Daan Smeyers

This is a follow-up to my previous reflection on harmful leadership.But today I want to go deeper — into something I’ve seen unfold silently, repeatedly, and painfully in workplaces everywhere: Burnout — and the ways leadership shapes, accelerates, or prevents it. Burnout doesn’t strike like lightning. It doesn’t knock on the door with a warning. It doesn’t announce itself with dramatic collapse. It comes slowly. Quietly. Professionally, even. It builds in the people who once lit up every...

For years, we’ve misunderstood burnout, we’ve reduced it to a simple equation: too many hours = exhaustion. But that explanation is comforting only because it’s easy. It allows organizations to blame workload, and individuals to blame themselves. The truth is far more complex — and far more uncomfortable. Burnout rarely stems from the quantity  of work. It stems from the quality of the environment  around that work. It’s the subtle forces — the invisible pressures that slowly erode someone’s...

Most people think productivity is about time management, filling every hour with tasks, endless to-do lists, and back-to-back meetings. I...