Could one cause of burnout be something as inconspicuous as this: we have come to believe there is something wrong with us, constantly? My short answer is yes, with a very important qualification. Burnout is not caused by an inner critic alone. The research continues to point to chronic workplace stress, excessive demands, inadequate resources, low autonomy, role conflict, and insufficient support as major contributors. But an inner critic can intensify those conditions by persuading us to...

Beneath burnout, quiet quitting, and the reorganizations that never seem to end, there's often a quieter pattern: a leader stuck in reaction, cut off from what creative, sustainable leadership would actually require. The phrase "sustainable leadership", gets used almost exclusively for climate action and corporate sustainability reporting. That's not what this article is about. This is about a leader's inner game, and how that inner game shapes the culture underneath you. The Real Question...

We humans have a curious relationship with definitions. We crave them. We want to know what something is, to draw a line around it, name it, and make the uncertain feel a little more certain. Or, sometimes, to undermine it. If you’ve been anywhere near leadership development over the last few decades, you’ve seen the endless search for the definition of a great leader, as if somewhere out there exists the perfect mix of qualities, behaviours, and competencies that will finally settle what...