The real cause of burnout & how to resist it

The real cause of burnout in the workplace can be summarised as failures of responsibility in the human services. These failures of responsibility by many actors in positions of authority in a hierarchy of service delivery have multiple unintended, and nevertheless seriously harmful, consequences. Burnout of front line workers is the most concerning symptom of systems’ failures. A system fails when the collectivity of all responsible actors are either acting in inadequate ways or failing to act when it is their responsibility to do so.

Failures of responsibility create a cascading series of losses and harms down the hierarchy such that people can be situated as the weakest link and the problem. I’m using the words ‘weakest link’ from Sandra Bloom’s important writing on trauma-causing workplaces, and here caution us not to interpret it as us being weak. Rather it is a systemic manifestation of problems largely beyond our control. The weakest link can get located in our person because we might be least desirable to the powers that be, or the least important, or the least agreeable, one way or another we will be at the bottom of the pecking order, where it is ultra hard to be safe and to be heard.

The podcast outlines a number of ways to resist burnout in these kinds of workplaces. For example - get support; monitor your self talk; support others (behind the scenes); stand your ground; trust your senses; recognise patterns in the workplace and be cautious in trusting smiling faces. All these resistance strategies have some cautionary notes so do check out the podcast for more details.

Burnout is experienced personally but it is in a workplace which makes it professional ie work related, legal, organisational ie occupational health and safety, and ultimately a societal issue.

You can read more about organisational violence and other issues that can cause us to feel burnout and morally injured in my book - Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice. Available form the publisher - https://www.revolutionaries.com.au/books/p/bh

And by following me on TikTok and Instagram.

Thank you for your support and interest.