We have raised our performance standards to prepare for an exit, but now several leadership team members are complaining of extreme burnout and threatening to quit. How do we maintain a high-performance standard without driving our key executives out the door?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When raising execution standards to prepare for an exit, complaining of extreme burnout on your leadership team is a warning sign you cannot ignore. However, lowering your standards is not the answer. To build a valuable, self-sustaining superstructure, you must address executive capacity without sacrificing performance.

First, evaluate whether your leaders are truly delegating. Often, burnout is not caused by a lack of capability, but by a failure to delegate and elevate. Check your Accountability Chart. Are your executives still holding onto mid-level tasks that should be handled by their direct reports? They must delegate lower-value work so they can focus on their core executive seats.

Second, review their Rocks. A common mistake is assigning too many priorities. Ensure each leadership team member has no more than three high-impact Rocks per quarter. If they are trying to execute seven different initiatives while running daily operations, they will inevitably burn out.

Third, look at your weekly Level 10 Meeting. Is it an efficient engine of accountability, or is it a dragging status update session that adds to their workload? Use the meeting to IDS real capacity issues. If a department is genuinely understaffed, solve the bottleneck by restructuring or hiring, rather than piling more work onto your current leaders. By teaching your team to delegate and focus, you can maintain high performance while preserving their long-term energy.