43% of Australian workers are experiencing burnout right now. Up 17% from 2024.
But here’s the figure that should give every CEO and board pause: nearly 58% of Australian managers reported burnout in 2023. Leadership burnout is not trailing the general workforce trend. In many cases, it’s ahead of it.
And most organisations won’t see it coming.
The risk hiding in your top performers
Here’s what makes leadership burnout particularly dangerous. It doesn’t look like struggle. It looks like your highest performer.
The leader who is:
- Always delivering and holding things together
- Stepping in when others can’t
- Always available, always composed
- The one everyone relies on most
Also the one most likely to be quietly burning out.
High-performing leaders don’t opt out. They push through, absorb pressure, and keep delivering. Which means burnout at this level isn’t removed. It’s rewarded. The metrics still look fine. Revenue holds. Targets are met. Teams function. Until they don’t.
What you can’t see:
- Relentless mental load that never switches off
- Complex decisions being made with reduced cognitive bandwidth
- A growing gap between external performance and internal capacity
- A leader managing their own state while stabilising everyone else
They still look strong. They’re just paying for it in ways the organisation can’t yet measure.
It doesn’t stay at the top
Burnout flows downward. When leaders are operating in chronic depletion, the effects move through the organisation:
- Decision-making becomes slower and more reactive
- Leaders are less present as mentors and sponsors
- The behaviours that erode culture get modelled from the top
Gartner research puts this in context. In 2016, employees navigated around two major organisational changes per year. By 2023, that had grown to eleven. Leaders already at capacity are being asked to guide their teams through near-constant disruption.
The cost is measurable:
- Burnt-out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day
- 2.6 times more likely to be actively looking for a new role
- Burnout now drives 40% of employee resignations in Australia
- Stress-related absenteeism costs the Australian economy an estimated $14 billion annually
The perception gap making 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 structural. Leaders under sustained pressure have reduced capacity to notice the signals in their teams. And because most cultures still reward stoicism over transparency, people rarely speak up until they’re already at breaking point. By the time it surfaces in your engagement survey, the problem has been present for some time.
Where to act before performance declines
- Stop assuming your strongest leaders are fine. They’re often the least likely to signal risk and the most likely to be carrying it. Ask open questions. Intervene earlier, not after performance declines.
- Treat leadership wellbeing as a board-level risk item, alongside cyber, succession planning, and financial exposure. Australian employers also have a legal duty to manage psychosocial hazards. Failure to do so carries significant financial and in some cases criminal consequences.
- Close the perception gap with real data. Annual engagement surveys are a lagging indicator. Regular, psychologically safe pulse checks give leadership teams early warning and boards honest visibility.
- Invest in your leaders’ capacity to lead. Executive coaching, peer support, and leadership development aren’t overheads. In a market where burnout drives 40% of resignations, they’re retention and cost-reduction strategies.
- Redefine what high performance looks like. Sustainable output, not heroic unsustainable intensity, needs to become the operating standard. Leaders take their cues from what gets recognised and rewarded.
The risk that may already be inside your organisation
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.
Sustainable organisations are built on sustainable leaders. The question isn’t whether your leaders can keep going. It’s whether the way they’re going is something the organisation can sustain.
So what’s the next step?
One practical place to start is with your own leadership team.
An anonymous survey that assesses current stress levels, what’s driving that stress, and whether leaders feel confident in their ability to manage it in a functional and healthy way can surface what conversations and culture often can’t.
I use this with clients as an early diagnostic, and what it uncovers is often unexpected:
- Stressors that aren’t showing up in any formal channel
- Confidence gaps that high performers would never voice in a room
- Patterns across a leadership team that, once visible, change how the whole organisation responds
It doesn’t require a major intervention to get started. It just requires the willingness to ask the question and the psychological safety to answer it honestly.
If you’d like to explore what this could look like for your organisation, I’d love to connect.
And if you want to go deeper on this topic first, my video series Leadership Burnout: In Plain Sight is a good place to start. You’ll find the link below.
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 Margie Ireland
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.
