culture and processes that utilize the wisdom of teams and maximize their commitment.

10) TRANSFORMATION

At the highest level, once the issues that precipitated the need or desire for coaching have been addressed, coach-client relations may evolve into forums for transformation. Coaching sessions become a conversation to help you explore your deeper values and find and express your unique voice on which great leadership is built.

SELECTING A COACH

Before you sign on with a coach, you can and should do your reference checks, but they are not as important as what you experience in your initial encounter.

Coaching is a cumulative process. You and your coach will go over the same or similar ground several times while working together. Each time you build on previous progress.

But even at the first meeting when you discuss your interests with a potential coach, you should be able to experience the process begin. If you feel you are being seen in fresh and perceptive ways, if you feel appreciated rather than threatened, if you are given feedback which smacks of honesty and options for proceeding which seem workable, you have probably found a good coach with whom to work. At that point my advice is simple – get to work!

Filed Under: Articles, Executive Coaching Tagged With: choose, coach, executive, ira chaleff

Primary Sidebar

Are You Considering a Coach:

How To Choose a Coach
The Coaching Process

Ways to Use Executive Coaching:

Leadership Development
Merging Exec Teams
Organizational Change
Strategic Leadership
Etiquette Coaching
Career Transition
Gender Management
Interpersonal Conflict
Job Promotion

Street Address:

Executive Coaching Consulting Assocc.
216 7th Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
USA

Phone #

1-202-544-0097

Secondary Sidebar

Meet Our Associates

Ira Chaleff
Emily Barnes
David Grau
Kari Uman
Rosa María
Barreiro
Mandeep Singh
Marsha
Hughes-Rease
Beverly Jones

Copyright © 2021 · Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates · All Rights Reserved

Marsha Hughes-Rease - Senior Associate

After fifteen years of coaching and consulting experience and over twenty five years of leadership experience at different organizational levels, Marsha Hughes-Rease partners with senior leaders and managers to address what she calls “swamp issues”, those really messy and complex challenges that can greatly diminish productivity, stakeholder satisfaction, financial performance and personal effectiveness in any organization.

Read more

Ira Chaleff - President

Ira Chaleff is the founder and president of Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates. He has been named one of the top 100 leadership thinkers by Executive Excellence Magazine. He practices the high-stakes art of helping talented people prepare for and succeed in senior level roles. Whether working in the public sector with Senior Executive Service leaders or in the private sector with CEOs and leadership teams, he brings clarity to core success issues, and provides savvy and supportive guidance in tackling them.

Read more

Beverly Jones - Senior Associate

Beverly Jones helps executives bring new productivity to their organizations, and works with professionals to restructure and re-energize their work lives. Throughout her varied career, Bev has engaged in leadership and change management activities, and today she coaches accomplished professionals and executives who want to become more effective. Bev’s current and recent coaching clients include attorneys, other professionals and small business owners, and also executives with university systems, with a national laboratory, and with a major brokerage firm.

Read more

Mandeep Singh - Senior Associate

Mandeep partners with leaders who want to bring their own vision and passions into service for the world. This necessarily means deep inner work – increasing self-awareness and personal mastery, taking ownership and accountability, and expanding the ability to influence people and networks from within the system. While this may sound like hard work, in practice it tends to be completely natural, energizing, satisfying and fun. “Serious” and “impactful” are not correlated. Mandeep’s natural style is gentle, and his clients and he tend to forge long term, easy, trusted partnerships.

Read more

Rosa Maria Barreiro - Strategic Management & Human Resources Consultant

Rosa María Barreiro is an innovative leader, business strategist and change agent with an extensive background and success in global operating environments throughout the USA and Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Rosa María has repeatedly been recruited to design and execute change management, employee engagement, leadership development and performance improvement initiatives for a wide variety of organizations and companies.

Read more

Kari Uman - Senior Associate

Kari Uman, Senior Associate of Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates in Fairfax, VA, has more than twenty-five years’ experience as a coach, consultant, and trainer. Her particular experience and interest in gender issues, and their impact on relationships and performance, enables her to help individuals change behaviors that are undermining their best efforts.

Read more

David Grau - Senior Associate

David Grau is an executive and leadership coach in Bethesda, MD, with an in-depth consulting background in organization development and change management. He has over 17 years of coaching and consulting experience in the corporate, government, and non-profit sectors. He has particular abilities in assisting executives in identifying and making maximum and appropriate use of their strengths and identifying their opportunities for increased effectiveness as a leader.

Read more

Emily Barnes - Senior Associate

To organizations and individuals adjusting to recent, current or anticipated change, Emily Barnes brings the strategic focus and competencies gained during fifteen years of diverse experience with various leadership, relationship, performance and communication challenges. A consultant and strategy coach, Ms. Barnes helps clients create and implement new success strategies.

Read more

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience.
By clicking any link on this page you are authorizing the use of cookies.