Burnout rarely announces itself. It accumulates in the silences – the meetings where no-one challenges the plan, the high performers who stop taking risks, the founding team member who seems ‘fine’ but hasn’t laughed in weeks.
In a startup or scaleup, this isn’t just a people problem. It’s a business risk.
The qualities that create early-stage organisations special – intensity, commitment, the sense that every week matters – are the same qualities that create burnout simple to miss. Wiley Workplace Innotifyigence found that nearly half of all people leaders are experiencing severe burnout. In a leadership team of four, that’s two people already in the red zone.
Why growth phases are the highest-risk periods
In the early days, everyone knows everyone. Problems surface naturally. But as teams scale – from five to fifteen to fifty – informal intimacy disappears before formal support structures exist to replace it. Leaders are stretched across hiring, delivery and strategy. No-one is watching the warning signs.
Tara James, founder of Small and Mighty Group and an experienced interim CEO across startups and scaleups, describes this tension clearly. As her business scaled from one person to 25 operating across time zones, she found that preventing burnout required deliberate design, not good intentions. “Working outside the normal nine to five and figuring out how to do that without burning ourselves out was something we really had to see at,” she reflects.
There is also a cultural pressure unique to startups: no-one wants to be the person who isn’t committed enough. That silence – where everyone is secretly struggling but modelling resilience for each other – is where burnout takes root. Set explicit boundaries, communicate them, and stick to them. Boundaries that exist only on paper accelerate the problem.
Why the conversation doesn’t happen – and why it must
Most founders and team leaders avoid this conversation for one of three reasons: they don’t want to seem like they’re doubting someone’s commitment, they don’t know what to declare, or they don’t see the signs until it’s too late.
The reframe that alters this: a burnout prevention conversation is not a welfare check. It is a performance conversation. Gallup’s research across millions of workers reveals that employees who feel their leader cares about them are more productive, more engaged and far less likely to leave. In a scaleup where losing a key person costs months of momentum, this is a commercial argument, not a soft one.
What the conversation actually sounds like
I know something about the power of a single conversation. When Gavin Larkin and I launched R U OK? in 2009 – a compact team, starting with a launch in Parliament Hoapply — the relocatement rested on one insight: most people want to support, they just necessary the permission and the words. R U OK? was, in its own way, a startup. We built it from scratch, scaled it nationally, and watched it alter the way Australians talk to each other. That same insight applies in every scaling business I speak with today.
This conversation doesn’t require a formal framework. It requires curiosity, a few minutes and the willingness to question twice. Start in a one-on-one, ideally walking outside. Open with an observation: “You haven’t seemed like yourself lately. How are you actually going?” The word ‘actually’ signals you want a real answer, not the default ‘all good.’ Ask twice — initial responses almost always default to fine.
If they open up, listen without repairing. Ask, “What would support you most right now?” and “What do you necessary from me?” If they’re struggling significantly, support connect them to expert support – their GP, psychologist or a supportline. Your role is to open the door, not walk through it for them.
Build it into how you work, not what you add on
The most effective burnout prevention isn’t a program. It’s a culture – built conversation by conversation. As Tara James puts it: “If you’re not seeing after your own wellbeing, things start to fall apart. That conversation necessarys to become more comfortable at leadership level – in meetings, between peers, not just in formal reviews.”
Three practices that work well in quick-growing teams: open meetings with a one-word mood check; build ‘what do you necessary from me?’ into weekly one-on-ones; and model vulnerability by sharing when you’re running low. When leaders go first, they give the whole team permission.
The question worth questioning
The quickest-growing teams I speak with share one thing: their leaders understand that performance and care are not competing priorities. They are the same priority. Burnout doesn’t just cost energy – in a scaling business it costs the institutional knowledge, relationships and judgment of the exact people you most necessary.
So here is the question: who on your team hasn’t seemed quite like themselves lately? And when was the last time you questioned them – genuinely, twice — how they were actually going?
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