Name: The Edge: High Performers Are Burning Out - Not Growing
Uploaded: 2026-09-16T19:02:45.697Z
Duration: 36 min 36 s
Description: The Edge: High Performers Are Burning Out - Not Growing

Transcript for "The Edge: High Performers Are Burning Out - Not Growing": Thank you for joining us today for this month's session of The Edge. Burnout is a systemic issue affecting high performers and business outcomes. In today's session, we will discover how organizations can tackle it by rethinking leadership development, building clear leadership pathways, and focusing on intentional development. Please use the chat on the right side of your screen or the emojis at the bottom to welcome today's speakers to the stage. From TriNet, senior organizational development consultant, Sophie Alexandridis, and leadership development senior manager, Renee Hubbard. Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. My name is Sophie, and I'm a senior organizational development consultant here at TriNet. Hi, everyone. I'm Renee, and my focus at TriNet is leadership development. And a fun fact for all those in the audience, Renee and I are actually on the same team, so we get to work together a lot. So this is just another fun thing we get to do together. Agree. Before we begin, a few housekeeping items. If you're not as familiar with this lovely event space here, If you look to the right of your screen, you'll see some tab headers. There's docs and q and a. If you have questions at any time, we ask you put them in the q and a tab. So some questions we might be able to answer at the end, hope and then others, we'll have colleagues helping us who may answer via text under your question. Another great reminder is this session will be available on demand using your same link after today's session ends. So if you wanna go revisit this session, grab more nuggets of wisdom, refresh on what we said, you can absolutely go do that. And if you have questions that are more specific to your company and to your exact needs, please click the TriNet contact me button above us, and we will follow-up with you after today's session. Now before we go any further, it wouldn't be a session if we didn't ask you all to test out the chat. So let's go to the chat feature. I'll give you all a second to find it. It's just to the right of us here on the screen. The first thing we wanna know is what does burnout mean to you? So you can throw in a word, two words, a sentence. Please put your thoughts in the chat to to show us you're here with us. And while we're letting that trickle in, we'll give it about a minute. Renee, would you like to tell us in a couple words what burnout means to you? Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Sophie. So burnout for me means way more than just I have too much work on my plate. And the reason I say this is because I actually have experienced exactly what we're talking about today. So I do come from a place of this has happened to me in the past. But it's it's a lot more than that. It it's feeling, like you're not moving forward. It's feeling like, you're stuck, but yet you have all of this work that you're doing and you just don't feel like you're going anywhere. And so you you can maybe feel defeated. So, yeah, that's what it means to me. Mhmm. Awesome. Love that answer, Renee. And like you said, I think when you experience it personally, what it means transforms. And I see we have some some chimes in the chat that have come in. It means different things to different people, and it can look and feel differently. But thank you all for your participation there. Burnout really is at the heart of what we're talking about today. It's really important. This this is something that nearly every small to medium sized business leader deals with, and honestly, probably every leader out there. But it's one of those things that you don't usually have the time, to step back and really solve. And so what can start to happen and what we see is your top performers are carrying more than ever before in this age of change. These top performers are the ones that everyone relies on. They're stepping in across the business. They're solving problems. They're covering gaps. They're bringing backups. They're keeping things moving when others get stuck to ensure the success of the project, initiative, the team. But what happens is instead of growing into like future leaders, they're spending more time reacting and getting stuck in the day to day. Right. Over time, this shifts from, you know, stretch to what starts to feel like strain, and then what gets to burnout. And this isn't just an individual people issue, like, really wanna emphasize that burnout is not just a a personal problem. It's it's a real business risk. Right, Renee? Absolutely. Just because, you know, it's happening within an individual, this is a real business risk on teams, on the company overall. Because when your best people start to stall or leave, the impact is is rarely just isolated. It can show up as projects not getting done, misdeliverables, misgrowth targets, execution slowing down, and a leadership gap that is pretty hard to recover from. So really is much more than just an individual feeling a little off. So with that, I wanna give the audience a a rhetorical question to just noodle on as we talk more. Do you think your high performers are actually growing, or are they just taking on more work? I think it's a great question for us to open with, Sophie. A great reflection question for sure. And that's really the key issue here that we're talking about today. Most