Three Steps Leaders Can Take To Help Their Team Members Avoid Burnout

If we can help ourselves thrive, and if we can help each of our team members thrive, then we will strengthen our teams and raise the overall performance, results and happiness of our team.

Burnout has become a pervasive problem in the workplace.

Maybe burnout has become a function of our “always connected” lives. We are always at work, even if we aren’t at the office. Emails, texts and other social networks send us work-related tasks, even at night and on weekends.

Other factors could be at work for many of us. We face more pressure than ever in our jobs. Maybe we’re tasked with achieving more results in less time or lowering overhead while simultaneously increasing profits. Maybe we face the pressure of trying to continually improve ratings and customer satisfaction scores.

Whatever the cause, more and more of us are mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted in our work, and we’re becoming exhausted in our personal lives. Burnout in our jobs can keep us from spending time with our friends and our families, keep us from sleeping and eating well, and keep us from exercising.

We compound burnout’s physical and emotional fatigue by not taking care of ourselves.

I recently described three critical steps leaders can take to prevent burnout in their careers. Just as important, though, are the key steps those same leaders can take to prevent burnout in their teams and in each of their team members.

If we can help ourselves thrive, and if we can help each of our team members thrive, then we will strengthen our teams and raise the overall performance, results and happiness of our team.

Help them restore energy in their lives.

“Balance can put things in perspective, can bring you joy even when you are down, and can allow you to be at your best in all aspects of your life.”

– Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University basketball coach and winner of five NCAA national championships and three Olympic gold medals

Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest basketball players of the last 30 years. Drafted straight out of high school, Kobe played 20 years in the NBA, winning five NBA championships.

Bryant didn’t have that long of an NBA career, and have that much success during his career, purely by accident. He continually focused on taking care of himself and his body.

After games and practices, Kobe’s teammates headed straight for the showers, and then straight for their cars to drive home. Not Kobe.

Every day, no matter how long or hard the game or practice, Kobe put two bags of ice on each knee, one in front and one in back. He put a bag of ice on his shoulder. And he put each foot in a bucket of ice water. Every day for 20 minutes, no matter what.

Before every practice, he spent time using contrast therapy to loosen up his joints. Four minutes of cold water. Three minutes of hot water. Three minutes of cold, two minutes of hot. Two cold, one hot, one cold.

Kobe needed these treatments to recover from tough days and to prepare for difficult days ahead. Like our jobs, the NBA season is long and taxing. Kobe knew what he needed — what his body and mind needed — to fight inflammation and regain his strength and energy.

The Lakers coaches and managers did not get in the way of his efforts to take care of himself. In fact, they helped him, providing athletic trainers and physical therapists to offer treatments any time Kobe needed them.

After a long season as head coach of Duke University’s basketball team, Mike Krzyzewski did TV commentary for CBS during the 1993 Final Four. He was away from home for a week. He returned to Durham exhausted. Unfortunately, Krzyzewski was scheduled to travel again for a recruiting trip the next day. He would be away from his family for another five days.

Hours before leaving, Krzyzewski saw a sign his daughter Jamie made which read, “Family Vacation, Badly Needed.” He immediately canceled his recruiting trip and instead took his family on a beach vacation.

While at the beach, he was able to spend time with another daughter, Lindy, who was going through some difficult times at school. Canceling the recruiting trip and spending time with his family helped him once again find balance in his life and strengthened his family’s bonds.

After his coaching career ended, John Wooden, the famed basketball coach who guided UCLA to 10 national championships in 12 years, claimed that while he was proud of all the records he set and that his team set on the court, he was most proud of the fact he always made his family the most important thing in his life.

As we all work long hours and face challenges in our jobs, we have to focus on connection with ourselves and our families, taking care of ourselves and maintaining our energy.

As leaders, we need to help our team members do it too. Yes, we want them to be productive, but running them into the ground will soon have the opposite effect. Eventually they will become burned out, and their work will suffer.

How you help an employee or team member restore their energy might look different for each one. For a single mom, maybe it’s letting her work from home one or more days a week. For others, it might be ending the work day an hour earlier and offering incentives to exercise or go to the gym. It might be strongly encouraging team members to take their vacation time and completely disconnecting from work.

Take time to figure out how you can help each member of your team reconnect with themselves and their families and regain the energy they need to be productive in both their professional and personal lives.

Help them focus on their purpose.

“Team building is not about a recipe, it’s about taking the necessary time to build this team for this purpose.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

Mike Krzyzewski is best known for guiding Duke basketball to five NCAA national championships. But he also led USA Basketball to three Olympic gold medals.

The USA Basketball team was in trouble when Coach K was hired to lead it. They had only won the bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics despite having arguably the best players in the world. Krzyzewski was determined to help the U.S. team win gold in Beijing in 2008.

He knew that even though he had some of the best players to ever play the game on his team in 2008 — players like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Dwyane Wade — they had to learn the international game and come together as a team to achieve their goal.

Coach K handed each of his players a notebook as training for the Olympics began. On the first page of each player’s notebook was a large image of an Olympic gold medal. At every team meeting, the TV monitors on the wall displayed the image of an Olympic gold medal.

Coach K wanted his players to visualize their goal every time they got together. They thought about winning gold at every practice and in every meeting. He wanted his players to truly understand why they were there.

Since the beginning of women’s soccer, the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team has been one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports. Some of the greatest women ever to play soccer have suited up for the Tar Heels.

UNC head soccer coach Anson Dorrancehas guided his Tar Heel women’s soccer teams to 21 NCAA national championships. And every year, at the end of the season, whether UNC won the national championship or not, Dorrance had a particular speech he gave his players as they headed into the offseason.

