Boss Burnout: How to Prevent the Impending Manager Crash of 2025

It’s no surprise that chronic stress is impacting, well, everyone. Last month, we dove into the hidden cost of stress and its impact on employee productivity and we found that while stress is a growing issue at all levels within organizations, there is one group that is being impacted more than most: managers. And they are heading for a crash.

For many managers, stress has become the predominant emotion when thinking about work. On one hand, they have their teams reporting increased levels of discontent, burnout, and overwhelm as deadlines get tighter, priorities shift, and financial incentives get fewer and further between as the economy struggles. On the other, they have their bosses and executive leadership struggling to nail down strategy in a constantly evolving climate. This calamitous combination is only perpetuating the stress problem – with managers stuck in the middle.

As this surge of stress moves from momentary influx to pervasive problem, it is turning into a stress crisis with major implications for your organization’s success. Chances are, whether you think so or not, your managers are heading for a crash.

Wiley Workplace Intelligence wanted to gain insight into what is driving this downward trend and what managers need to feel supported at this increasingly unstable time for organizations everywhere.

We surveyed 2,360 people and found that 47% of people managers are reporting severe levels of stress which has increased over the last six months for 31% of those surveyed. As we’ve talked about before, the turbulent economy, significant political shifts, and global instability have put many organizations on their back feet as they navigate an evolving climate with fewer resources putting an enormous amount of pressure on their people.

Workloads, Communication Gaps, Increasing Pressure Drive Stress Surge

While managers are not the only people experiencing unprecedented levels of ongoing stress, they reported the highest levels of severe stress which indicates they are in a particularly challenging position as they navigate organizational challenges without the support they need. This means that managers are experiencing stress in a vacuum, while they absorb the stressors of their teams, they do not often have the infrastructure of support themselves to gain the skills necessary to productively navigate these challenges.

We found that the main causes of stress for managers are:

• Increasing workloads
• Challenges in time management
• Staffing issues
• Unclear expectations
• Pressure
• Communication challenges

Over half (60%) reported that bureaucracy and tedious approval processes have a significant impact on their stress levels. This is interesting, and it potentially points to an opportunity for better agility in organizations. As responsibilities grow and deadlines get tighter, this suggests a lack of commitment from executives to keep things moving quickly despite increasing workloads. Striking the right balance between achieving alignment, ensuring quality, and moving efficiently is key to reducing this stressor.

The Insidious Impact of Chronic Stress

At the risk of being too negative, it’s important to note that pushing managers beyond their capacity can have real consequences, especially in the context of significant global change that is impacting nearly every industry. This isn’t the Apple TV hit Severance, this is the real world, where stress from both personal and professional lives collide – making this ongoing, and increasing, stress even more insidious.

While at first it seems natural to expect your managers to simply absorb increasing demands and nebulous conditions, that pace of work for an extended period is a recipe for burnout. Ongoing levels of stress and burnout will ultimately decrease the quality of work, slow down the pace of productivity due to brain fog and other physical manifestations of chronic stress, and it will eventually hit your bottom line.

Chronic stress can have a significant impact on efficiency at work by slowing down the time it takes to complete projects. As stress levels rise, cognitive functions such as memory, decision-making, and problem-solving become compromised, leading to a gradual decrease in productivity. This increased mental strain can also result in communication breakdowns, as increased stress causes lapses in communication, increased misunderstandings, and fatigue causing unnecessary conflict and tension.

As organizations become increasingly taxed, the things that help managers mitigate stress and burnout are some of the first things to go in an effort to free up time, money, and resources.

The Silver Lining: Despite Unprecedented Stress, Optimism Wins

Despite the pervasive sense of overwhelm impacting many managers and organizations, the results of our research were not all bad news.

Whether driven by natural human optimism or actual belief that things will get better, our respondents shared that they anticipate that after an even further dive into ongoing or worsening stress over the next 3-6 months, they report anticipating a decrease in stress by this time next year.

It is unclear what exactly is driving that optimism (some research says optimism in times of extreme stress is an involuntary survival instinct), but it bodes well for organizations and gives them the opportunity to invest in their managers now to start improving this stress crisis and prevent a possible manager crash. Organizations that prioritize the wellbeing of their people, even (and especially) during turbulent times, have higher retention, happier people, and healthier cultures with increased engagement.

What You Can Do to Prevent the Manager Crash

In even better news, 78% of respondents are optimistic about their organization's future. Based on feedback from managers in our research, these are the top five areas organizations can invest in to reduce manager stress and retain your top talent.

• Assess and Mitigate Workplace Psychosocial Risks
  A psychosocial risk refers to any element of the workplace that can cause psychological or social harm, impacting an individual's mental health. Often this includes a lack of clarity or predictability around responsibilities, unrealistic workloads, staffing issues, and poor communication. A simple way to start is to increase the frequency of the communication with your managers. Don’t cancel that one-on-one. Provide opportunities for connection.
• Provide Leadership Training
  Our research showed that 56% of the managers surveyed had received some kind of management training, which means almost half have not. Management requires a unique combination of skills and relies heavily on an individual’s ability to work effectively with people, navigate conflict productively, and support their teams, while also focusing on how they can achieve results and meet the evolving needs of executive leadership. Offering leadership training in areas that can help them build resilience and improve their ability to motivate, communicate, and resolve conflicts will help avoid the manager crash and lead to increased productivity and engagement.
• Support Processes
  While it may sometimes feel like just one more thing standing in the way of agile productivity, clearly defined work processes actually increase efficiency and decrease stress. When managers and their teams know what to expect, when to expect it, and how to navigate heavy workloads with clear guidelines in place, that can reduce stress levels.
• Upskill
  Upskilling has been a theme over the last year as organizations undergo reorgs and managers are constantly being asked to take on more work and shift priorities. A major contributor to manager stress is unclear expectations, and that includes not having the tools and skills they need to be successful in their new, less clearly defined roles. Upskilling is more than a corporate buzzword; it’s a necessary process that will not only empower your managers but ensure more success in your organization as it continues to evolve.
• Encourage Open Communication
  Communication is one of the first things to go when things get tough. It’s difficult to have conversations about organizational instability, teamwork challenges, and performance when you are feeling burned out. Creating open lines of communication between managers and their leaders is an imperative step to decrease stress. Having the ability to process challenges as they arise, vs. letting them pile up, can be the difference in your managers crashing and finding ways to succeed in the evolving world of work.

Taking the time now to prevent the manager crash of 2025 from reaching your organization can make a massive difference in your culture, retention, and performance. Managers are the key to productivity, positive organizations, effective workflows, and so much more. They set the tone. No matter what comes our way, a supported manager is a successful manager. Remember, culture starts with them.

Wiley’s suite of professional solutions provides a structure and common language to help empower entire organizations with the skills needed to get to the next level. From building better teams with The Five Behaviors^®, and improving understanding to create engaged, collaborative, and adaptive cultures with Everything DiSC^® on Catalyst, helping you make confident hiring decisions with PXT Select^®, or unlocking the power of leadership at every level with The Leadership Challenge^®, Wiley has innovative solutions that help make the workplace a better place.

Wiley Workplace Intelligence conducts in-depth research on key workplace issues by gathering insights from individual contributors, managers, and leaders. Wiley Workplace Intelligence then analyzes these findings to provide actionable solutions that are shared in our blog.