The Burnout Era is Here. Are You In It?

When the strong ones start to slip.

Her name's not really Sarah, but you probably know someone like her.

She's in a mid-level leadership role at a company that says all the right things... people-first, flexible, DEI-forward. But in practice?

It's all hands on deck, all the time.

Sarah’s a helper by nature. A high performer.

The one who volunteers, anticipates needs, double-checks her team’s work, and remembers Susan’s birthday.

She’s clocking 55-hour weeks.

She’s managing direct reports and filling in for a team member who left months ago and has yet to be replaced.

She’s in back-to-back meetings all day and doing her actual work at night.

She’s exhausted.

But she doesn’t call it burnout because in her mind, burnout is for people who break down.

She’s still functioning. She still answers emails with smiley faces. She still shows up to meetings with talking points and a “can-do” attitude.

But what she can’t do anymore is feel motivated. Or excited. Or even present.

Sarah’s not lazy. She’s not ungrateful. She’s not bad at boundaries.

She’s just stuck in what I call the Burnout Era—and she’s not alone.

The Burnout Era is sneaky like that.

It doesn’t always crash into your life like a dramatic health scare or a sobbing-on-the-kitchen-floor moment.

Sometimes, it looks like high-functioning autopilot.

Like productivity laced with quiet resentment.

Like getting it all done... but feeling nothing when you do.

And yet, Sarah’s company thinks she’s thriving.

They see the metrics. The calm under pressure. The team that “runs like clockwork.”

They don’t see the 3am anxiety. The weekends spent catching up instead of catching her breath. The way she zones out in meetings because her brain is already past capacity.

This is what burnout looks like in the Burnout Era.

It’s not individual failure—it’s collective gaslighting. It’s a culture that rewards over-functioning and penalizes rest. It’s calling people “resilient” when what we really mean is “you haven’t visibly collapsed yet.”

And the worst part? Sarah still thinks she’s the problem.

If she could just manage her time better... If she were just a little tougher, more organized, more grateful…

But what Sarah really needs isn’t a better morning routine or a new project management tool.

She needs a system that stops treating her like a never-ending resource. She needs support, clarity, and space. She needs leadership that’s actually sustainable, not just performative.

The Burnout Era isn’t just hard on people. It’s quietly breaking the backbone of every company relying on people like Sarah to hold it all together.

And unless we do something different, we will lose our most brilliant, big-hearted leaders.

Not because they couldn’t hack it... But because they never had a chance to breathe.

More soon,

Tara

P.S. If you’ve got a Sarah on your team, check in on her. And if you are Sarah? You’re not imagining this. You’re not alone. And you don’t have to white-knuckle your way through it.