Being a resilient leader (and enabling resilience in your team) can be one of the most effective ways to avoid burnout and the feeling of losing control.
But even the most resilient leaders can still feel overwhelmed at times. We’re all human and sometimes, things just get a bit much. When you become a manager, you take on:
- More responsibility.
- More complexity.
- More expectations.
And there is no guarantee that you’ll get the right level of support from above. Let’s look at how to handle this and give yourself the best chance of staying in control and performing at a high level, even when things get really hard.
The current reality of managing people
Many managers today are navigating challenges such as:
- Larger teams due to hiring freezes at management level.
- The inverse – smaller teams due to layoffs but the same amount of work.
- Higher performance expectations with limited headcount.
- Teams spread across multiple locations, which require more emotional and logistical effort.
- A workforce that, rightly, demands more coaching and clarity.
It’s no wonder burnout poses a big problem for managers and leaders.
Being an effective leader requires time, attention and energy. Yet we only have a finite amount of each one and need to use them carefully to remain effective.
The good news is that there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that are within your control.
Spotting when things are getting too much for you
It’s important to pick up on the warning signs that you may be starting to struggle and feeling overwhelmed. If you can spot the signs early, you have more chance of preventing escalation.
Now, obviously all of us are different and our tolerances will differ, along with the warning signs themselves. But here are a few pointers that will help you understand what to look for in yourself:
You’re canceling or rushing one-on-one meetings because you “just don’t have time”.
- You get through the day or even the week, but nothing feels done.
- You’re reacting to issues instead of proactively preventing them.
- You feel persistent guilt: “I should be doing more for my team”.
- Small asks from your team feel like huge problems.
- You’re constantly switching contexts and losing focus.
There are also subtle signs that span personal routines and habits as well, such as:
- Feeling like you don’t have time for self care or exercise.
- Rushing tasks before or after work such as walking the dog or doing errands.
- Not eating properly or skipping meals altogether.
The root cause of these are because you feel like you simply don’t have time.
When you notice these types of signals, it’s probably not because you’re bad at your job or failing – it’s almost certainly because you’re at capacity – or well over it!
It’s in this moment of realisation that you need to take a step back, adjust and take action before things get worse.
Get everything out of your head and onto paper
Start by taking some time to assess all of the things that you’re working on. This may be a case of listing out your team members, the projects you’re working on, urgent tasks – anything that is on your mind or on your to-do list.
Write it all down so that it’s out of your head.
I can pretty much guarantee that this exercise alone will make you feel better, even though nothing has actually changed at this point!
Part of the feeling of being overwhelmed can come from the fact that we’re holding a lot of information in our heads. As great as our brains are, they’re not actually that great at holding lots of complex information at the same time and making it easy for us to sort through.
Trust me – get it all out of there and onto paper or a digital document.
Give context and urgency to what is in front of you
Another reason why we can start to feel overwhelmed is that every single person, task and project feels both urgent and important.
The truth is, most things will of course be important, but the vast majority won’t be urgent i.e. they need to be done immediately.
You need to sort through everything and see exactly what the deadline or priority level of each thing is. This can help you realise where you focus needs to turn to immediately and what can be looked at later.
Can you delegate anything?
Again, I can almost guarantee that your first answer to this question will be “no”.
I can also guarantee that this isn’t true! Managers don’t delegate because:
- You think you can do it faster. This may be true in the short-term, but long-term, you’ll end up spending more time on it.
- You’ve left the task too close to the deadline for someone else to do it in time.
- You think that people don’t have time to help, but haven’t actually checked.
Again, most things come down to the feeling of not having enough time to delegate – this may be true in the short-term but again, isn’t true in the long-term.
I have a whole guide to delegation for managers here, but for now, the key points with delegation are:
- Clear ownership of a task.
- What “good” looks like for the task.
- Providing a guide for how long a task should take and when to check in with you.
- The deadline of the task.
- How much freedom and autonomy the person has on the task.
So overall, to help with feeling overwhelmed constantly, we’re shifting your mindset from “I can do it faster” to “I’m investing time now to save time later.”
Building systems that can scale without losing the personal connection
Let’s be honest about something when it comes to structure and process – if you are managing a very small team – no more than three people, then you don’t need to worry too much about scaling what you do.
But if you manage a bigger team than this, you do need to think about how you can build systems and processes that scale with the size of the team. This is particularly important if you’re likely to be given even more team members in the future.
A few ways that you can do this include:
- Use templates for repeated communication (feedback, priorities, project kickoffs)
- Standardise processes where variation adds no value.
- Introduce peer accountability so you’re not the only escalation point or support system.
- Create shared documentation so you aren’t a walking FAQ. (AI can be great for this).
This all helps prevent you being overwhelmed and also helps prevent you being a bottleneck to your team getting things done.
Then, you need to ensure that you protect the human side of what you do such as:
- Regular one-on-ones focused on personal development.
- Quick, daily touchpoints that maintain connection, even when remote.
- Public celebrations of effort and progress.
Many managers worry that systems and processes can replace relationship building. But the opposite is true – they should make space for them.
To wrap up, being overwhelmed doesn’t make you a failure, weak or a bad manager.
But you have to proactively deal with it in order to remain effective in your role.
You need to focus on personally being effective so that you enable your team to do the same. Protect your time, your capacity and delegate effectively. Whilst embracing systems that help you scale your time without managing like a robot.
