The Burnout Challenge
Amazon Link:
Author
Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter
Subtitle
Managing People’s Relationships with Their Jobs
Quick Facts
Authors: Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter
Genre: Workplace Wellness, Organizational Psychology, Leadership, Burnout Prevention
Published: 2022
Best For: Leaders, educators, administrators, employees, wellness advocates, and organizations seeking healthier workplace cultures
Core Themes: Burnout, workload, control, reward, community, fairness, values, and organizational responsibility
What It's About
In The Burnout Challenge, Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter challenge a familiar workplace message: when employees are burned out, the employees themselves need to become better at managing their stress.
Take a break. Practice self-care. Become more resilient.
Those things may help, but they don't necessarily address why people are burning out in the first place.
The authors examine the relationship between people and their workplaces and identify six areas that can contribute to burnout: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values.
That distinction matters.
Sometimes an employee isn't struggling because they need another wellness activity. Sometimes they are responding to an environment that continually asks too much, provides too little support, conflicts with their values, or leaves them feeling unheard and undervalued.
The book encourages us to look beyond the individual and ask a bigger question:
What is happening within the workplace itself?
Why We Recommend It
At SILWELL-C, we believe workplace wellness cannot rest entirely on the shoulders of the people experiencing the stress.
This book encourages readers to:
Look beyond individual self-care when examining burnout
Recognize workplace conditions that can contribute to chronic stress
Consider how fairness, workload, leadership, and belonging affect well-being
Understand the relationship between organizational culture and employee wellness
Create environments where wellness is supported through everyday practices, not simply occasional activities
A yoga class cannot fix an unhealthy culture.
A wellness challenge cannot replace respectful leadership.
And asking people to become more resilient should never become an excuse for ignoring the conditions that are wearing them down.
That is what makes this book especially relevant to the SILWELL-C conversation.
Get the Book
📚 Get your copy on Amazon:
The Burnout Challenge on Amazon
Pair It With
🌿 Pair it with:Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab
The Burnout Challenge helps readers examine what may be happening around them, while Set Boundaries, Find Peace helps them think about what they can protect and change within their own lives.
Together, they create an important conversation about organizational responsibility and personal boundaries.
SILWELL-C Reflection Prompt
“Am I trying to become better at surviving an environment that actually needs to change?”
