The Secret Source of Burnout in Your Team
Have you heard of e-disc? It’s a behavioural analysis tool backed by decades of research, that is used to identify an individual’s natural strengths (captain energies).
According to e-disc, there are 4 captain energies:
Dominance (which we like to call Drive) - think doer
Influence - think interconnectedness
Steadiness - think stability
Compliance - think certainty
If you were to take a random population they would likely be made up of 15% Drive energies, 30% Influence, 30% Steadiness, 25% Compliance.
Not only do these 4 types have different strengths but they actually have different energy outputs. If we think about energy as battery life, it would look a little like this.
Drive ++++
Influence +++
Steadiness ++
Compliance +
Drive energies seem to be able to go for longer than the other energy types - without feeling symptoms of drain or cloudiness. This is really important to understand because many D energies just assume that’s the same for everyone and account drops in other people’s performance as laziness, rather than resulting from battery life.
Here’s the #1 mistake that D energies make.
If you have a D energy in a leadership position they famously assume that other people can push as hard as they can - which leads to all sorts of frustrations in expectation as well as cultures of overwork and burnout.
And Drive energy naturally orientates towards leadership positions! Guess which cohort is almost always made up largely of this core energy…
Founders & CEOs
The other thing that typically happens to D energies is that because they CAN go for longer, they do, constantly pushing their energy to its limit and generally making no time for rest.
This over time, depeletes their long-term energy stores and sets D energies up for the worst type of burnout, out of all the energy types! (I say this as D energy who landed fat on her arse in burnout and felt paralysed and robbed of all my normal brain power and drive!)
Have you noticed that after key periods, when you have a moment to breathe, your body starts to shut down and you get sick?
That’s a tell-tale sign, that you’re in this energy pattern.
If you’re a D energy trying to run your team the way you want to be managed - there are 3 things you need to remember:
Your energy expectations and pace will create burnout, resentment and toxicity in your team.
You make up only 15% of the population (that’s 1.5 people in 10!) so if you want to learn how to manage the other 85% you need to grow beyond your natural tendencies.
You are not immune to burnout and when it comes - it will be intense - which is a major problem if your business still relies on you!
Did you see a little bit of you in this?
We trust that if you did, you’ve taken something away that may serve and protect you and your team over coming weeks.
x
Sophia (no-longer burnt-out) Barros