The Costly Parts of Leading Anyone

Think about the last time you walked into a room

while you were running on empty. Maybe it was a Monday morning

staff meeting. Maybe it was dinner with your family after a

day that took everything you had. You sat down and you did your

best to be present and somewhere in the back of your mind, you

knew you had nothing left to give. Researchers who study this

at the organizational level have a name for what happens next.

They call it the social contagion effect. A 2025 report

in Fortune magazine drawing on research published in the

American Journal of Preventive Medicine put numbers to what

most leaders have already experienced. Burned out

individual contributors cost their companies roughly $4, 000

a year in lost productivity and turnover. Burned out managers

cost over $10, 000. Burned out executives cost over $20, 000.

The reason the numbers jump up as you move up is that

leadership burnout spreads. An employee engagement researcher

named Leah Pfeiffer described it this way. When a leader walks

into a room with their face completely drained, it doesn't

matter how the people in that room were feeling before they

walked in. A buoyant team becomes a flat one. The leader

didn't say a word. We'll come back to what the researchers

found at the root of it all. But first, welcome to Daily

Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. If you're

responsible for other people, whether that's a team or a

congregation or a family, listen to today's episode. Let me tell

you about one of those costs. There have been times I was

criticized and I chose not to defend myself. I let God handle

it instead. Part of that was wisdom and part of it was

knowing my own track record. I figured God could take care of

it better than I could. And if I jumped in to set the record

straight, I'd probably make matters worse. Holding back like

that is one of the costs of leading nobody warns you about.

And it doesn't feel noble while it's happening. It feels like

swallowing something. Leadership of any kind comes with a price

most people never see. The decisions you make alone with no

one to share the blame if they go wrong. The patience you keep

extending to people who may never extend it back. If you're

a parent, a pastor, a coach, or the one your family calls on in

a crisis, you know that the part of leading that wears you out is

the part nobody can see and the part nobody thinks to check on.

Moses lived in that exact problem. He was hearing every

dispute and settling every argument from sunrise to sundown,

and nobody was asking how he was holding up. Then his

father-in-law, Jethro, watched him work for a single day, and

this is what he said. Listen to Exodus 18, starting at verse 17.

Now, listen to me, and let me give you a word of advice, and

may God be with you. You should continue to be the people's

representative before God, bringing their disputes to him.

Teach them God's decrees and give them his instructions. Show

them how to conduct their lives, but select from all the people

some capable, honest men who fear God and hate bribes.

Appoint them as leaders over groups of 1,000, 100, 50, and 10.

They should always be available to solve the people's common

disputes, but have them bring the major cases to you. Let the

leaders decide the smaller matters themselves. They will

help you carry the load, making the task easier for you. If you

follow this advice, and if God commands you to do so, then you

will be able to endure the pressures, and all these people

will go home in peace. Catch what Jethro told him to do.

Distribute the work. Appoint capable people to handle the

smaller matters, and bring only the major cases to Moses. The

fix for an overwhelmed leader was simple and practical. Share

the load with others. Jethro even names the stakes. Do it

alone, and you'll wear out. And the people will wear out right

along with you. That's God's design showing through. One

person absorbing everything was never the plan, because one

person absorbing everything eventually breaks, and everyone

downstream feels it.

were putting data to something Jethro saw long before the

research existed. When the leader runs on empty. When the

leader runs on empty, the whole room pays for it. So here's what

you can do. If you're the leader doing every job right now,

handing part of it off to someone else might be the most

responsible move you can make. It isn't a sign you failed. It's

how God built his people to function. It runs the other

direction, too. If you're pouring into everyone and no

one's pouring into you, I believe that deserves some

attention this week. The leader needs a leader. The caregiver

needs care. You are never meant to be the only one who gives.

The root cause of leadership burnout, the researchers found,

was not workload alone. It was something they called mattering

erosion, building up through what another researcher

described as micro-losses. And it brought Pfeiffer to one

question I haven't been able to set aside. Who's supporting the

support? We treat managers like they're buffers in the

organization. They're the ones we're expecting to absorb change,

deliver the hard news, and mediate emotional challenges.

But we're not checking in on their capacity, is what she said.

Moses sat in the middle of that problem for years before Jethro

showed up and told him what it was doing to him. He was doing

every job, hearing every dispute, absorbing every complaint, and

nobody was asking how he was doing. Jethro looked at the

situation and said plainly, This is going to wear you out and is

going to wear the people out, too. God's design for leadership

includes distribution. One person absorbing everything was

never the plan. And if you're the one absorbing everything

right now, that question deserves an answer. Who is

supporting you? Here's today's challenge. Name one thing you've

been doing alone that someone else could help you with and ask

him this week. Maybe it's handing off a responsibility

you've been holding on to out of habit. Maybe it's calling one

person and telling them the truth about how full your plate

has gotten. You weren't built to absorb everything, and asking

for help is how you keep leading the people who depend on you.

Father, thank you that you've never asked us to do this alone.

worn down to nothing, and you sent him help before he broke.

We confess that we wear our overload like a badge and forget

to ask for support you've already provided. Show us who to

lean on and give us the humility to actually do it. And for the

one absorbing criticism without a word in their own defense,

thank you that you see it, and you'll set the record straight

better than we ever could. In Jesus' name, amen. This podcast

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Thank you so much. And thanks for joining me on Daily

Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, one person absorbing

everything was never God's plan, and asking for help is part of

leading well. Come back next time for more encouragement to

help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and

have a great day.