Recognizing & Battling Burnout: How to Lead Without Breaking

Carolina Maza Santos is a Manufacturing Program Manager in Querétaro, Mexico.

  Leadership  

At the start of a project, you may feel like everything will unfold just as it has before—the setup, the risks, the communication strategy, and stakeholder management. You trust that your experience and knowledge will be enough.

But it doesn’t take long to realize that what you know about managing programs and projects might not be sufficient. The first time I was assigned to a global initiative, it took me about six months to recognize what was happening. The signs of burnout were not the ones I had learned to look out for.

Working across time zones disrupted my sleep and personal time. I started checking my phone the moment I woke up and continued into the evening—even during family gatherings. But checking wasn’t enough. I was replying to emails, taking notes, writing updates. I would wake up at 5 a.m. and go to bed late, all to keep the project machinery running.

My routines—sleep, meals, exercise and rest—fell apart. And then came the second realization: The pace of the project was something else entirely. Despite all my efforts, deadlines slipped. Decisions took weeks instead of days. I felt mentally drained by the sheer volume of emails and constant shifts in the design concept.

Burnout crept in quietly: one more time zone, one more deliverable before rest, one more email answered before breakfast. I had to relearn how to …

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