Understanding The Impact of Stress and Burnout on Women Leaders

Article written by Denver therapist, Meghan Stetson

If you’re a woman and you’ve found yourself in a leadership position, congratulations! You’ve made it to the next level of recognition and accomplishment in your field.

You are in a position where you can positively impact your company or organization, and possibly a team of people who you manage.

You are part of the trickle-down process of culture inside of an organization and the way you hold your position and move through your days will inevitably influence others.

You get to direct initiatives and have your say at the table. 

Oh, and you still have your job to do, and you still have your tasks and professional goals to hit for yourself.

And home and family/social responsibilities.

And exercising and taking care of yourself and drinking enough water and getting outside.

And, and … 

No matter what this exact list looks like for you, you’ve definitely also made it to the next level of pressure and stress in your life. Let’s talk about it. 

Understanding Leadership Role Stressors

Being in a leadership position comes with challenges for everyone.

Read More: “Polyvagal Theory Mental Health Series: Autonomic Hierarchy

These positions demand excellent interpersonal and conflict management skills, ability to communicate effectively in many different ways, people management skills, complex decision-making skills, and ethical responsibilities.

Additionally, leadership positions demand an evolution in self-awareness and self-concept, ability to handle and integrate feedback for the greater good, and so much more. 

Understanding The Unique Stressors Women Leaders Face

Being a woman in a leadership position comes with some compounded challenges on top of these. (And, the more marginalized intersectional identities that you have at this crossroads, of course, the more this is true, and this can look different for you depending upon what those identity factors are.)  

Women leaders are constantly navigating double standards in the workplace, and often feel they have to work twice as hard to be recognized, or that they have to fight to have their voices heard.

The same idea, when shared by a woman or by a man, is oftentimes received differently by a group – consciously or unconsciously.

Honestly, this is a top complaint I hear in my work as a therapist working with women leaders.

Read More: “Polyvagal Theory & Mental Health Series: A General Overview

Women leaders are commonly navigating others’ perceptions; due to our societal & religious histories, women who assert strength or directiveness in the workplace are often labeled as “rough” or “abrasive,” whereas the same or similar behavior in men might be labeled as “strong” or “decisive.”

Similarly, women have the unspoken pressure of adhering to beauty and likeability standards as leaders, constantly walking the line between feminine and attractive, but not weak. 

Women are often expected (again, consciously or unconsciously) to take on additional emotional labor in the workplace, which can look like taking on more mentors or direct reports, or smoothing over others’ conflicts not even in their purview.

And oftentimes this is on top of taking on the lion’s share of emotional labor at home and/or being in a caretaking role in the family. 

The Impact of It All: A Nervous System View of Stress on Women Leaders

This is a lot of stress and pressure on anyone. And, no one is immune to the physiological and mental health impacts of chronic stress and burnout – especially over time and when it becomes chronic. 

From a nervous system perspective, constant stress sends our systems into a sympathetic state – colloquially known as “fight or flight.”

Evolutionarily, this state is adaptive when we are in real danger – when we need to run for our lives or fight for our lives, like if we are being chased by a tiger.  

When this stress becomes chronic or leads us into a state of burnout, we tend to fall into more of a nervous system state of shutdown.

Evolutionarily, this happens because our system has been trying to get out of harm’s way by going into fight or flight, but hasn’t been successful in resolving the perceived threat.

So we spin our wheels for so long that we exhaust ourselves and our systems get the message that it’s just time to retreat and shut down.

We haven’t been able to outrun the metaphorical tiger, so we play dead instead. (In the case of leadership burnout, it’s not that we’re “not being successful,” but rather that the stressors never end and our systems are running into the ground on auto-pilot.) 

Signs You May Be Experiencing Stress & Burnout

If you are commonly in a sympathetic (“fight or flight”) state, you might experience: 

• Interpreting things through the lens of fear or danger – even if it is not truly a life or death scenario 

• Reactivity 

• Irritability 

• Restlessness 

• Tension 

• Difficulty concentrating 

• Black & white thinking 

• Feeling disconnected from your truest self 

• Feeling disconnected from others 

• Mood swings 

• Difficulty sleeping 

• Racing heart 

• Rapid breath
  

  Read More: “Understanding Polyvagal Theory: How Neuroception Impacts Mental Well-Being”

If you have had a period of chronic fight or flight and now are in a state of “shutdown,” you might experience:  

• The urge to withdraw or isolate 

• Low energy or exhaustion 

• Disinterest in things you normally enjoy 

• Difficulty initiating tasks or leading in general 

• Hopelessness 

• Numbness 

• Brain fog 

• Low heart rate 

• Breath that feels almost not present 

• General sense of “not being” 

• Lower job satisfaction 

What You Can Do: Where to Start To Support Your Mental Well Being

If you are a woman leader, you are busy; I don’t need to tell you that.

There is no quick fix for chronic stress & burnout, but there is a longer game to play here in terms of building awareness of your nervous system states and making real, lasting shifts in how you move through your day.

Even in a longer game, you can start small and with adding nothing tangibly to your day. 

As a very first step, I recommend this: 

• Choose 1 thing that you already do every day that you would like to bring more ease and enjoyment to (ex: eating dinner, putting your kids to bed, playing with a pet in the evening, drinking your morning cup of coffee). Choose something that is a short or short-ish period of time so that you can really focus on it and feel successful with it as well. It’s more important to do this a few times a week than to spend a long time doing it only once or twice. 

• Make this 1 thing your daily(ish) mindfulness practice: Engage with this 1 thing with all 5 senses. Notice what you smell, hear, see, taste, and feel. Stay as present as you can with this 1 thing, and when you notice thoughts coming in (of your to-do list, tomorrow’s presentation, whatever!), come back to your senses. This is your practice. Notice how this shifts your experience of your chosen activity.  

I know this sounds simple. Don’t write it off. I’ve seen such success with this as a starting point to meaningfully shift how you navigate your nervous system and mental well-being over time.

Over time, training your mind in this way will train your mind to s-l-o-w down into a state of presence and mindfulness.

Slow does not mean un-productive; but over time, slow will mean staying regulated more often than not.

You are building pathways here that later on, you can bring into more areas of your life.

You are tuning into an experience which will later on bring other experiences into sharp contrast.

You will start to notice where you are rushing and where you are moving so quickly on auto-pilot. 

Therapy can also be helpful in guiding you to slow down, check in with your nervous system and learn ways to manage stress and burnout.

***

Denver Therapist, Meghan Stetson

Denver therapist Meghan Stetson provides therapy for those in leadership roles with a mind body approach.

She is trained in the highly effective Polyvagal theory and has guided many high achieving women in learning to slow the mind, rest the body, while maintaining levels of achievement necessary to do their work.

If you are curious about ways of supporting your nervous system, start with checking out some of Meghan’s guided exercises on our Denver Metro Counseling YouTube Channel