{"id":2646,"date":"2026-01-20T06:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T04:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/nicht-kategorisiert\/fuehrungskraefte-belastbarkeit-resilienz\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T15:54:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:54:40","slug":"leadership-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/insights\/leadership-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"Under Pressure: How Managers Ensure Their Own Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why Self-Care Is Not a Wellness Topic<\/h2>\n\n

The calendar is full. The transformation is underway. The team needs guidance. The board expects results. The family is waiting. Somewhere in between: you. You’re functioning. For now. The question you’re not asking yourself: For how much longer? <\/p>\n\n

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Managers manage budgets, projects, and teams with the utmost discipline. When it comes to their own energy resources, this discipline is often completely lacking. Self-care is not a matter of time, but a management task. Exhausted managers make poorer strategic decisions, develop tunnel vision, and overlook risks. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

A management executive I coached for several months came into the office every Monday with an energy level that was depleted by Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, he was just operating on autopilot. He knew it. His team knew it. But no one talked about it because he was the boss, and bosses aren’t supposed to be tired. When he finally took three weeks off, his deputy said, “We all saw this coming. Only he didn’t.” <\/p>\n\n

The Warning Signs<\/h2>\n\n

Most managers only notice their overload when it is already advanced. Psychologist Christina Maslach, whose research on burnout syndrome is considered fundamental, describes three core characteristics: emotional exhaustion, cynicism towards work, and a feeling of reduced effectiveness. These characteristics manifest subtly in everyday management. <\/p>\n\n

It often starts with sleep. You fall asleep, but wake up at three and can’t get back to sleep, or you sleep through the night but don’t feel rested in the morning. At the same time, recovery no longer works: previously, a weekend was enough to recharge. Now you need three weeks of vacation, and after two days back in the office, everything is back to how it was. Then comes the cynicism: you were once enthusiastic about your work, now you catch yourself thinking, “None of this makes any difference.” Your frustration tolerance decreases, minor issues escalate<\/a>, your environment often notices the change before you do. And your body keeps score: headaches, back pain, elevated blood pressure. Added to this is the creeping withdrawal from private life, the friends you haven’t seen in months, the hobby for which there is no longer any time. <\/p>\n\n

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The question is not whether you have stress. The question is whether you can still recover from it. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

What Resilience Really Means<\/h2>\n\n

Resilience has become a buzzword, often misunderstood as “enduring more, lasting longer, being tougher.” That is not resilience; that is the path to exhaustion. <\/p>\n\n

What Resilience Is Not<\/th>What Resilience Is<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Enduring everything<\/td>Being able to recover<\/td><\/tr>
Showing no weakness<\/td>Knowing and communicating boundaries<\/td><\/tr>
Always functioning<\/td>Remaining sustainably productive<\/td><\/tr>
Ignoring stress<\/td>Processing stress<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

Resilience is a muscle, not a character trait. It must be trained and needs recovery phases to grow. No athlete trains without regeneration, and no manager should. No one is infinitely resilient. Anyone who consistently expends more than they build up will deplete their reserves, no matter how strong the muscle. <\/p>\n\n

The Sources of Exhaustion<\/h2>\n\n

Overload rarely has a single cause. It arises from the interplay of several reinforcing factors. <\/p>\n\n

The most common cause is continuous overload without recovery. Phases of high intensity are normal and manageable if followed by recovery. The problem begins when the peak phase becomes a permanent state, when the sprint becomes a marathon that no one planned as a marathon. This is exacerbated by a lack of control: people cope better with stress when they have influence. Managers who feel driven by expectations, decisions of others<\/a>, or circumstances, exhaust themselves faster than those who can shape their environment. <\/p>\n\n

In addition, there are often value conflicts when what you are supposed to do contradicts what you believe is right: supporting decisions<\/a> you don’t agree with, enforcing standards you don’t share. And then there’s the loneliness of the position. Who do you talk to about your doubts? Your fears? Many managers have no one they can be open with\u2014not upwards, not downwards, not sideways. If recognition is also lacking, if successes are taken for granted and only problems receive attention, the ground is fertile for exhaustion. <\/p>\n\n

