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10 Signs of Leadership Burnout and 5 Ways to Recover

This past November my wife and I reached 34 years in full-time church ministry. In our day, we have seen many a leader lose their zeal for God and fall away from the work of the Lord. Often it is due to the fact they did not take the adequate time needed to seek the Lord on a daily basis for self-renewal. Other reasons include not having a balanced life that incorporated things that advanced their physical and emotional health (instead of just focusing on their work and ministry).

The focus of this article will not be how to recover from burnout, but some of the signs of burnout. (I will mention a few points at the end that will aid in recovery.)

I also have been guilty of not taking enough time off. Having never taken more than 10 days off for vacation in over 34 years of hard grueling ministry, with 95 percent of them only five to seven days in length and, up until the past year, never taking off one full day per week to rest my mind.

At my present age, I am now being forced to change my patterns because I have exhausted much of my mental energy and I can no longer cheat. (The main reasons I have lasted this long without regular time off are because I keep a strict diet, I exercise regularly and spend time seeking God every morning.)

I knew it was time to stop cheating because of some of the symptoms of burnout I came perilously close to experiencing. Over the years I have done a lot of research on this area and also ministered to many leaders suffering from this.

The following are signs of emotional/mental burnout:

1. You lose focus and clarity of thought.

When experiencing burnout, your mind hits a wall and fogginess of thought instead of clarity. Sometimes your short-term memory even deteriorates because of the mental overload. 

2. You lose your passion for work and/or ministry .

You dread going to the office and conducting meetings. You do it because of a commitment more than it being a passion in your life.

3. You go from being a leader to being a maintainer .

The primary calling of a senior leader is to be a visionary. Visionaries are at their best when they receive instruction from God at the top of the mountain and then come down and give vision to the congregation or organization. When in burnout, the leader does not have the capacity for any more vision.

Hence, all forward motion grinds to a halt and the leader now goes into maintenance mode trying their best to hold everything together all while they hope they will once again get back the energy needed to take their organization to the next level. (Unless they take the adequate steps for restoration, they will only get worse and not better and they will begin to see people leaving their church or organization. Unless there is a compelling vision coming forth from the leader, the people scatter; read Proverbs 29:18.)

4. You have a continual sense of hopelessness.

In burnout your hope for the future grows dim, depression begins to set in and you begin to view the world with dark grey lenses because everything negative is highlighted in your mind.