organizations think that they're developing leaders by giving them more work, and it's a very unintentional. We know who those people are in our organization that are reliable. We've built trust with them. But what they're really doing is leaning in harder on their most capable people, and those are two very different things. Absolutely, Renee. Thank you for that distinction. I think it's important to start off by saying more work does not equal growing your people into next leaders. So let's break this down a little bit more. Renee, why is this happening right now? Why are these high performers hitting burnout instead of growing into our future leaders? Yeah. Sure. So especially in small to midsize businesses, there's so many things to get done, to accomplish. I mean, just the day to day of building a business is is super busy. So often, growth outpaces the structure. And one of the things usually not on that initial road map or or even maybe on the road map for the first couple of years is building out formal leadership programs. So you're relying on a few key people again who have proven themselves. They can get things done maybe very quickly. They're efficient. They're effective. They are given informal stretch assignments. So there's a lot of trust that they'll figure it out. But actually, what happens over time is that that then turns into this dependency and just sort of intuitively return to the same people over and over and over again. And that creates overload for that person. And like you mentioned, it eventually just leads to the burnout. Mhmm. Mhmm. Thank you, Renee. And it's important that you mentioned this is not something that people are doing intentionally. Leaders don't think, how can I burn out my best people? It's so tempting to go to the person that you know will get you the answer, you know will get it done, you have that trust built in with. And so this is really something that is, again, not on purpose and and hard to take time to think about more, especially when we're in such a time of change, different priorities, etcetera. So trying to think through how this impacts performance and performance management as a whole, is this something that performance systems can help with? Exactly. Yes. And I wanna clarify, performance systems don't we're we're not talking about a a piece of technology, right, or or a platform. One challenge is that most performance systems are built to answer just one question and that is who delivered results. But leadership development often requires answering a very different question and that is who's ready to lead? Who's ready to lead others? Who's ready to lead the business? Who's ready to lead the future? And in most organizations, you know, the answering the question of delivering results versus who's ready to lead, they're not the same measurement. Spoken like a true leadership development professional. But, yeah, it's definitely something that that's more common than not is we're rewarding people for what they're doing today, how they're showing up today, but not necessarily looking at that potential for what's next. And, I'm assuming this can, of course, impact the high performers as well even more so. So how would you say that this impacts our top performers? So, again, very naturally, I think that high performers often get rewarded with more work instead of more growth. And, again, very unintentionally that we know who those few key people are. We feel we may feel like I'm giving them more work. They're being developed, but there's a lot of things that are missing. So let us know in the chat if that statement resonates with you that high performance high performers often get rewarded with more work instead of more growth. Perhaps there's some of our audience that have experienced that themselves and perhaps, again, this is a good reflection question. But the most reliable those few key people are the most reliable. So they're getting pulled into more projects, more responsibility, more firefighting, but that often happens without having conversations that talk about what is the development path, How can we get you exposure to leadership level thinking? What does that look like? What are some options that we have to do that? And are we actually building in time to grow? I mean, I can recall feeling like, you know, my days were so busy that I didn't have time to develop while I'm at work. I was I had to do it on my own time. And there's competing priorities when you're outside of work too. So I think it's really important for organizations to understand that building in time for development at work is critically important for development. And that's part of the conversation that you have with people too whether that's, you know, they're they're attending conferences, they're attending webinars, they're spending time, you know, with other parts of the business. So, eventually, what happens with those that get more work, they become indispensable in their role, and they may even become in invisible as future leaders because we're just seeing them as output. Mhmm. Mhmm. You hit on so many good points there, Renee, that I really wanna hone in on. First, you know, if you're doing a great job and all you're getting is more work, are you gonna feel motivated to keep doing more work? And motivation is integral to burnout. If you're burnt out, you're not you're not seeing the purpose of continuing to work hard. And the other point that really stood out to me is the, the mention of needing dedicated time for growth. You know, the times where I've been the busiest, the