August 12, 2025
“I’m tired — but not from the work. I’m tired from carrying everyone else.” CEO
That’s what a CEO said to me recently. After a long pause, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the skyline outside the boardroom, he went on: “The work I can do. I can handle the strategy, the late nights, the metrics. What’s wearing me down is the emotional weight of holding it all together — for everyone.”
Let’s be honest: leadership isn’t just strategy, decision-making, and tracking performance. It’s also holding space—for uncertainty, for people’s emotions, for your own frustrations. That part? That’s emotional labour. And if we don’t name it, we’ll keep undervaluing it.
Most leaders I know aren’t burning out from KPIs. They’re burning out from carrying the emotional load of teams, clients, transitions, restructures—often without acknowledgment or support. And it’s not soft. It’s exhausting.
60% of CEOs face burnout symptoms, and two-thirds of chief executive’s admitted to feeling burnout more regularly, with nearly a quarter experiencing it frequently or nearly every day. Financial Times
At The CEO Practice, this is not uncommon. It’s a pattern — and a signal. Leadership doesn’t have to cost you your humanity. And strength doesn’t mean silence. There’s another way: one that starts by naming the emotional toll and then building your leadership from your strengths — not your survival instinct.
💡 What Is Emotional Labour in Leadership?
Emotional labour, as I define it, is emotion management and life management combined. It is the unpaid, invisible work we do to keep those around us comfortable and happy. Gemma Hartley
Originally coined to describe the internal effort required to manage emotions at work (like smiling through stress), emotional labour takes on a new weight at the top. For leaders, it often includes:
This labour is exhausting, especially when unacknowledged. And because many executives pride themselves on grit and composure, they rarely admit it’s wearing them down.
Burnout is often not caused by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment
🧩Essential Elements of Emotional Labour
The emotional labour of leadership is multifaceted and though often invisible— plays a central role in how leaders influence, support, and regulate themselves and others. To manage it effectively, leaders must understand and navigate its core elements, each of which has distinct psychological and relational implications.
Below is a structured breakdown of the essential elements of emotional labour that leaders need to be aware of and manage proactively:
The core takeaway from the elements of emotional labour for leaders is that effective leadership requires more than just strategic thinking—it demands intentional emotional engagement. Leaders must navigate display rules, balance authenticity with regulation, and manage emotional dissonance without absorbing or suppressing too much.
When leaders consciously develop skills in emotional awareness, boundary setting, and recovery, emotional labour becomes a source of influence, trust, and resilience rather than a drain. Ignoring these elements leads to burnout, identity strain, and weakened team dynamics—while managing them well enhances leadership credibility, psychological safety, and long-term effectiveness.
✅A Strengths-Based Approach
A strengths-based approach to dealing with the emotional labour of leaders focuses on identifying, affirming, and leveraging leaders’ existing emotional capacities—rather than framing emotional labour as a deficit or a burden to be fixed.
This approach empowers leaders to navigate emotional demands by building on their natural talents, emotional intelligence, and relational strengths, promoting resilience, authenticity, and well-being. A personalized emotional labour heat map serves as a powerful coaching tool by helping leaders visually connect their innate strengths to the emotional demands of their role:
This approach provides clarity on where a leader’s strengths may naturally support healthy emotional regulation—such as deep acting, boundary setting, or emotional recovery—and where they may be more vulnerable to challenges like burnout, emotional dissonance, or overextension.
By making these connections accessible, leaders through a coaching approach can develop targeted strategies that align with who they are, rather than forcing a one-size fits all fix. It also sparks deeper self-awareness, guiding the leader to leverage what already works, while mindfully addressing potential blind spots.
🌱Conclusion
Emotional labour is the often-unseen force that shapes how leaders show up, connect, and lead others through complexity. Far from being a soft or secondary skill, it is a core leadership competency—demanding empathy, self-regulation, and the ability to hold space for others while staying grounded in one’s own values.
Yet when left unmanaged or misunderstood, emotional labour becomes a silent drain, leading to burnout, disconnection, and diminished performance. The most effective leaders are not those who hide their emotions or carry the emotional weight of their teams alone, but those who navigate emotional labour with awareness, boundaries, and strength.
By recognizing emotional labour as both real and worthy of support, we can help leaders lead more sustainably, more authentically, and more humanely. In doing so, we not only protect their well-being—we amplify their capacity to lead with clarity, compassion, and lasting impact.
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