Burnout in Leadership

The New Year doesn’t always bring energy.

Sometimes it just hides burnout.

January creates momentum.

New plans. Reset targets. Renewed urgency.

From the outside, it looks like energy.

But for many leaders, myself included, what shows up isn’t renewal. It’s adrenaline. A temporary lift driven by motion, structure, expectation.

It feels productive.

It looks committed.

And it can be misleading.

When the pace eases, what remains isn’t motivation. It’s fatigue that never went away.

This is how burnout hides.

Not in crisis, but in competence. In being “back on it” without ever having recovered.

In mistaking urgency for purpose.

I’ve been there. Leading well on the surface, while quietly running on reserves underneath.

The risk isn’t starting the year tired.

It’s having just enough New Year momentum to avoid noticing how depleted we actually are.

And when leaders don’t notice, organisations feel it later:

• Decisions become reactive

• Empathy thins

• Creativity gives way to control

The real leadership reset in January isn’t pushing harder. It’s asking, honestly:

• Is this energy sustainable or just familiar?

• What am I restoring, not just delivering?

• What would “well-led” look like if recovery mattered as much as results?

If you’re leading this year, maybe the quieter question isn’t:

“What am I driving forward?”

But:

“What do I need to restore before I ask more of others?”