Are you a disillusioned manager?

… if you became a manager because of your values; because you care about people; because you believe that a good manager is a multiplier of a teams’ work: don’t give up. You can end up belonging and thriving.

Are you a newish manager or leader and feeling lonely and lost now the “new role” honeymoon period has worn off? Becoming a leader is a bigger change than it might seem, especially if you’ve simply moved up a rung on the ladder.

I hear people saying:

“I have been busy but have I actually done anything?”

“I am worn out, I’m not achieving anything, I don’t have any support”

I also see folks switching jobs or teams to try to find a sense of satisfaction, or even wanting to go back to being an individual contributor.

Here are some things we feel are missing:

Being part of a team
Knowing what to work on next
Knowing if you’re succeeding or not
Receiving regular feedback
Seeing tangible results
Having structure and routine to your day + week
Clear boundaries around projects
Time to focus and not be pulled in many different directions
Having a boss that cared about the details of your work

And what you often find yourself with instead is:

A team whose day-to-day work has little to do with what you do
No clarity on what your next steps are
Not knowing if what you are doing is working, or when it’ll be done
Little direct or helpful feedback
No structure or routine, just a calendar full of meetings and crises
No boundaries or endings around the problems that you spend your energy on
A boss who might care but who doesn’t have much time and just wants the highlights (and results!)

It’s no surprise folks fondly remember their days of being an individual contributor and want to go back.

If you’ve been feeling this pain for a while you might already be burnt out. Hearing that this experience is part of the transition into leadership can be disheartening.

But if you became a manager because of your values; because you care about people; because you believe that a good manager is a multiplier of a teams’ work: don’t give up. You can end up belonging and thriving.

Cut yourself some slack

This might be the hardest step. Feeling like a failure is more of a sign of the unrealistic expectations that lead to burnout than about truly failing in your role.

Take less responsibility

Your teams’ success is not all your responsibility just because you are a manager. It doesn’t serve you to over-identify with your team, with either their failures or their successes. This doesn’t mean you don’t care, it means you’ll redirect your limited care to things that you have control over.

Stop thinking about work outside of work

This is also about redirecting your limited energy and attention to people, places and interests that bring you joy and satisfaction and rejuvenate you. If you’re an over-thinker like me “just stop thinking about it” is, of course, impossible to achieve. That’s ok, even a small bit of work in this direction can bring some peace.

You’re going to need to do some self-care

Recovering from burnout isn’t about trying even harder at doing what you’re doing now. Letting go of perfection, of overthinking and starting to look out for yourself can seem like self-denial if you haven’t thought about it before. I found I needed therapy to learn these tools.

But let’s say you know all that and want some ideas of things to do differently at work to get different results.

The path to thriving is hand-made, and forwards

You will need to accept that you don’t get anything for free any more—the points on the first list worked because there was a team of people dedicated to maintaining that structure. Now you (and your peers) are that team and you’re going to have to do that work yourself.

Get new perspectives

Some things to try to give you new perspective:

Mentor another leader or manager. You’ll feel useful and discover you know more than you thought.
Find a mentor. They will absolutely reassure you that you’re not alone. You can also talk to the managers in your past.
Ask for feedback. There is praise, encouragement and learning available when you ask others what you’re doing well and what you could do better. If you’re feeling burnt out it’s important to be wary of amplifying the negative and discarding the positive. Make sure you write the good stuff down to remind you later.

Develop your own tools and systems

If you were a software developer then JIRA and your manager probably told you exactly what to work on when. You won’t be provided tools that simple any more. Learn how to use your calendar to support your time (and knowing what your team and colleagues are up to.) Build yourself a task board in whatever tool you want, and walk the board every day. Put everything on there, and learn the difference between projects and tasks. Be agile.

Integrate yourself into a new team

See yourself as part of a team that includes other leaders, across disciplines. This is unlikely to be a team that formally exists inside your company so you may have to create it. Be bold: give yourself and your peers permission to create new meetings, task boards and groups to make this happen.

Network, network, network

Find friends in work and the industry. This’ll not only give you opportunities to learn and share, but remind you that your discipline is leadership, and not the work of your team.

Discover your own mission, purpose and meaning

This is the crux of transitioning out of this phase. If you’ve been over-identifying with your team and spending your energy thinking about work, you may have tied your sense of meaning and purpose, your own success and satisfaction, to the success of the people that report to you. Why did you move into leadership? It’s OK to have no idea, especially if you’re feeling disillusioned right now. If you can identify some of your mission and purpose you’ll be able to connect the day-to-day of your work (like meetings, spreadsheets, talking, influencing, admin) with a journey that is less strongly tied to the endless busyness and fluctuations of your people, teams and company.