Leadership strain spreads through teams, and it often looks like high performance. Until it doesn’t.
43% of Australian workers are experiencing burnout, up 17% from 2024.
If burnout affects your workforce at this rate, it affects your leadership team at the same rate. And when leadership burns out, the entire organisation feels it, often long before anyone notices.
The problem nobody’s talking about
There is a quiet crisis growing at the top of many organisations. Leaders are exhausted. Not mildly tired, genuinely depleted. And I often see it worsen around July/August. Leaders push hard to make it through EOFY, then finally pause. The body relaxes…and burnout shows up. Not because they suddenly became weaker, but because the nervous system is no longer running on adrenaline and cortisol. The body shifts out of survival mode and finally says:
“We have nothing left.”
This is why many high performers crash during holidays or after major deadlines, not always in the middle of the crisis itself. And the traditional response, push through, stay positive, keep the team motivated, is becoming less sustainable.
The 2025 data is confronting. Burnout rates have climbed to 43% of the Australian workforce, a 17% increase from 2024 alone. But here is the figure that should give every board and CEO pause: nearly 58% of Australian managers reported experiencing burnout in 2023, according to the Australian Institute of Management.
Leadership burnout is not trailing the general workforce trend. In many cases, it is ahead of it.
The risk you’re probably rewarding
Here is what makes leadership burnout particularly dangerous: it does not always look like struggle. In many organisations, it looks like your top performer.
The leader who is:
- Delivering results and holding everything together
- Stepping in when others cannot
- Always available, always composed
- The one everyone relies on most
Also, the one most likely to be quietly burning out. High-performing leaders do not opt out. They push through, absorb pressure, and keep delivering. Which means burnout at this level is not removed. It is rewarded. The metrics still look fine. Revenue holds. Targets are met. Teams function. Until they do not.
What you cannot see is:
- Relentless mental load that never switches off. Leading to insomnia.
- Complex decisions being made with reduced cognitive bandwidth. Reactive not reflective.
- A growing gap between external performance and internal capacity. Imposter syndrome grows.
- The leader managing their own state while stabilising everyone else. Duck paddling.
They still look strong. They are just paying for it in ways the organisation cannot yet measure..
How leadership strain spreads
Burnout does not stay contained at the top. It flows downward. When leaders are operating in chronic depletion, the effects move through the team:
- Decision-making becomes slower, more conservative, and reactive
- Leaders are less present in conversations and less available as mentors
- The behaviours that erode culture, constant urgency, poor boundaries, and emotional unavailability get modelled from the top
- Pressure cascades downward while underperformance goes unaddressed
Gartner research found that employees experienced around two major organisational changes per year in 2016. By 2023, that had grown to eleven changes per year, almost one each month. Leaders who are already at capacity are being asked to guide their teams through continuous disruption.
The cost is real:
- Burnt-out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day
- 2.6 times more likely to be actively seeking a new job
- Burnout now drives 40% of employee resignations in Australia
- Stress-related absenteeism costs the Australian economy an estimated $14 billion annually
The perception gap that makes it worse
Research from Infinite Potential found that 68% of managers believe their people’s wellbeing is the same or better than twelve months ago. Meanwhile, 45% of employees report their wellbeing has actually worsened over the same period.
This gap is not spin. It is structural. Leaders under pressure have reduced capacity to notice the signals in their teams. They are working from a normalised baseline of stress that has shifted so gradually they no longer recognise it as problematic. And because many cultures reward stoicism over honesty, people rarely speak up until they are already at breaking point.
What organisations can do before performance declines
Addressing leadership burnout requires structural, cultural and individual responses working together. Here is where to start:
Stop assuming your strongest leaders are fine. They are often the least likely to signal risk and the most likely to be carrying it. Less assumption more enquiry. Ask open questions. Intervene earlier, before performance declines, not after.
Treat leadership wellbeing as a board-level risk issue. Frame it alongside cybersecurity, AI, succession planning and financial risk. Because that is what it is.
Close the perception gap with real data. Move beyond annual engagement surveys. Regular, psychologically safe pulse checks give leaders early warning and give boards honest visibility. If an employer in Australia fails to comply with their duty to manage psychosocial hazards, they are at risk of significant financial and in some cases criminal consequences.
Invest in your leaders’ capacity to lead. Executive coaching (1:1 and group), peer support and leadership development are not overheads. In a market where burnout drives 40% of resignations, they are cost-reduction strategies.
Redefine what high performance looks like. Not heroic (boomer) unsustainable intensity. Sustainable output becoming the new standard that protects both the individual and the organisation. Start measuring and rewarding accordingly.
The greatest organisational risk right now may not be the external uncertainty everyone is watching. It may be the internal depletion of the people being asked to navigate it. Many leaders are spending enormous energy focused on what they cannot control, market pressure, economic uncertainty, constant change, while neglecting the things that most protect sustainable performance:
- How they operate each day
- How they recover
- How they lead under pressure
- How teams support each other
Sustainable organisations are built on sustainable leaders. The question is not whether leaders can keep going. It is whether the way they are going is something they, and the organisation around them, can sustain.
Sources: AIHS State of Workplace Burnout 2025; Infinite Potential State of Workplace Burnout 2024; Australian Institute of Management (AIM) 2023; Robert Half Australia Burnout Report 2024; Comcare Australian Government 2025; Foremind Australian Burnout Statistics 2025; Gartner Research.
About the Author
Margie Ireland is a leadership expert, psychologist and executive coach who supports executive leaders, and leadership teams to achieve better performance. With a rare combination of commercial acumen and psychological expertise, she understands the unique pressures facing leaders, from managing complex client relationships and driving performance to navigating the personal toll of sustained high-stakes decision-making. Margie is also the author of The Happy Healthy Leader – how to achieve your potential even during a crisis. She is also the founder of The Sustainable CEO.
