This episode comes from Nicola Richardson, who founded The People Mentor to help small employers, managers and leaders handle difficult conversations, strengthen accountability, and lead with calm, practical confidence.
In this solo episode I want to talk about something a lot of leaders feel but rarely name accurately: leadership fatigue. That bone-deep tiredness that sets in when you feel like you’re carrying everything, managing everything, and somehow still not getting on top of it all. You might put it down to your workload, or the pace of the business, or even wonder whether you’re cut out for this anymore. But in over forty years of working with managers and leaders, I’ve found that what sits underneath leadership fatigue is often something quite different, and it usually lives in the conversations you haven’t had yet.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify below.
Key takeaways from The People Mentor
- Leadership fatigue often isn’t about workload. It’s the weight of conversations you know you need to have but haven’t.
- Unsaid things don’t disappear. They take up head space every single day, rehearsed and put off, and quietly get worse.
- Avoiding a difficult conversation isn’t weakness or laziness. It’s usually a skills gap, and a skills gap can be fixed.
- Most conversations fail at the start, not the middle. A clumsy or over-cushioned opening leaves the conversation nowhere to go.
- The AID model (Action, Impact, Desired outcome) gives you a simple structure so you’re not winging it.
- Getting better at difficult conversations isn’t just a management skill, it’s a wellbeing strategy. Deal with things earlier, carry less, and lead with more energy.
What I Cover in This Episode
- What leadership fatigue actually looks like day to day, and how it creeps in
- The link between unresolved conversations and that bone-deep tiredness
- Why managers avoid difficult conversations, and why it isn’t a character flaw
- What the weight of unhad conversations really costs you and your team
- What shifts, in the situation and in you, once you learn to have them
- Three practical things you can do about it, starting today
A Useful Reframe
The tiredness you’re feeling might not be about how much you’re doing. It might be about what you’re carrying. And you don’t have to keep carrying it.
Episode Transcript
Hello, and welcome to The People Mentor podcast. Are you sitting comfortably? Today I want to talk about something a lot of leaders experience but rarely name accurately: leadership fatigue. That bone-deep tiredness that sets in when you feel like you’re carrying everything, managing everything, and somehow still not getting on top of it all.
You might think it’s your workload. You might think it’s the pace of your business. You might even think you’re just not cut out for this anymore. But in my experience working with managers and leaders for over forty years, what sits underneath leadership fatigue is often something quite different, and today I want to explore that with you.
So what does leadership fatigue actually look like? It doesn’t always announce itself dramatically. Sometimes it creeps in slowly. You start to dread certain people popping up in your calendar. You find yourself putting off things you know you should deal with. You feel exhausted at the end of the day, not because you’ve been physically busy, but because you’ve been mentally wrestling with something you haven’t quite managed to resolve.
You might notice that your team feels a bit flat. Communication is functional, but there’s no real warmth to it. People are doing the work, but the energy has shifted. You can feel it, even if you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. This is what I see time and again: leaders carrying the weight of conversations they haven’t had yet, and that weight is heavy.
Let’s look at the connection between unresolved conversations and fatigue. When something goes unsaid at work, it doesn’t disappear. It sits there. It takes up mental space every single day. You run it through your head. You rehearse what you might say. You think about how the other person might react. You decide today isn’t the right moment, and then you do the same thing again tomorrow.
I’ve spoken to so many managers who describe this exact pattern. They know they need to address something with a team member, or have an honest conversation with a colleague, or give feedback that isn’t going to land comfortably. And because they haven’t been taught how to do that well, they keep putting it off. And what happens in the meantime? The situation doesn’t stay the same. It usually gets worse. The team member’s behaviour continues. The tension with a colleague builds. The performance issue becomes harder to address because it’s now been going on for weeks or months. And all the while, the leader is carrying it quietly, alone. That’s exhausting. That’s what’s driving the fatigue.
So why do managers avoid the conversation in the first place? I want to be really clear about this, because it matters. When a manager avoids a difficult conversation, it’s not because they’re weak or lazy or don’t care. It’s because they haven’t been taught how to have it. Most managers are promoted because they’re brilliant at their job. They know the work inside out. But nobody sat them down and said, here’s how you give feedback that someone can actually hear, here’s how you deal with conflict without it escalating, here’s how you have the conversation about someone’s behaviour without it turning into a confrontation. They were promoted and left to figure it out. And when you don’t know how to do something, the natural human response is simply to avoid it.
So the avoidance isn’t a character flaw, it’s a skills gap. And when you understand that, the whole problem looks different, because a skills gap can be addressed.
So what does the weight of unresolved conversations actually cost? Let me give you a sense of what I mean. Think about a manager who has three or four things sitting on their mental to-do list that they haven’t dealt with. Maybe there’s a team member whose attitude has been difficult for a while. Maybe there’s a performance issue that’s been skirted around in a few one-to-ones but never properly tackled. Or maybe there’s a conversation that needs to happen about someone’s future in the business, and the manager genuinely doesn’t know how to start it.
