I know we are
into the holiday season because emails have reduced. I hope you are about to
get a break to recharge your batteries. This is not just a good thing for your
own wellbeing but it is also a good thing for the charitable sector as a whole.
Burnout for
those leading charities in a difficult operating environment and those
frontline workers responding to people in crisis, is a real issue. Burnout
comes when constant stress renders you feeling helpless, disillusioned and
completely exhausted. The way to tackle it is all too familiar: eat well,
sleep, relax, exercise, connect with others and take breaks. Burnout is
something that Trustees should pay proper attention to now more than ever,
because staff teams are dealing with rising demand and diminishing resources.
Trustees have a duty of care to their staff and need to check that they are
taking their leave, have supervision and mentoring in place, manageable
workloads and are trained in ‘self-care’ techniques.
Burnout is
awful when it hits caring individuals. There is also a cost for the charity. Staff
with valuable experience are lost and have to be replaced with new people.
But worse
than that for the sector is ‘becoming jaded’ because those affected in this way
tend to stay in their jobs. Jaded is “feeling or showing a lack of interest and
excitement caused by having done or experienced too much of something.” When it
happens to leaders it can bring everyone down and create a negative culture.
The organisation becomes inward looking, risk averse and misses new
opportunities. You see it in people whose response to any suggestion is “we’ve
tried that before”.
Clore Social
Leadership Programme’s report ‘Is the charity sector fit for purpose?’ found “If leaders’ passion and courage dissipate then all that remains is the
energy to chase the funding to keep an organisation afloat. Being jaded cannot
be dismissed as merely ‘the cost of doing business’ in the sector. People do
not become leaders in the charity world to become jaded, they become leaders to
see social justice become reality.”
The same is true with funders. In his
brilliant essay ‘The spirit of philanthropy and the soul of those who manage
it’, Paul Ylvisaker sets out 11 commandments for grant makers. Number 8 is stay
excited and hopeful. As he explains “When you find your battery of hope,
excitement, and even idealistic naiveté so drained that you don’t let an
applicant finish a presentation without pointing out why it can’t be done, it’s
time you departed for another profession.”
So please don’t feel guilty about taking
time off. Everyone working in the charity sector needs a break to avoid getting
tired, burned out or jaded. Recharge and come back excited and hopeful. Because
without passion and optimism it is going to be hard to get through the
uncertain times ahead.
Happy holidays!
https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/report--is-the-charity-sector-fit-for-purpose-.html
Ylvisaker, P.
(2008) ‘The Spirit of Philanthropy and the Soul of those who manage it’
in Kass, A. (Ed) Giving Well, Doing Good, Indiana University Press