last thing on my list is to actually go take time to do a course or learn more. So really, really love those points. This is obviously not something that our SMB leaders or any leaders are are trying to accomplish. So where where do leaders get this wrong? What are some common issues that we see? So I would say the first mistake that leaders are making, and again, unintentionally, is confusing stretch with development. So not all stretch is development. And by stretch, what I mean is taking on more work or responsibility, sometimes even outside of your role without the support or structure to actually grow from it. So when there's stretch without context, or ownership or even feedback, it's really just more work. What development requires is that we're giving them exposure to decision making and and know that in the early days of that, those decisions may not always be the exact right decisions, and those are learning opportunities in and of themselves. And that's perfectly okay. We learn our best sometimes when when we don't get it right the first time. Yeah. Development also requires cross functional thinking. So if we're just staying sort of in our lane, if you will, and we're not getting exposure to cross functional thinking or really understanding what are the parts of the business do, we become very siloed. And that's not true development. Development also requires accountability beyond execution. So all of these things are sort of this this mix of what this development look like. Mhmm. Mhmm. Keywords that definitely stood out to me there, Renee, are support, structure, and context, or else it's it's just more work. So growth absolutely is important, but it helps when you know what does this growth look like, where can that growth take me, how can it set me up for what's in the future. And this kinda gets into visibility. So how do you see visibility factoring into this? Yeah. Visibility is critical because, again, someone who is is is completing their work, doing their work, and and you're not hearing a lot from them doesn't mean that they're invisible. So the second mistakes that the second mistake that that leaders make is not having a clear path to leadership, and that's huge. If your if your best people cannot see a clear path forward, they're going to start looking elsewhere. People don't leave companies. They leave dead ends. And and, you know, I mentioned earlier this is something that I experienced. This is exactly what happened. And so just a simple conversation. And and I'm not talking about a performance review conversation once a year or even once a quarter. These are continuous conversations, reminders, recognition, and we'll get into some of that a little bit later. So, yeah, not having a clear path and having those conversations can cause people to feel like they're at a dead end. And by the way, without having those conversations, people start to create a narrative in their head that may not be true. Mhmm. Yeah. I I love the point about the narrative and the mindset. Mindset is so big to this too. And when you get to that place of burnout, the mindset is typically not exactly where you want it to be. Right. When you get to this sorry. You Go ahead, Sophie. I was gonna say, it also sounds like, this gets more difficult in times of extra change or times of increased workload as well. Right? Yeah. And and what can happen with that? Another mistake is just making leadership development reactive. So, again, as SMB owners and as, you know, those employees that are early into building an SMB, leadership pipelines generally aren't built intentionally. I mean, you have your few people that are helping to build. Right? So you're not really thinking about building, leadership pipelines. But and so what happens is that they get built when someone leads or when the business outgrows the current leaders, and that's actually reactive. And, oh, by the way, it's really expensive. I mean, we we all heard the cost of, you know, recruiting and what it takes to replace somebody. So without having a plan in place, even if it's a little list on the side of your desk so that you're sort of always thinking about who could potentially be next, That's going to help you build a pipeline even if it is informally in the in the early days. Mhmm. Definitely best to be proactive rather than reactive. It's a lot easier to get make someone engaged when they're not already at the point of burnout than it is when they're already at that place. So I love the the message of trying to be proactive where you can. Of course, context matters, like, things get busy, but trying your best to to make that a priority. And all of these challenges really get to the heart of what a lot of companies can ask us about and ask us about often that we deal with. So before I move on, I wanna check-in with our wonderful audience here with a poll. So we've talked about a few reasons here that high performers can get stuck in that cycle of burnout instead of growing. And I'm curious what you're seeing most in your organization right now. So I'm gonna go ahead and launch a poll here. Which challenge that we've talked about so far is showing up for you most often? Renee and I definitely had our predictions as to what we think the results are gonna be, but, we'll give y'all about sixty seconds to answer that. I'm gonna go ahead and read the options. So a being top performers keep getting more work into the development opportunities. B, employees don't have a clear path to leadership. C, we are so busy reacting to immediate needs, everything else takes