Dorrance told his players they could do anything they wanted in the offseason. He wasn’t going to give them specific workouts. Instead, he allowed them to decide if they would go shopping, hang out with their friends, and eat junk food. Or they could train. It was up to each one of them.

Dorrance asked his players to consider why they were at UNC. Did they want to be on a team of fun-loving girls? If so, they probably didn’t need to work very hard after the season. Or did they want to make the national team or play in the pros? If so, they needed to push themselves, train harder, and develop new skills.

If they truly wanted to be great individually, and to be great as a team and win the national championship the next season, each player needed to remember why they were doing it. Then all the hard work and sacrifice would be worth it.

UCLA women’s gymnastics coach Valorie Kondos Field has guided her Bruins teams to seven NCAA national championships largely by helping each of her team members focus on what they wanted to accomplish individually and why it was important to them.

Jamie Dantzscher was already one of the most successful American gymnasts before she arrived at UCLA. After the second meet of her freshman season, Dantzscher surprised her coach by stating she didn’t want to compete anymore. She wanted to quit gymnastics.

Kondos Field wondered why a gymnast who had already succeeded at the highest levels of the sport would want to give up now. Dantzscher told her about her time at the Karolyi Ranch training for the national team. She and her fellow gymnasts were never allowed to speak up there. She had to wear her hair a certain way and act a certain way. She lost her personality, her individuality.

Kondos Field completely understood how her star athlete felt. She told Dantzscher she absolutely could quit the sport, and she would respect that decision. But at a meet, Coach Val pointed to a group of young girls in the stands holding up signs with Dantzscher’s name on them.

She asked Jamie if she thought those young girls cared if she fell or messed up on a stunt. She reminded Dantzscher that those girls looked up to her for who she was, not how she performed.

Jamie decided to focus her efforts on enjoying gymnastics and not trying to be perfect. Do it because she loved it. Do it for her young fans who believed in her.

It’s critical for everyone — leaders and team members alike — to reconnect to their purpose — why they do what they do.

If employees don’t find their jobs personally meaningful, if they don’t find fulfillment in what they do in their jobs, or at least large parts of their jobs, then they are much more likely to become frustrated over time and burn out.

Help each of your team members reconnect with their purpose. Maybe where they get the greatest satisfaction in their jobs is making customers happy. Maybe they like creating the financial reports. Maybe they enjoy organizing and managing projects.

Then help each team member do more of what they love to do. When work gets stressful — and it does, always — help them overcome their stress and frustrations by focusing on why they do what they do. That focus on purpose will keep them healthy, sane, and enjoying their careers.

Help them form personal connections with you and with the team.

“When you concern yourself with the welfare of others, you engender loyalty and respect. You create value. And you acquire power. An empathetic voice speaking in a hush can persuade and influence far more effectively than even the loudest invective launched in rage.”

– Lou Holtz, national championship-winning head coach at Notre Dame, college football TV analyst, and the only coach to lead six schools to bowl games

Pat Summitt was one of the most successful women’s basketball coaches of all time, winning eight national championships at Tennessee.

Summitt was known in basketball circles as a strict disciplinarian. She was well known to make her teams practice in the middle the night after a road game if they put in poor effort during the game.

Summitt, though, was loved by her players, perhaps despite her intensity. They loved her because she made an effort to connect with her players.

Summitt found ways to form personal connections with each player. She had ice cream sundaes with them during pregame meals. She took them on road trips to places like Hawaii and New York.

If she had a player who had never experienced something, she tried to help that player do it.

One of her young Vol players was Bridgette Gordon, who grew up in DeLand, Florida and had never seen snow. On a road trip to Notre Dame, when it started snowing, Pat took Bridgette outside to throw snowballs. She took Bridgette and a few of the players in her rental car, where she proceeded to do donuts in her car in the snow-covered parking lot.

Like Summitt, Mike Krzyzewski believes in the power of relationships. At Duke, he takes steps to form personal bonds with each team member and encourages relationships between the players. He hosts dinners at his home where all the players come, relax, and have fun. They bring their families, and they get to meet his family.

Coach K also takes time before and during each season to meet with players one-on-one. He asked them about their lives, their families, their classes and more. Krzyzewski shows his team that he cares about each player personally and will help them anyway he can.

Mike Krzyzewski calls his team a family. He believes, “When you can incorporate the two together — your team and your family — you create an opportunity for the relationships between everyone to grow even stronger.”

What can you do to strengthen the personal connections in your team?

Maybe you can host informal dinners or social gatherings for your company at night or on weekends, like picnics or dinner clubs. You can invite spouses, and everyone can get to know each other personally.

As a leader, you can set an example. You can share parts of your personal life with your team members so they get a real sense of who you are. But you should ask your team to occasionally discuss their personal lives.

If you and everyone on your team sees the receptionist or IT specialist or sales manager as a husband or wife, a father or mother, and someone with unique hobbies and interests, and not simply as a receptionist, IT specialist, or sales manager, it will strengthen the team.

As a leader, we must help our team members thrive.

We all have tough jobs. You and your team work harder than ever. We are all going to face issues related to burnout if we don’t occasionally take steps to recharge ourselves and help our teams thrive.

As a leader, help your team members find ways to restore their energy, focus on their purpose, and connect with each other. It will not only decrease the chances that any of them develop burnout, but it will help skyrocket the performance of your team.

Hire Dr. Geier to speak to your organization.

Dr. David Geier is a popular leadership and burnout keynote speaker for corporate and medical audiences. Click here to learn more about how he can educate and inspire your audience.

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