A division head told me: “I pushed through a transformation project for a year. When it was successfully completed, I got exactly one sentence from my boss: ‘Good. What’s next?’ No thank you, no pause, no ‘How are you, actually?’ At that moment, I decided I couldn’t continue like this.” <\/p>\n\n

What You as a Manager Can Do<\/h2>\n\n

The good news: resilience can be managed. Not through major upheavals, but through three concrete levers in everyday life. <\/p>\n\n

Set and communicate boundaries.<\/strong> “I can’t do any more” is a sentence managers rarely utter. The fear of being perceived as weak is too great. But setting boundaries and showing weakness are not the same thing. Knowing what you can and cannot achieve is self-knowledge. “I cannot accomplish this within this timeframe with the desired quality” is not an admission of failure, but a realistic assessment. Be specific: “I will no longer accept appointments after 4 PM on Fridays to reflect on the week” is better than the abstract “I need more work-life balance.” Involve your environment. Your team doesn’t need to know everything, but it helps if they understand that you are consciously setting boundaries. And if your overload has structural causes\u2014too many priorities<\/a>, too few resources, unrealistic expectations\u2014your superior needs to know. Find a sparring partner: someone with whom you don’t have to be a manager. <\/p>\n\n

Restructure your daily management routine.<\/strong> Small changes with big impact: meetings end at :50 instead of :00. These ten minutes between appointments are not inefficiency; they are a prerequisite for clear thinking. Walking meetings and standing phone calls instead of conference room meetings change the dynamic and add movement to your day. Discipline with emails: if you write at night, you culturally force your team to do the same, even if you “don’t expect a reply.” Use the scheduled send function. Sleep is a priority; seven hours is not a luxury, but a minimum for executives. And truly disconnecting on vacation requires you to delegate responsibility<\/a> and build up trusted deputies. <\/p>\n\n

Take professional help seriously.<\/strong> There comes a point when self-help is no longer enough. Sleep problems for weeks instead of days. Persistent exhaustion that doesn’t improve with vacation. Relationships breaking under the strain. The feeling of no longer being able to feel joy. Racing thoughts that find no peace. Recognizing this point and seeking professional support is not a weakness. It is a sign that you are taking the situation seriously. <\/p>\n\n

Reality Check<\/h2>\n\n

Take five minutes and honestly answer three questions:<\/p>\n\n

First: What would you advise an employee who works the way you currently do? And why don’t you follow that advice yourself? <\/p>\n\n

Second: What one warning sign are you currently ignoring that you actually know you should take seriously?<\/p>\n\n

Third: What would be the one lever that would make the biggest difference, and what is stopping you from implementing it tomorrow?<\/p>\n\n

If you think “no time” for the third question, you have your answer.<\/p>\n\n

The Uncomfortable Truth<\/h2>\n\n

The culture in many organizations rewards self-sacrifice. Those who are always available, who know no boundaries, who work even when sick, are considered committed, role models, high performers. This is a dangerous narrative. It produces exhausted managers who make poorer decisions, burden their teams, and eventually fail, often when they are most needed. <\/p>\n\n

The managers who are successful in the long term are not those who work the most. They are those who have understood that their own resilience is a resource that must be nurtured, like any other. This is not a weakness. This is professional risk management. <\/p>\n\n

Look at your calendar tonight for the coming week. Is there a single appointment that is just for you? No meeting, no call, no project? If not, enter it now. And keep it. <\/p>\n\n

Further Insights<\/h2>\n\n

Leading in a Crisis<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 When pressure turns into a crisis and resilience alone is no longer enough. What matters then. <\/p>\n\n

Transformation Fatigue<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Constant pressure leads to exhaustion, for you and for your organization. How the two are connected. <\/p>\n\n

All Insights can be found in the overview<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your calendar is full, you’re functioning, but for how long? Why self-care is not a wellness topic, but professional risk management. Three levers for sustainable resilience in everyday management. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[239,235,248],"class_list":["post-2646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","tag-culture","tag-leadership","tag-self-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2646"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2941,"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646\/revisions\/2941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andresass.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}