a back seat. D, not sure who those future leaders are. E, combination of all these. And f, none of these. And if you are selecting f, none of these, please, you know, let us know how in the chat because I would be very, very curious to hear. Yeah. So, yes, our audience is is checking on that poll there. Doing the the leadership pipeline, even if it is informal, having these conversations on occasion, it's an investment. So when I look at, you know, the option of we're so busy reacting to immediate needs that development takes a back seat, it is actually a small investment with a big payoff. It's like that quote slow down speed up. I love love that one. Yes. So while these results are coming in, we've already gotten a good amount. What's important to remember is, as you can see, whatever you're choosing, you are not alone. These are common challenges Renee and I hear about all the time. It looks like we are getting a combination that's resonating most with this group, which is what we expected. And the good news is that no matter which one you selected, these these are fixable. There are things that we can do to combat burnout in in all of these forms and causes. So, that's, I think, where we wanna spend the rest of our time here, talking about solutions. So we've covered the big challenges, Renee. Let's let's shift to those solutions. What can or should our leaders start doing differently starting as soon as right now? Yeah. So there's there's several to touch on. The first one would be, separating workload from development, but being very intentional about that. So ask yourself, and other leaders and decision making makers in the organization, is the way that we're operating now helping our people to grow, or is it just helping us run and and get by? And, you know, this may be sort of it may ebb and flow throughout, you know, the lifetime of your organization. But if it's the latter, if it's just helping us to get by, and and just, you know, do the day to day like you mentioned, that's that's not development. So being very intentional would be the first thing. The next thing I would say is creating visibility into leadership potential. So who are your ready soon leaders? Right? And if you don't have that list, you don't have a pipeline like we talked about. It can start, you know, on the side of your desk, on the back of a napkin. Right. But, but that list then it needs to turn into action. So mapping out what the next role requires. And I would say, you know, engaging the people in your organization to be a part of mapping that out with that. You're not just thinking about that in the silo. And the reality is also that what our landscape and our environment in the business world, requires of us today as businesses is constantly evolving so that map can, constantly change or constantly evolve itself. I think you also have to be really explicit about the skills or the experiences that are missing today. So what are those? Asking a lot of questions, you know, I think being curious during this part can be so helpful. So, you know, ask the questions, build, you know, some skills and experiences, and then give those individuals some targeted opportunities to close those gaps. What would that look like for you? Where do you think that you might be missing these skills or experiences? Let me share my observations. So it's a conversation that's happening and you're having those regular conversations about what are you interested in, where are you headed, what are your interests, is it a short term goal, is it a long term goal, do we do we create short term goals to get to the long term goal, right? Like what does that look like? So what that does, it creates momentum and momentum isn't just opportunity. It actually provides that clarity and that context that we talked about. I would say then the next thing would be developed through real work like the day to day with support and structure. That's key. So yes, we have to get the day to day done, but the support and the structure that go with it can help to give those high performers the, owning a project from end to end. Having that decision making authority, and then giving them exposure outside of their function. But again, you're doing it with the structure. So you're talking about the support, but then you're giving the the the structure of maybe owning a cross functional project. Again, the the end to end. So leading the meeting or the initiative, not just contributing to it. So ask your your person to, set the agenda to follow-up after the meeting with the list of action items with their delegating, which actually includes items for themselves, and and help to lead the conversation, not just contribute to the conversation. And then making decisions with guidance. So I think we've probably all heard throughout the course of our career, a leader has said to us, if you have a problem, bring me some solutions. Because what that lets us know is they're thinking through that. So being able to, make decisions with guidance, everything doesn't need to be escalated but it shows that they're actually thinking through. And then your role as a people leader can help to be to coach and to guide and to manage through that decision making process along the way. Or your person could be partnering with another team to see how the broader business operates. So I think that's really critical is that that exposure and that visibility. However, or and I should say, for more senior or next level leaders that can look a little different. So let's talk about that for a second. Instead of