Public relations and Communications management happened to me. Surrounded by writers, journalists, marketers, ethnographers, poets, musicians, and business creatives, I naturally gravitated towards the PR profession and started working for my family PR and marketing company at the age of 19. I embraced the professional world two years before my undergrad was complete and have been working hard at it ever since. But a decade and a half into my profession, I found myself slowly languishing. After going through a retrenchment in 2018, I re-entered corporate but noticed that the environment and team was not suitable for me. I had become accustomed to working in a high performance, functional and supportive environment and team. However, this circumstance was transactional and scarcity thinking focused. Right then, I knew it was not an ideal environment to immerge myself back into the working world but being an optimist, I thought that things would settle once we had moved through the seven stages of team building. We never did. It screamed the five dysfunctional team model*.
Eighteen months in, burn out slowly rolling in and I was working 10-to-12-hour days. Consistently. I did the thing that most people don’t do. I resigned. I wrote a letter stating why and resigned. I happened to do this at the backend of the great resignation**. It was not perfect timing for me. It was a last resort before possibly booking myself into a mental health clinic or having an emotional relapse. I had listened to friends, colleagues and associates who had lived through this before because of toxic work circumstances. Instinctively, I knew I was at my edge and that my confidence was at a deficit.
The exit was not easy. I battled emotionally with my decision and even put my phone off for days after, to cope with the impact of what I was experiencing. It did not end there. I still had to do an exit interview, explain my reasoning to those who did not understand or want to or felt I had done this to them. Even though I knew that this was for me.
I once met a woman in the pharmacy that had randomly asked for advice about a lady product that she was purchasing for a family member that had a medical condition. She admitted that the situation was not normal to discuss with anyone, let alone strangers. I responded by saying it must be normal. This is life. Half of world’s population would suffer or could be suffering from the condition. We must normalise having tough and difficult conversations about reality.
I know there is an awful amount of people talking about burnout and career trauma. We need to embrace the reality that its quickly becoming a norm. We are not robots who can consistently keep up with marketing and target expectations or compete with the fast delivery of a machine. We are humans who need down time and to soak in the joys of our hard work.
It is true that irrespective of what leadership theories draw you in, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs*** still address the essential elements of what motivates humanity to progress and find purpose and fulfilment in our daily lives. It is no different for a high performer. Rest. Psychological Safety. Belonging. Respect and admiration.
* Wikipedia contributors. “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” Wikipedia, 12 May 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team.
** Clark, Pilita. “The Man Who Predicted the Great Resignation Has More Big News.” Financial Times, 3 Apr. 2022, www.ft.com/content/3e561d41-0267-4d40-9c30-01e62fa9c10f.
***Maslow, A. H. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review, vol. 50, no. 4, American Psychological Association (APA), July 1943, pp. 370–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346.
