The problem with burnout is that most practitioners, from a variety of disciplines, treat it as a condition to be managed rather than a problem to be solved.

Support groups, therapists, coaches, counsellors, wellbeing practitioners and medical professionals all have an important role to play. Many provide relief, support, healing and recovery. Yet beneath these well-intentioned interventions sits an assumption that is rarely challenged. The assumption is that burnout itself is the problem.

But what if burnout is not the problem?

What if burnout is a symptom?

In my eyes, burnout is part of a chain.

Stress. Tiredness. Fatigue. Burnout. Breakdown.

Each stage points to something deeper. Each stage is a warning signal. Each stage is attempting to tell us something about how we are living, working and operating in the world.

The question then becomes: what is burnout a symptom of?

For career professionals, I believe burnout has two primary contributors. The first is how we operate. The second is the environment in which we operate. One is personal. The other is systemic.

Much of the discussion surrounding burnout focuses on the individual. We are encouraged to meditate, exercise, sleep better, establish boundaries, practice self-care and build resilience. Whilst these are worthwhile pursuits, they largely focus on helping people cope with their circumstances.

And coping is not the same thing as solving.

Without a thorough examination of the factors that create, compound and perpetuate burnout, we risk becoming trapped in an endless cycle of management strategies. We learn to function with the condition rather than investigate its origins.

When I refer to systemic factors, I mean the workplace itself. The job. The culture. The leadership. The expectations. The workload. The structure. The assumptions embedded within the organisation. These factors are often hiding in plain sight, yet they receive far less attention than the individual experiencing the symptoms.

Our business vernacular does not help. We celebrate resilience. We admire endurance. We reward those who push through. We wear busyness as a badge of honour. It is a very stoic frame of reference. A very masculine frame of reference.

Yet resilience, whilst valuable, is fundamentally a coping strategy.

It does not necessarily address the source of the pressure.

A more useful inquiry may be this: what conditions exist that require so much resilience in the first place?

From a practical perspective, anyone experiencing burnout would be well served by examining both themselves and their environment. How am I operating? What demands am I placing upon myself? What demands is this environment placing upon me? Which factors are within my control and which are not?

And then there is an option that few people seem willing to discuss.

Leave.

Not as a first response. Not as a universal solution. Not as an act of defeat.

But as an option.

There is a coaching principle often used in conflict situations that begins with a simple instruction: get to a safe place.

Burnout may warrant the same consideration.

Having options is healthy. Knowing there are alternatives changes the conversation. The moment a person recognises they have agency, they cease being entirely at the mercy of their circumstances.

For those responsible for leading organisations, perhaps the question is even more important.

If burnout has become endemic, if fatigue is commonplace, if stress is normalised, perhaps the challenge is not how to improve coping strategies.

Perhaps the challenge is to create environments where people are not so dependent upon them.

Because whilst burnout may be experienced by an individual, the conditions that produce it are often much larger than the individual themselves.