If burnout affects leadership retention, what warning signs should boards and CEOs watch for? And what interventions actually prevent a leadership exodus?

You already know that for some reason, you and others expect you to keep watch, spot danger early, and sound the alarm if trouble looms.

The first questions I encourage you to ask yourself is “What changed?” and “Why now?”

Burnout doesn’t arrive like a memo. It doesn’t say, “Per my last email, you are now exhausted.” It creeps in dressed as “busy,” disguised as “commitment,” and applauded as “dedication.” Leaders often start with energy and optimism, then slowly surrender to overwhelm—and blame the market, the industry, or Congress.

Here’s how to spot the real culprits when you sense overload:

Mismatched or unrealistic expectations lead the pack in stressors.

 Expectations aren’t the problem—boundaries are. If you’re trying to satisfy the board, investors, employees, customers, regulators, you’ve already abdicated leadership. Pick priorities. Declare trade-offs. Live with dissent. Most importantly, TALK to one another.

Decision overload isn’t about volume. It’s about ambiguity without authority. Too many executives have traded judgment for consensus and consensus for paralysis. When decisions keep boomeranging to the CEO or the Board in slightly different packaging, it’s not “thoroughness.” It’s depletion. If the safest option wins every time, you’re watching confidence leak out of the enterprise and innovation die a slow death.

Lack of recovery time (time off) is not a badge of honor. It’s poor management with good PR. If you don’t schedule recovery, your body will impose it—through illness, exhaustion, or disengagement. If people think of themselves as too “essential” to take time off, you’ve built a weak organization and an even weaker leadership model. No one is irreplaceable, but many are irresponsible.

Isolation is the silent accelerant. Executives who refuse peer networks and avoid candid counsel end up trapped in their own echo chamber. And when a new leader inherits former peers as direct reports, politics replaces performance. Solitude isn’t strength. It’s a liability with a corner office.

Value misalignment is the point where burnout becomes something worse. When leaders can’t reconcile what they do with what they believe, that’s not fatigue—that’s soul rot. Values drift shows up as withdrawal, cynicism, and “just get through it” behavior.

New priorities require old ones to die. Here’s how to encourage these:

1. Decide who owns the decision. Clarify decision rights and remove double-accountability, the corporate equivalent of two people steering the same canoe into a tree.
2. Protect strategic thinking with fewer discussions of tactics and recurring meetings. Define “urgent” and build crisis discipline so everything doesn’t become an “emergency” the moment someone uses a red font.
3. Strengthen the bench so leadership isn’t lonely or brittle. Use coaching and support that produce measurable outcomes: faster decisions, stronger delegation, stable teams, and happier customers.

Reclaim your leadership. You don’t need a sabbatical. You need standards.