Every single day, these unresolved things are there, taking up head space, creating low-level anxiety, contributing to that feeling of being constantly behind, constantly overwhelmed, and never getting on top of things. And for founders and senior leaders, this compounds further, because they’re not just carrying their own unresolved conversations, they’re watching their managers not have the conversations either. They see the knock-on effects in team performance, in employee turnover, and in culture, and they feel responsible for all of it. Leadership fatigue at that level is very real, and a significant part of it is sitting in the conversations that haven’t happened.
So what changes when you start having the conversations? This is the part I find genuinely encouraging, because in my work I’ve seen people turn this around. When a manager learns how to open a difficult conversation well, something shifts, not just in the situation they were avoiding, but in them. There’s a confidence that comes from knowing you have the tools to handle something. You stop dreading it, you stop putting it off, and you deal with things earlier, when they’re smaller, which means they don’t grow into the bigger, harder problems they would have become if left.
And when you deal with things earlier, you carry less. When you carry less, you have more energy. When you have more energy, you lead better. And when you lead better, your team responds. It genuinely does ripple outward from there. I’ve talked in other episodes about how burnout in leadership is often driven by unresolved conversations rather than workload alone. This is the same idea. The weight isn’t always coming from how much you’re doing. Sometimes it’s coming from what you’re not doing but know you should be.
So what can you do about it? The first thing is to get honest with yourself about what’s sitting unaddressed right now. Most managers know. They don’t need a framework to identify it. They already know exactly what they’re avoiding and who it involves. Write it down if that helps. Just name it to yourself. What is the conversation I haven’t had? What am I actually worried will happen if I do? That second question is worth sitting with, because often the fear is much worse than the reality. People catastrophise the outcome of difficult conversations. They imagine the worst reaction, the most defensive response, the situation going completely off the rails. And so they assume the conversation itself is a risk, when actually the risk is not having it.
The second thing is to work on the opening. I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it, because it’s where most managers go wrong. Difficult conversations don’t usually fail in the middle. They fail at the start, because the opening is clumsy or ambiguous or so heavily cushioned that the other person doesn’t even realise what the conversation is actually about. When you know how to open clearly and calmly, the rest of the conversation has somewhere to go. The AID model, which I use a lot in my work, gives you a structure for that: Action, Impact, Desired outcome. It’s simple, it keeps you focused, and it means you’re not winging it.
The third thing is to give yourself permission to be a bit uncomfortable. Difficult conversations are called that for a reason. They’re not always easy. But discomfort in a conversation is not the same as a conversation going wrong. You can feel nervous and still handle it well. Those two things can absolutely coexist.
A final thought from me. If you’re experiencing leadership fatigue right now, I’d encourage you to look at what’s sitting on your mental shelf. Not just your to-do list, but the conversations you’re putting off, the things you know you need to say but haven’t said yet. Because the tiredness you’re feeling might not be about how much you’re doing. It might be about what you’re carrying, and you don’t have to keep carrying it.
Getting better at difficult conversations isn’t just a management skill, it’s a wellbeing strategy. It frees up mental energy, it gives you back a sense of control, and it makes the work feel lighter in a way that nothing else quite does.
I hope this one’s given you something to think about. This is The People Mentor, signing off. Thank you for listening.
Resources Mentioned
- The AID model (Action, Impact, Desired outcome): the simple structure Nicola uses to open a difficult conversation clearly and calmly.
- The Manager’s Academy: monthly, practical support for managers who want to handle these conversations well.
- Catalyst Conversations: focused help with opening and holding the conversations that matter most.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is leadership fatigue the same as burnout? They overlap, but they’re not identical. Burnout is often blamed on workload alone. Leadership fatigue, as I use it, is the specific drain that comes from carrying conversations you haven’t had yet. The encouraging part is that this cause is very fixable.
How do I know if my tiredness is a conversation problem? Ask yourself what’s sitting unaddressed right now, and who it involves. Most managers know instantly. If naming a person or a situation makes your stomach drop, that’s usually where the weight is coming from.
Why do difficult conversations feel so risky? Because we catastrophise them. We picture the worst reaction and assume the conversation is the risk. Far more often, the real risk is not having it, and letting a small issue grow into a big one.
What actually makes a difficult conversation go well? The opening. Most conversations fail at the start, not the middle. Open clearly and calmly, using something like the AID model (Action, Impact, Desired outcome), and the rest has somewhere to go.
A Final Thought
If you’re feeling leadership fatigue right now, look at what’s sitting on your mental shelf. Not just your to-do list, but the conversations you’re quietly putting off. The tiredness might not be about how much you’re doing. It might be about what you’re carrying, and you don’t have to carry it alone.
Getting better at this is exactly what I help managers with. Inside The Manager’s Academy and through Catalyst Conversations, I’ll give you the practical tools to open a difficult conversation calmly and deal with things while they’re still small, so you carry less and lead with more energy.