Behind the boardroom: How burnout is impacting mental health in leadership

Lifting the veil on the unspoken cost of leading: James Chisholm details through his own journey why mental health in leadership matters.

Leadership often comes with an unspoken sacrifice – the sacrifice of mental well-being. Beneath the surface of success and high performance lies an invisible cost, one that leaders often brush aside until it’s too late. After 25 years working across the industries of building technology, energy efficiency, asset management, and nonprofit, managing up to $3B in yearly revenue and overseeing thousands of global staff, you can believe you’re invincible, and your career achievements are prioritised over your health.

The truth is, the higher you climb, the more you have to lose – not just in terms of professional stakes, but your mental health as well. 2023 research demonstrated 68.8% of Australian leaders reported feeling burned out (compared with 54.4% of team members), with 90.9% of those feeling that way for a prolonged period.

The pressure to meet targets, lead teams, and never falter can take a toll that most leaders hesitate to talk about. I hesitated too – until I couldn’t anymore. Achievements don’t shield you from burnout, and my breaking point came when I realised it was the stress that I couldn’t power through any longer, not the job pressure.

I understood that to keep going would have meant serious, long-term damage to my mental health, so I made the challenging decision to step away. While I reflected on my values, I knew I wanted them to align with the work I was doing. With my experience, both personal and professional, co-founding Peeplcoach came at the right time. Success wasn’t worth the cost of my own well-being, and confronting this truth meant I could make a difference.

The nature of leadership stress

The nature of senior leadership roles inherently involves significant stress, and it’s almost innate that we fall into the trap of associating our self-worth with our work achievements. It’s a dangerous mental health risk, as it blurs the line between personal identity and professional success. Leaders frequently invest their entire sense of value into their career, which can have devastating effects when things don’t go as planned. It’s something I witnessed, and it’s a widespread issue among senior leaders.

Adding to this challenge is the upbringing and conditioning that discourages the acknowledgement of mental health problems, particularly amongst the leadership community. Many leaders – myself included – grew up in environments that pushed us to “tough it out”, and prioritising professional success above everything else leaves little room to acknowledge (let alone address) personal well-being, until it’s too late.

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Compounding these challenges is the intolerance of failure in the corporate world. In the business landscape where there’s unspoken pressure to succeed, failure is often seen as a weakness. In these environments with high expectations, only about 10% of workers are comfortable being transparent about their struggles, which confirms that those challenges are being minimised or ignored. We are conditioned to never admit defeat, and to mask the stress and mental strain we carry daily.

Ironically, these realities not only take a significant toll on our own health, but our team’s health, and ultimately, the organisations we lead – not to mention the damage to family members and our closest personal relationships.

Evolving leadership

The landscape of leadership is evolving, with more emphasis on empathy in the workplace than ever before. Ironically, leaders are not heeding their own ethos, and still prioritising their team’s well-being over their own. Leading with empathy is powerful and critical, but if it’s leaving leaders feeling depleted, and as if their own needs are overlooked, it’s not working.

For middle-aged men – my demographic – this dynamic becomes even more challenging. Admitting to mental health struggles can feel risky, as vulnerability is often seen as a weakness in high-pressure environments. More than 50% of leaders fear that opening up about these issues could harm their career or reputation, leading to a kind of silence that only internalises the issues, and deepens the problem.

My journey and lessons learned

Years ago, I reached a point where the stress and my mental well-being were no longer something I could ignore. As was the norm, I had wrapped up my self-worth in my professional success, ignoring the increasing toll that the relentless stress was having on my physical and mental well-being. Recovery became my priority, and while it was not an easy journey, it was necessary.

The focus of Peeplcoach reflects what I learnt through my recovery; our coaching is purposeful, and accessible, but deeply rooted in empathy and our own professional and personal values.

I love that we challenge leaders to define their own personal values and lead with them. Every coaching session I’m involved in serves as a reminder that leading authentically is not just being true to yourself; it must also mean prioritising your mental health, and creating environments where your team can thrive.

Moving forward with purpose

There is one thing that I want other leaders to take away from my experience, and that is leadership and mental health don’t have to be at odds. Actually, it is the opposite; prioritising good mental health is the key to longevity and success in high-stress roles.

I’ve come to embrace that the more you invest in understanding your own needs, your personal values, and how they align with your work, the more sustainable your leadership will be. And when we, as leaders, show up authentically, acknowledging the pressures and challenges that come with business and organisational success, we can create a ripple effect that encourages others to do the same. Of course there must also be a positive focus on the organisation’s goals and performance, but this focus is not mutually exclusive to focusing on the mental health of leaders and their team members.

Mental health should not ever be a side issue for leaders; it’s a core part of being an effective, compassionate, resilient and successful leader. We need to make space for the conversations, and encourage each other as leaders to align our well-being and values with our professional goals.

James Chisholm

James Chisholm is Co-Founder of and Executive Coach at Peeplcoach, and draws on 25 years of leadership experience across industries and his own burnout recovery to help leaders align their values with business goals. His engaging coaching sessions foster high-performing teams, personal fulfilment, and sustainable business success.