“Why don’t leaders apply what they already know about burnout?”
It’s a great question. And one I was recently asked by a sharp, no-nonsense leader responsible for executive succession and leadership development at top-tier Australian company with over 100,000 employees, overseeing household-name brands across multiple industries – a group overseeing iconic brands across retail, industrial, and services,
It’s also a question I’ve heard echoed in boardrooms, workshops, and coaching sessions over the past two decades, from hundreds of senior leaders.
Because the truth is, most modern leaders already know the basics of wellbeing. They’ve seen the slide decks. They’ve read the research. They’ve heard the advice:
“Set clearer boundaries.”
“Clock off earlier.”
“Do more self-care.”
“Say ‘No’ more often.”
And yet – many still don’t do it.
They stay late. They keep pushing. They override tiredness, ignore warning signs, and continue to operate in unsustainable ways – even when they know better.
So what’s going wrong?
In my experience, there are three key reasons wellbeing programs fail to deliver lasting change:
Mistake 1: They don’t break behaviour change into manageable steps.
Telling someone to “set better boundaries” is about as useful as telling them to “be more strategic.”
It’s not that the advice is wrong. It’s that it’s too big. Too abstract. Too disconnected from the complex lived experience of a high-pressure leadership role.
Real change happens through sequenced micro-shifts, not blanket instructions or high-level aspirations.
Take a seemingly simple wellbeing behaviour like clocking off at 6pm.
Many wellbeing programs I have observed treat an action like this as a first step. But what if it’s actually Step 10?
Here’s what that journey might really look like:
- Step 1: Understand the importance of downtime for performance, decision-making and leadership impact.
- Step 2: Self-assess burnout symptoms in-session using a validated psychometric measure like the Maslach Burnout Scale.
- Step 3: Cultivate body awareness using mindfulness practices to recognise physical and emotional signs of fatigue.
- Step 4: Use this heightened body awareness to feel what it’s like to be stuck in overdrive. In real-time. Not as a concept, but as an embodied experience
- Step 5: Examine the consequences of chronic stress on wellbeing, cognitive clarity and long-term performance.
- Step 6: Name a realistic boundary that fits your role (e.g. “off devices by 6:30pm” or “no meetings after 5”).
- Step 7: Schedule that shift – literally block it into your calendar, set reminders, and make a commitment to stick to it.
- Step 8: Uncover the internal blockers – the beliefs, habits and unconscious mindsets that keep you in motion.
- Step 9: Do the mindset work – explore and begin to rewire those patterns (e.g. people-pleasing, over-responsibility, perfectionism).
- Step 10: Trial the new behaviour, observe the outcomes, and reflect on the impact.
Only then does actual behaviour change become sustainable – because it’s been scaffolded, not just suggested.
I learned to work like this very early on in my coaching career. So many times I would specify a “home-play” or integration task at the end of a session (I am extremely practical in my coaching). The client would enthusiastically agree to do it. But then they’d come back next session and tell me they hadn’t.
When we set aside any judgment or sense of “failure” and instead used this as a learning opportunity, often we would see that the goal we had set was too big. It had seemed doable in the comfort of the coaching session, but in reality what had looked like an easy first step was actually step five. Or ten.
Mistake 2: They don’t bring the learning into the body.
Leadership development and wellbeing programs are often delivered in ways that are overly intellectual. But burnout isn’t just an intellectual problem – it’s physiological.
If someone knows they’re overworking, but they can’t feel the impact in their body, the message won’t stick.
That’s why effective programs include nervous system awareness.
I regularly teach leaders how to:
- Establish a daily mindfulness meditation practice to systematically enhance their levels of body awareness.
- Set a timer and tune into signals from their body every 90 minutes throughout the day.
- Notice when they’ve slipped into sympathetic nervous system dominance (fight/flight).
- Use wearables (e.g. FitBits or Oura Rings) to track shifts in heart rate variability (HRV) – a sign of nervous system balance, adaptability and recovery.
- Use their body as a barometer for when to push – and when to ease off.
This embodied awareness helps leaders develop the real-time intelligence to make better choices, not just better to-do lists.
I saw this come to life recently with a senior leader during a team coaching session.
She was sharp, self-aware, and had read all the books on burnout. But she still couldn’t seem to switch off – even when she knew she needed to.
So I asked her to pause. To notice what was happening in her body when she even thought about stepping away from work early.
She closed her eyes. Took a breath. Then said quietly:
“It feels like panic. Like I’m bracing for something bad to happen if I don’t stay on.”
