Written by Megan Winkler, author of Breaking Up with Burnout and host of The Glow Up Revolution Podcast. Megan works with perimenopausal women who are ready to identify burnout patterns, reclaim their energy, and reconnect with themselves through a blend of trauma-informed coaching, astrology, Human Design, and energy healing.
Your productivity is off the charts and looks amazing from the outside. You answer emails at 11 pm, skip lunch three days in a row, and you’re the first one online and the last one off. It gets praised as drive and dedication.
Behind the scenes, though, you’re leading on empty.
Leadership stress is high. In the 2025 Global Leadership Forecast, which surveyed nearly 11,000 leaders worldwide, 71% of respondents reported significantly higher stress since stepping into their current role, up from 63% in 2022 (DDI’s 2025 Global Leadership Forecast). Executive-level burnout (and I’d argue business-owner burnout qualifies!) is part of the same picture. In Q2 2026, 70% of CEOs reported burnout or emotional exhaustion at least occasionally (Vistage, 2026). This is a massive disconnect between what leadership demands of us these days and what it should be.
What Running on Empty Actually Costs
Leadership burnout doesn’t look the same as burnout experienced further down the org chart. It can show up as decision fatigue, slower strategic thinking, and difficulty making clear calls. These are the exact opposite of what a leader is paid to do. The fact of the matter is that burnout can impair executive functioning, which means judgment, planning, and decision-making can all take a hit.
There’s a financial cost, too. A 2025 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimated the annual employer cost of disengagement and burnout at $20,683 for an average U.S. executive. Those costs include lost productivity and missed workdays. And if a company has to replace an executive entirely, the number jumps quickly. SHRM estimates that replacing an employee can cost up to 200% of their annual salary, depending on their level. That means a $300,000 leader could cost around $600,000 to replace once you factor in recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity during the transition. And if it’s just you running a business, burnout could put your entire company at risk if you burn out. Scary, I know, but it’s solvable.
Let’s Redefine “Strong Leadership”
Our society tells us that a leader who never rests is the leader to bet on. That’s backwards, and I want to invite us all to reimagine what a “strong leader” actually looks like. Because running yourself into the ground is not proof that you care more. It actually proves that your business doesn’t have the systems it needs to function without you personally combusting to keep it moving.
Real strength comes from leading from capacity and building structures that don’t require you to be hands-on all the time.
What Leading from Capacity Actually Looks Like
Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t a call to take a bubble bath and hope it fixes your quarterly numbers. It’s an invitation for a structural revamp that will help you focus on leading from your best self, not the version of you who’s totally empty and burned out. Here are some ideas to try:
- Delegate the decisions that don’t require your input. If it doesn’t require your specific set of eyes, it doesn’t require your time or energy output either. You’ve hired great people! Trust them.
- Build boundaries into the calendar, not just into a values deck. Blocked time works if it’s protected, and the best way to do it is to set calendar limits or blocked time periods for regrouping, rest, and creativity.
- Name the “always on” behaviors that you’re modeling. Where did you pick those up? What can you stop doing and therefore help your team to stop doing too? They’re modeling your behavior, and a burned-out leader means a burned-out team.
- Treat capacity like a resource you manage, not a personality trait you either have or don’t.
Notice that none of these require you to detach from your business or care less about the work. It’s just a switch to focus on capacity from an energetic sense, rather than a high-octane version that only exists on television screens or in people’s imagination.
Stop Rewarding Empty
Whether you’re giving yourself a pat on the back for pushing yourself beyond redline, or you’re rewarding the over-giving of your team members without realizing it, the first shift that needs to happen is to reward intentionality, not running on empty. Pick one way to operate from capacity-driven leadership and stick with it for a couple of weeks. It’ll help you build a system around your energetic capacity instead of all-nighters, and the result can be a more sustainable path to revenue and success.
Explore Megan Winkler’s Work.
