Learning from Burnout: Developing Sustainable Leaders and Avoiding
Career Derailment
Author: Tim Casserley and David Megginson
Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
Price: $39.95
Rating: 5 out of 5
It is almost impossible to read this book - which tackles the tough, and much misunderstood subject of the psychological and emotional devastation caused by burnout - without feeling pangs of guilt and pity for the people it indirectly discusses. For Learning From Burnout only exists because 100 senior executives researched by the authors all suffered their own calamitous burnouts.What Casserley and Megginson expertly and compassionately do is take readers on a journey of the findings of their studies of what happened to these people that made them suffer what they did.
This study genuinely breaks new ground, and sheds much-needed academically-sound light on a taboo subject too easily dismissed by employers. The authors reveal, for instance, how a massive 94% of people found to have experienced burnout demonstrated a particular psychological trait, of over-identifying with work or their career to the detriment of their emotional, physical or spiritual needs. The authors are also not afraid to ask some uncomfortable questions of HR professionals - such as the organisation's own contribution to creating people with an over-identification with work. They essentially cast doubt on what could be construed as heavy-handed programmes by HR to make staff over-engage with companies, asking just how safe it is for them to create this sense of belonging to a company.
This tome is an impressive guide to why burnout is so damaging, why some people says it's needed as a 'developmental experience', and how managers can learn to spot the symptoms. With more days now lost at work due to mental illness than to physical injury, understanding the concepts described in this inexpensive book could literally save workers lives, and save your company a compensation-packet to boot.