just owning projects, they're owning outcomes. That's much bigger. That has a much bigger impact in the organization. Your your more senior leaders or next level leaders could actually lead cross functional initiatives while they are managing competing priorities. We all have competing priorities but to be able to manage those and lead a cross functional initiative, now you're kind of putting a lot of, irons in the fire if you will and that's honestly what we have to deal with day to day as leaders and that is part of leadership development. It also could be making decisions that have real business trade offs. So not just execution execution choices but business trade offs. What does that look like? And then I think another one can be representing their function in leadership conversations. So not just what I'm responsible for, but the entire function. Be able to speak to it and act on it at a function level or even being accountable for results that impact the broader business and not just their team. So that's how leadership actually gets built pretty fast. I think another one for us to touch on would be recognition and rebalancing that recognition. So making sure that re recognition reinforces growth and not just effort. So we're rewarding things like the influence that they have, the initiative that they show, and and those actual leadership behaviors that they're demonstrating, not just the output. I mean, it's really great to get a message from somebody whether, you know, from your leader. Absolutely. But, you know, from others in the organization that can say, I I saw that, I saw how you demonstrated that leadership behavior, you know, kudos to you, way to go. So recognizing somebody for stepping up and leading a cross functional team effort again and not just those tasks whether it's a conversation that you have passing the hallway, it's a team's message if you're in a virtual environment, it's a shout out in a team meeting that can look a lot of different ways that that recognition. Calling out how someone navigated a tough decision or a trade off and not just the end result. So, I'm really terrible at these things, but you know, the the sort of when you reach the the top of the mountain or the peak of the mountain, that's yes, that is a goal, but it's really the journey getting there that we build resilience and and and we are required to navigate through that. Some would say it's the climb. Great reference. Also highlighting when someone mentors others or helps to elevate the team. I will say Sophie, one of the great things that I do love about not only our team but our broader team is that we elevate each other. We notice, when someone's doing something outside of their function, we see something that maybe we didn't even know that person was involved in and we come back and say, hey, I saw this and wow, how exciting and congratulations and and all of those things. I mean, that matters just as much, when it's not just within our function, but when others notice that we're doing things outside of that. I love that, Renee. That's, like, one of my favorite things about our team and working here at TriNet, really, is, Renee just said that to me this week. She saw something I had done online and sent it in and gave me a shout out and definitely helps boost my engagement. So thanks, Renee. I mean, it helps to build motivation. I mean, it's exciting when you just get an unexpected message out of the blue that's that's, you know, praising your efforts, not and not just the result. And just know that that recognition whether it's a remote team or co located, you know, teams, absolutely it can happen and is doable. So whether you're building it into team meetings, not just performance reviews, I probably can't harp on that enough like every day should should just be the day that you're sharing that information. Helping the coach managers on what to recognize and how to say it with their teams. When people move from individual contributors to leaders they don't intuitively know how to do that. So our role as people leaders that are helping to develop other people leaders for the future, helping to coach them on that can be really important. I would say also shifting performance conversations to include how the results were achieved. Right? So talking about the climb, like, just as important and then being consistent with it. The consistency pattern is, I feel like, where the where the rubber meets the road, if you will. And and again it continues to build that motivation and that determination and it helps. It's so awesome when when you feel like someone's invested in your growth and development and they're sharing it with you. What what you recognize it is what gets repeated and those are the types of behaviors that we want in in leadership development and just growing people in general. And I think the last thing I want to touch on here, Sophie, is is building a leadership system. So, you don't need a big program. This is really easy. You set clear expectations. You provide ongoing feedback and you create and you talk about visible pathways. And that way, is is pretty simple. Just defining what does good leadership look like at your company. You know, when we come from other organizations, it could look different at another company than it looks like here. So you wanna be specific about what it looks like at your company and what those expectations are. You want to build that regular feedback into how managers operate. We're role models as people leaders so this should not be a once or twice a year or even once a