Why Leadership Development May Be the Public Sector’s Best Strategy to Prevent Burnout
Caitlyn has been with the Catching Leadership team since 2021. She is a first-generation college graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a minor in Neuroscience. She earned her M.A. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is passionate about organizational change, leadership development, visual creativity, and mindfulness in the workplace.
Let’s face it, working in the public sector is not easy, nor for the faint of heart. Whether serving citizens directly, managing critical infrastructure, responding to emergencies, or supporting internal government operations, public-sector employees often carry significant responsibility with limited resources.
Yet many organizations are facing a growing challenge that extends beyond staffing shortages and budget constraints: burnout.
While burnout is often discussed as an individual well-being issue, its organizational consequences are equally significant. Burnout impacts performance, engagement, retention, customer service, collaboration, and ultimately an agency’s ability to fulfill its mission.
For government leaders and HR professionals, addressing burnout is no longer simply a wellness initiative. It has become a strategic workforce imperative.
Burnout Is More Common Than Many Leaders Realize
Recent Gallup research found that approximately one in four government employees report feeling burned out “very often” or “always,” while another 40% report feeling burned out “sometimes.”
Even more concerning, managers report higher burnout rates than individual contributors. Across federal, state, and municipal government organizations, 35% of managers reported frequent burnout compared to 23% of non-managers.
This presents a significant challenge for public organizations. Leaders influence employee engagement, culture, communication, and workplace experience. When leaders themselves are exhausted, overwhelmed, or disengaged, the effects often ripple throughout entire teams.
The causes of burnout are rarely mysterious. Gallup identified five workplace experiences that most strongly contribute to burnout:
- Unfair treatment at work
- Unmanageable workloads
- Unclear communication
- Lack of manager support
- Unreasonable time pressure
For many public-sector leaders, these challenges are not hypothetical; they are daily realities that contribute to mounting stress, fatigue, and burnout.
The Cost of Burnout Extends Beyond Well-Being
Burnout affects employees personally, but it also creates measurable organizational consequences.
According to Eagle Hill Consulting, 86% of government employees experiencing burnout report negative impacts on their health and wellness. The same study found that burnout contributes to:
- Reduced job performance (71%)
- Reduced willingness to go above and beyond (57%)
- Decreased ability to serve customers and constituents effectively (55%)
- Attendance challenges (41%)
- Strained workplace relationships (33%)
These impacts can be costly. Gallup estimates that employees with poor mental health experience nearly 12 days of unplanned absences annually compared to approximately 2.5 days for other workers. Their research further suggests that low engagement can cost a public organization with 10,000 employees and an average salary of $50,000 approximately $66 million per year.
When viewed through this lens, burnout is not simply an employee issue. It is an organizational performance issue.
Why Public Service Employees Are Particularly Vulnerable
Burnout is not evenly distributed across occupations. Research published in Public Administration Review highlights how frontline public servants often face elevated burnout risks due to high job demands, role conflict, emotional labor, and increased public expectations. During periods of crisis or significant change, these pressures often intensify.
Public-sector employees frequently enter their careers motivated by a desire to serve others and make a meaningful impact. However, when workloads increase, staffing levels decrease, and resources become constrained, employees may begin to feel disconnected from the very purpose that originally drew them to public service.
Interestingly, the same research identified Public Service Motivation (PSM), an employee’s commitment to serving the public good, as an important protective factor against burnout.
Employees who maintain a strong connection to the positive impact of their work experience lower levels of burnout, particularly lower levels of depersonalization and detachment from the people they serve.
This finding offers a crucial lesson for leaders: reducing burnout is not solely about eliminating stressors. It is also about helping employees remain connected to purpose.
While burnout is often discussed as an individual well-being issue, its organizational consequences are equally significant.
CAITLYN ALFORD TREXLER
What Leaders Can Do
Many organizations respond to burnout by focusing exclusively on employee benefits, wellness programs, or resilience training.
While these efforts can help, research consistently shows that leadership behaviors and workplace conditions are often the primary drivers of burnout.
Government leaders can take several practical steps to support sustainable performance:
1. Create Clarity
Uncertainty and ambiguity create stress. Leaders should communicate priorities clearly, establish realistic expectations, and regularly revisit what is most important when competing demands emerge.
2. Reduce Unnecessary Work
Employees rarely burn out because they are working on meaningful priorities. More often, they burn out because they are trying to do too many things at once. Leaders should regularly assess whether workloads align with available resources and determine what can be stopped, simplified, automated, or postponed.
3. Strengthen Manager Capability
Managers sit at the intersection of organizational strategy and employee experience. They influence workload management, communication, coaching, recognition, and psychological safety. Investing in leadership development often produces benefits far beyond the managers themselves because those skills cascade throughout entire teams.
4. Reinforce Purpose
Research suggests that purpose serves as a powerful buffer against burnout. Leaders should consistently connect day-to-day work to broader organizational impact, helping employees see how their efforts contribute to citizens, communities, and public outcomes.
5. Build Cultures Where People Can Speak Up
Employees who feel comfortable discussing challenges, asking for help, and sharing concerns are more likely to receive support before stress escalates into burnout. Psychological safety is not simply a cultural aspiration, but rather a practical tool for sustaining workforce health and performance.
The Leadership Development Connection
Many organizations take a reactive approach to burnout, dedicating significant time, resources, and funding only after it has become a widespread and visible problem. Perhaps a more sustainable approach is to equip leaders with the skills necessary to prevent it in the first place.
Communication, coaching, emotional intelligence, accountability, trust-building, and psychological safety are often viewed as leadership competencies. Increasingly, they are also burnout-prevention competencies.
When leaders know how to manage workloads, provide support, foster trust, communicate clearly, and connect employees to purpose, they create environments where people are more likely to thrive rather than merely survive.
That is one reason Catching Leadership annually conducts its New Leaders Program (NLP), designed specifically for public sector emerging leaders, supervisors, and high-potential employees stepping into entry to mid-level leadership roles.
The program focuses on practical leadership skills that help leaders build healthy, high-performing teams while navigating the realities of today’s workplace. By developing stronger leaders early, organizations can strengthen retention, improve engagement, and create cultures that support long-term success.
Because ultimately, the solution to burnout is not simply helping people endure more stress.
It is building organizations, and leaders, that make purposeful work and sustainable performance possible.
Learn more about Catching Leadership’s New Leaders Program
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