How to Reduce Burnout – Coaching for Leaders

Jennifer Moss: The Burnout Epidemic

Jennifer Moss is an award-winning journalist, author, and international public speaker. She is a nationally syndicated radio columnist, reporting on topics related to happiness and workplace well-being. She is also a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in HuffPost, Forbes, the Society for Human Resource Management, Fortune, and Harvard Business Review.

Jennifer’s prior book, Unlocking Happiness at Work, received the distinguished UK Business Book of the Year Award. She also sits on the Global Happiness Council. She is the author of The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It*.

In this conversation, Jennifer and I explore a few misconceptions about burnout — and also how curiosity and empathy can help to reduce it. We discuss a few key questions leaders can ask to gain insight on how to help. Plus, we detail how to avoid confirmation bias through generic interactions.

Key Points

Self-care doesn’t cure burnout.
Curiosity increases empathy — and empathy from leaders is a fabulous antidote to burnout.
There are two kinds of curiosity, epistemic and perceptual. True empathy comes from a focus on epistemic interactions.
Go beyond the generic, “How are you?” and instead get more specific with a request like, “Name a high — and a low.” Doing these with a team can help surface how to help.
Assume the best. It’s ok to say, “Thank you for sharing this with me. I don’t have any advice. I just want to listen and learn.”