quarter. It is that consistent, you know, in that consistent pattern that we talked about and then making those paths visible so that people understand what they're working towards. And then you're revisiting these conversations consistently as the business evolves because those conversations might even look a little bit different and and evolve themselves. Awesome. I love, love, love all these, Renee. Thank you so much. And notice none of these answers are just give people more time off because you need to actually make changes to the day to day work and where they show up every day. Time away isn't going to solve what's happening at the workplace. So those are great actions. Thank you. And to make things even more clear for our leaders so they can start doing these things right now, could you walk us through an example either from personal experience or a fictional example? Sure. So so let's take a growing company, with about 30 employees and they appear very successful on the surface. But what you might not see is behind the scenes, there's a handful of high performers that are the ones that are getting the majority of the workload. They're the go to people all the time. They are we go to them. People go to them because they can solve problems, and they've shown that they can solve problems. They can drive initiatives. They can keep things moving. But over time, let's say you have a couple of those people that leave and they're not leaving for benefits or pay. They're leaving because they feel stuck. There wasn't that context that was there that that pathway was not visible to them. And so they didn't know or understand if they had influence. They didn't feel like they were their development was an investment not only in them but in the organization and the future of the organization. So then what happens? Your leadership realizes that they made the mistake, of of, just expecting them to give constant effort versus how are they truly engaged and how are they feeling about their development and are they clear about where they're going and what we see them doing and the value that they bring to the company. So this company may instead of adding a formal program because again probably not on the list in the in the early days, begin involving employees in bigger decisions. Giving them greater ownership. Having them, you and them take part in more meaningful career conversations. So that recognition shifts from simply rewarding the results to highlighting those leadership behaviors and the growth. And what what does the outcome look like, you might ask? Within a few months, employees have more clarity about their future. They're making a greater impact. They're no longer just managing workload. And and while they may feel like I've never worked harder in my life, I see a path. I feel like I'm being invested in. So they're developing and growing, and they're not burning out. Awesome. Renee, I love that example, and it definitely made it even more clear on how all of us can go out and take action to prevent burnout. So that really illustrates the power of this whole conversation we've had, and that's really the shift behind today's conversation. Yeah. I mean, your high performers don't burn out because they can't handle more work. They burn out when the work doesn't lead anywhere, when they can't see the path. And burning out isn't a talent issue, it's a system issue. And again, not not a technology, not a platform, but it's the systems that you build, for development. And when you fix that, you don't just retain your high performers. You actually build in your next layer of leaders faster than what your competitors do. Oh, awesome, Renee. That is a perfect line to to end us on. I see we're coming at time. Hopefully, today's conversation gave everyone here in the audience a few ideas to think differently about burnout and development and what that could look like inside of your own organization. Apologies if we weren't able to get to your questions, but since they are in the q and a, we'll be able to follow-up after the session. Two reminders, though, if you do have questions specifically how TriNet can help you in your business, please do click that TriNet contact me button above us, and we'll be sure to reach out. And if you could please just stay here for a few minutes for a preview of next month's session of the Edge. Thank you so much, Renee, for all your nuggets of wisdom, and thank you all to the audience for joining us today. Thanks, everyone. It's great to be with you. Before you go, we would like to preview next month's Edge session, the new face of ADA, neurodiversity and invisible disabilities at work. As we recognize National Disability Employment Awareness Month, join us for a timely conversation about invisible disabilities in the workplace. We'll explore what leaders should know, common challenges employees may face, and practical approaches for supporting employee success. Please register at the link in the ticker on your screen or from the link in the docs tab. If you have questions about TriNet, we invite you now to our discovery zone, accessible from the link at the top of your screen, where we have self paced demos, information sheets, assessments, and more information to help you understand if TriNet is a good fit for your company. If you don't have time now but would like more information, just click the yellow TriNet contact me button at the top of the screen, and a colleague will reach out. Thank you again for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing you next month for the edge.