It wasn’t a thought. It was a physical reaction – tight chest, shallow breath, clenched jaw.
And that’s the moment she got it.
Burnout wasn’t just a mindset issue. It was a nervous system pattern – one that had been running the show for years.
From there, we began working with real-time body awareness and simple self-regulation tools. Not big, abstract ideas. Just the ability to feel, pause, and respond differently in the moment.
That’s what creates the shift. Not more knowledge – but more access to the intelligence of the body.
Mistake 3: They don’t address the hidden psychological blockers.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most wellbeing initiatives focus on what to do – not why we don’t do it.
They don’t address the underlying belief systems and identity-level drivers that keep leaders stuck in unsustainable patterns.
Things like:
“If I slow down, I’ll fall behind.”
“If I’m not busy, I’m not valuable.”
“Other people’s needs come before mine.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead – I have too many things to do.”
These patterns don’t shift just because someone hears a keynote or sees a new HR policy. They’re sticky. They’re emotional. And often, they were formed long before someone ever held a leadership title.
That’s why the most impactful wellbeing programs integrate elements of vertical development. To be effective, they must help leaders expand their self-awareness, question old mental models, and redefine what success actually means to them.
In my programs, I draw on my experience as a clinical psychologist and coach and guide leaders to:
- Recognise the specific inner narratives driving their overwork (often for the first time).
- Trace those beliefs back to their roots (family dynamics, early career conditioning, or outdated success metrics).
- Apply self-compassion and mindfulness techniques to loosen the grip of the inner critic.
- Rewire their relationship with achievement, responsibility and rest (so that performance no longer depends on pressure).
We do this through a structured, evidence-informed process that brings mindset work out of theory and into practice. Exercises are practical. Language is precise. The container is psychologically safe and invites realness.
And the result is often profound: Leaders begin to act less from pressure and fear – and more from clarity, intention and alignment.
I remember one leader – a CFO – who, on paper, had it all together. He was high-performing, calm under pressure, respected by his board.
But he also hadn’t had a real holiday in five years.
When we explored what was really driving this, a deep belief emerged:
“If I’m not constantly on, I’m letting people down.”
That belief had become so entwined with his identity, he couldn’t imagine being successful without being exhausted.
Over a series of sessions, we worked gently but deliberately to unpack it – tracing it back to early career experiences and personal expectations around reliability and worth.
And as we did, something shifted.
He started setting clearer boundaries. Delegating more. He even took two weeks off – completely offline – and came back more focused than I’d ever seen him.
His performance didn’t drop. His respect didn’t waver. But his relationship to responsibility changed. It wasn’t about being less committed. It was about leading from a more resourced, sustainable place.
That’s the power of addressing the inner architecture – the beliefs and mindsets that drive behaviour long after the workshop has ended and the PowerPoint slides are just a distant memory.
This isn’t just about preventing burnout. It’s about creating the conditions for authentic, high-impact leadership – from the inside out.
The Missing Link in Most Wellbeing Programs
So when that senior executive (the one leading succession and leadership development at one of Australia’s largest and most influential business groups ) asked me:
“What is it that creates enduring change?”
This was my answer:
Lasting transformation doesn’t come from more information.
It comes from breaking change down into manageable, practical steps leaders can actually implement – even in the midst of back-to-back meetings and high-pressure environments.
It comes from helping them move beyond theory – to recognising, in their own bodies, the toll that overdrive takes, and to rebuild the physiological self-awareness needed to course-correct in real time.
And it comes from surfacing and resolving the unconscious drivers that keep them stuck in unsustainable patterns – so they’re not just learning new strategies, but leading from a new mindset.
That’s the approach I’ve taken in my work with senior leaders at across multiple industries over the past 20+ years.
It’s the same method that’s helped elevate wellbeing from a side initiative to a leadership imperative — and shifted entire cultures in the process.
When you design programs this way, the change doesn’t just look good in a slide deck.
It feels different in the room.
It shows up in how leaders lead.
And it sticks. Because it’s not about adding another thing to their plate. But instead, giving them the behaviour change tools and processes that actually move the dial.
So if you’re leading L&D, succession, or culture transformation, and you’re looking for a more grounded, strategic, and evidence-based way to embed sustainable high performance…
Let’s have a conversation.
Book a no-pressure strategy call here.
We’ll unpack what’s working, what’s not, and explore whether a more integrated approach to leadership and wellbeing could unlock the shift you’re aiming for.
Because the right frameworks – delivered in the right way – don’t just help leaders know what to do.
They help them actually do it.
