The Leadership system failure: How poor management fuels burnout

If you're an engineer, a scientist, or a technical specialist who’s found yourself thrust into a leadership role, you know the drill: spreadsheets and systems are simple; people are complicated. You thrive on precision and clear outcomes. But when it comes to managing the mental health and stress of your team, the rules often seem vague.

Right now, burnout isn't just a buzzword; it's an organisational crisis costing UK businesses billions. And here's the uncomfortable truth: that crisis is overwhelmingly driven by leadership failure. We often blame heavy workload, but research consistently shows that heavy workloads (47%) and poor leadership (40%) are the top two drivers of workplace stress.
(https://www.shrm.org/about/press-room/poor-leadership--heavy-workloads-top-contributors-for-workplace)

The macroeconomic urgency

The Keep Britain Working Review (KBW) finally elevates this crisis from a people management issue to a fundamental economic threat. The report finds that economic inactivity due to ill-health is costing the UK an estimated £212 billion a year. This finding validates the premise that the failure to manage workplace health, stress, and burnout is not just an internal problem - it is a macroeconomic failure with unsustainable costs for the government, employers, and individuals.

But we are seeing that the situation is changing. With the UK facing increasing political and regulatory pressure around the Right to Switch Off (RTSO), every manager must now translate abstract wellbeing goals into concrete systems. The question is: will this looming change empower your people to finally push back, or will it expose existing managerial weaknesses?

The accountability crisis - Why burnout is a managerial failure

Despite the old stigma that burnout is merely a sign of individual weakness or an inability to cope, the reality is the opposite: burnout is a symptom of systemic failure. In this failure, it is primarily managers who are responsible for the conditions that can prevent or hasten individual burnout.

Leaders can and should act as a crucial psychological buffer against stress. When managers provide support, team members feel secure - a state known as Psychological Safety - even when challenges arise. When that safety and support are absent, the team is left isolated and defensive, unable to speak up or push back against unsustainable demands.

At Green Shed Talent, we often see two destructive management styles that drive this exhaustion: ‘The Tyrant’ (oppressive or destructive leadership) and ‘The Ghost’ (relaxed or absent leadership).

Where fear feeds the ‘Ghost Manager’

What we’ve read in the Keep Britain Working report confirms that there is a pervasive ‘culture of fear’ in the UK workplace, including:

• Employees fearful of disclosing health conditions due to worry about stigma and career damage.
• Line Managers admit to fearing ‘doing the wrong thing’, worrying that raising health issues with individuals will ‘cause offence, trigger grievances, or escalate into a tribunal’.

This mutual risk-aversion is the psychological core of the ghost management style. The technical specialist turned leader, who is uncomfortable or inexperienced in dealing with people management, retreats from communication precisely when support is needed, leaving the employee isolated and defensive.

To put it plainly: if your team is struggling, the failure is often traceable not to the amount of work, but to the quality of the leadership structure supporting them.

We ask, will RTSO enable people to push back?

The 'always-on' culture has exacerbated overwhelm and burnout, blurring the lines between work and home. The proposed Right to Switch Off (RTSO) aims to correct this by ensuring employees can ignore work messages (including emails, calls, instant chats) outside of their agreed working hours without fear of repercussions. This is a massive behavioural mandate for managers but one that could be tricky to embed well.

So, will it allow employees to take a little ownership of their wellbeing, by pushing back on their time boundaries? The answer is yes: The RTSO gives employees a powerful new psychological and legal tool to enforce boundaries. This shift is essential for achieving the KBW report's central recommendation which is a fundamental shift toward a model of shared responsibility:

• Employers must lead on prevention and support.
• Employees have a responsibility to stay connected to work, but also to take personal responsibility for managing their health.

The RTSO gives structure to an employee's responsibility to set boundaries, and an employer’s responsibility to respect them. Suddenly, the vague concept of ‘work-life balance’ is transforming into a matter of legal compliance and risk management. The focus shifts from the employee coping with the pressure to the manager operationalising boundaries.

The Green Shed Solution - designing systems for sanity

If you're a manager who likes structure, this is where you take back control. The solution to burnout isn't philosophy; it's process. Ultimately, the goal of these processes is to build the bedrock of a high-performing team, which is to generate and embed a culture of Psychological Safety. This is the shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, which is impossible without Clarity and Boundaries.

To use one of our favourite themes, think of yourself as the conductor of your team. A conductor doesn't just ask the musicians to do their best; they provide the definitive score (clarity) and the timing (boundaries) in a systems-based, repeatable approach for success no matter what piece they are playing.

We know that the evidence for replacing manager discretion with a mandatory, defined process for connection and reintegration is the key to reducing fear and fostering resilience. This was highlighted in the KBW from a review of the approach successfully taken in The Netherlands.

Whilst there is a long way to go, we wanted to share the two crucial systems you can and should implement now:

System 1: The clarity protocol (defeating ambiguity)

Chronic anxiety, a key fuel for burnout, is often caused by role ambiguity - when employees are unsure of their responsibilities, goals, or performance metrics.

• Actionable takeaway: Implement a simple role definition matrix for every position. Define the three most critical tasks, the quantifiable metrics for success, and the explicit expectations for interaction and delegation.

System 2: The boundaries protocol (operationalising RTSO)

Your biggest challenge is managing communication discipline. As a manager, you must model the behaviour required by the proposed RTSO.

• Actionable takeaway: Implement a clear digital urgency structure to reduce organisational noise. This framework is simple but effective to embedding behaviours and managing expectations:
  • CRITICAL: Only use this for safety or compliance issues that require immediate action.
  • HIGH PRIORITY: Action needed within core working hours.
  • FYI/NON-URGENT: Use a ‘scheduled send’ during working hours and include a templated footer: "While it suits me to send this email now, I do not expect a response or action outside your own working hours."

Lead with process, not panic

Burnout is not going away, and the move toward the Right to Switch Off is accelerating. For the technical specialist turned leader, this is not a threat, but an opportunity. The systemic failures identified by the Keep Britain Working Review confirm that the costs of inaction are too high to ignore.

By focusing your leadership development on creating robust, repeatable systems for clarity and communication boundaries, you move beyond the emotional panic of people leadership and start leading in a way that respects the mental architecture of your team. You move past the destructive habits of the past and build a high-performing, sustainable workforce - a team that knows the score and the exact right time to play.

At Green Shed Talent, every project starts with a conversation. Maybe taking time over coffee to have a chat is the first step in taking a break from the every day, pausing and reflecting on finding the right balance for yourself, or for your team.

If you’re finding this resonates, then let’s chat!