About 15 years ago, I woke up on a winter morning and drove north. I was a new executive director of a non-profit.

I felt completely overwhelmed. There was so much that needed to get done, so much that I couldn’t do, so much that might never get done.

So many ways to fail. Not enough ways to succeed.

Any sense of creativity, peace or joy was gone. My chest always felt tight. Sometimes my throat did too. It was bad enough where I had to see a doctor.

As I drove, I watched the sunrise, pink and gold, over the snow-covered mountains.

And I started to cry.

I’m not a crier. So, I didn’t feel like I was succeeding at that either.

Most leaders are overwhelmed.

Being overwhelmed is the most common leadership challenge.

Most of my clients are very ambitious and successful leaders. And most are overwhelmed. To be clear, many get a buzz out of being hyper-busy.

But at some point, many start to realize they aren’t gaining traction towards their goals the way they feel they should.

The three basic reasons that they’ll give are:

• I don’t have a team I can rely on – because no one does it right.
• We have too much work.
• There is no way to anticipate the future.

This is a misdiagnosis.

Leaders routinely misdiagnose why they are so overwhelmed. Accordingly, they are unable to fix it.

So, they stay stuck. Without traction.

They’ve hit a point where relying on their strengths and doing what is natural to them has led to a bottleneck.

What is the problem?

There are three syndromes that accurately explain how leaders create this bottleneck and end up in overwhelm.

[Note to reader: Success and accolades are, ironically, often the early symptoms of these syndromes. That leads to the specific thinking error: “What I’m doing is leading to success. Therefore, doing more of the same should create more success. Right?”]

Hero Syndrome: You might also call this Martyr Syndrome. This is a common challenge for highly effective and charismatic leaders.

These leaders aren’t just heroes or martyrs in their minds. Others see them this way as well.

That’s the problem. They receive an enormous amount of positive attention for swooping in and saving others from themselves. Or from the boogeyman of the hour.

It is rarely immediately apparent, but they need others to see them this way.

• A Hero/Martyr needs something to save: So, they don’t allow their organization to stabilize.
• A Hero/Martyr needs a cause to die for: So, they don’t allow organizations to grow, leaders to mature and become healthy without their immediate & obvious sacrificial involvement.

They inadvertently create and nurture the dependency of others.

Trust Syndrome: Trust Syndrome is most often expressed like, “I just can’t trust anyone else to do it right.” or, “There is no one else who can do x, y or x. Period. They just don’t exist. There is only me.” (See Hero Syndrome above.)

For every leader who struggles with the Trust Syndrome, there is another leader, achieving more with a less qualified team, somewhere else.

The Trust Syndrome often co-occurs with the Hero Syndrome.

As this syndrome progresses, leaders tend to manifest it one of these two ways:

• They stay plateaued and maxed out. They never achieve what they hope for.

Some recognize that they struggle with trust. As a result, they scale their ambitions and dreams down to match their trust and comfort level.

However, many tend to blame others for their plateau: Society, the economy, staff, a competitor, their customers…something.

But the real issue is that they don’t trust others and, accordingly, can’t build with others.

• They surround themselves with “yes men and women.” Some of these leaders are able to lead or build large organizations. But they are surrounded by followers, not leaders.

Since these leaders don’t trust others, they are threatened by the initiative, creativity or sense of ownership that other leaders might bring. As a result, they weed them out. Their teams are often full of great people, many of whom may be high performers.

But not leaders. They tend to not take initiative, be creative or really own the results and success of the organization.

They can be relied on to do what is in their limited scope. But that’s it. And that is what they are comfortable with. All tough decisions are rolled uphill. To the leader who feels increasingly overwhelmed.

Can’t Fence Me in Syndrome: This last syndrome is most often found in strongly entrepreneurial leaders, founders, and owners.

They value their freedom and independence more than almost anything else.

They have great ideas, many of which are very successful. But they struggle in these areas:

• They don’t focus in one direction for long.
• They hate “having to do” anything.
• They view structure as anathema. They’ll usually say, “I’d rather be dead than ever work for a big corporate bureaucracy.”

As a result, it becomes difficult for them to build the foundation and structure that allows scaling and growth.

[Note to reader: Foundations and structures don’t make houses automatically constricting, constraining or unlivable. They don’t that in organizations either. What these leaders are responding to is poor design and use of structure. But they’ve misattributed blame.]

So, what do you do? (Follow these steps!)

Don’t Accept Overwhelm

That drive north was the beginning of a change process for me. At that time, I didn’t know all the steps above. But I saw that I needed time. So, here’s what I did:

• I stopped working late and on weekends. I just stopped it.
• I started reserving Fridays for only doing work that reconnected me to what inspired and energized me.
• I mapped out how to move forward.

Trust me here: I immediately became more productive even though I was working less.

It took me a few years to learn how to share. I didn’t do that well for a long time.

It took me longer to learn to drop some balls. For a long time, I thought I needed to learn to carry more.

It took the longest for me to check my head. That began with hiring a coach. I’ve nearly always had a coach since.

Because I still need help with my head sometimes.

The Results
A lot has changed in the last 15 years. Most importantly:

• My chest and throat aren’t tight anymore. I can breathe.
• I go to work feeling curious and interested – not dread.
• I have time now for my family, serving on boards and athletic interests.
• I earn far more than I used to.
• I serve many more clients and much more effectively.
• I produce significantly more value (I wasn’t writing back then.) Now, I’ve published one book, another is in the oven, I write weekly, I contribute to Forbes.com and other publications and I’m getting ready to launch a new suite of opportunities for leaders to learn and grow.
• I feel happier and at peace much more of the time.
• I’ve gone back to not crying. (Which I like. I know some people have silly ideas about this.)

Overwhelm is mostly a state of mind

If you are a leader and you feel overwhelmed, no one is coming to rescue you.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that you don’t need to be rescued.

You just need to be willing to shift how you see and do things. It’s a learning process. But as you step into it, it will get easier. And then it will become second nature.

You no longer have to be overwhelmed.

Take good care,

Christian

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