The hidden cost of leader burnout

Spencer Jones

Guest Columnist

March 23, 2026

Is our future at risk?

Organizations both big and small (and every size in between) rely on leaders to guide, support and steer their teams.

They can determine the direction, the culture and the impact the company has in the community and the world.

Though burnout can affect anyone, it often disproportionately impacts high-performing leaders. 

Staffing shortages, tightening margins, constant change, high-stakes decision-making and future planning stack on top of one another until the load becomes unsustainable.

Because this is what many leaders are taught, or feel expected to do, the strain becomes normalized.

And so they press on… and on… and on until they can’t.

They end up burning out, and in severe cases, prolonged stress contributes to serious health consequences, including hospitalization and elevated cardiovascular risk.

Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

Well, let’s dig into it for a second.

The World Health Organization defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, characterized by exhaustion, cynicism and reduced professional effectiveness.

Chronic workplace stress and burnout contribute significantly to serious health outcomes.

In the U.S., workplace stress is linked to an estimated 120,000 deaths each year, largely through cardiovascular disease and related conditions.

Long working hours, a key stressor, were associated with 745,000 deaths globally in 2016 from heart disease and stroke.

Although burnout itself isn’t typically coded as a standalone medical cause for hospitalization or death, research shows that individuals experiencing chronic burnout face elevated risks for disease and hospital admissions.

Why are high performers so vulnerable to burning out?

High performers are more vulnerable to burnout because it is often masked as being productive, successful and rising through the ranks.

But just because someone looks good on paper, it doesn’t mean they are doing well internally.
Personally, I’ve been there, at the rock bottom.

I was succeeding.

I was producing, speaking and building.

I was chasing “success” based on what I thought it was, which was what society told me it was – money, notoriety and accolades.

Internally, however, the strain had accumulated to a breaking point.

I had built success on drivers I hadn’t examined.

What I discovered was that burnout was not simply about working too much.

It was about the internal pressures I was operating under, the unspoken rules about what success meant and what it required.

And in the end, I hit my rock bottom because of it.

I found myself in a very dark place because I believed I had “failed.”

Thankfully, I was able to step back, take a breath and keep going – but too many people facing that same weight of disappointment don’t get that chance.

For me, that low point taught me something I had never learned elsewhere.

That burnout isn’t just “doing too much.”

It’s a misalignment and drains our internal operating system.

More on that later.

What’s the big deal, though?

Doesn’t everyone feel drained and exhausted at times?

Isn’t burnout a badge of honor?

Just because that’s what we see and hear around us, it doesn’t make it true.

It costs us not only our personal energy, but connections with the ones we love, experiences we want to have in life, success that actually feels good and fulfilling, true joy and sometimes even our life.
And the risk isn’t just personal – it affects organizations, too.

Burnout is a bottom-line risk and the financial exposure is significant.

Harvard Business Review has cited estimates exceeding $300 billion annually in the U.S. tied to absenteeism, turnover and diminished productivity.

Replacement costs alone can range from 50-200% of an employee’s salary, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

But the more subtle costs are often harder to measure: delayed decisions, increased conflict, risk aversion, disengagement and attrition.

Over time, these effects compound and can destabilize an organization.

And then everyone, including the community, suffers.

If burnout were simply a workload issue, the solution would be straightforward.

But in many cases, the deeper driver lies in the internal rules leaders operate by, the identity-based pressures that shape how they show up – which is regulated by their internal operating system.

And if that system is full of holes, no amount of self-care tips or productivity hacks will solve it.

More to come…

This first column, the opening installment in a six-part series, sets the stage by defining the issue and explaining why it’s important.

In next month’s column, I’ll explore those pressure patterns and why they often fuel success before they begin to erode it.

Though burnout has become a buzzword, it is a serious issue that is costing people and organizations more than they realize.

And it’s a conversation business leaders can’t afford to ignore.