— To follow is a bullet of wisdom on leadership. It comes from Tom’s rifle, named Shot, who has seen it all. You’ll get the drift by clicking Blog in the menu at www.tomnewhouse.com.
I AM A FIREARM. So, from time to time, I get to thinking about fire, and, thus, burning. We had fires on the farm. I saw grain fields afire, and, another time, the Quonset building. Not good! Well, all my thinking took me to burnout. I have concluded you can’t burnout if you’re not burning. What do YOU think of that?
As a leader, you likely have had employees who wanted better work-life balance and may have said they were burned out, and you thought, “How could you be out of balance; you don’t do enough to be burned out.” To be burned out one has to have been burning. Otherwise, it’s just “out.” I hear you saying, “Yay, preach it, brother.” Get ready: What about you…the leader? Are you on fire for a cause? Working with passion? Setting the example? Tapping both creativity and industry? (And more.) I don’t recommend burn out, but I do recommend burning.