During a discussion hosted by Women in Wills on Thursday, the average lawyer, according to Lawcare, experiences a higher risk of burnout compared to the average worker.
It was also revealed that half of family lawyers considered quitting in the previous three years and that 26% were actively looking to leave the profession last year, based on research by Deloitte.
Leah Steele who was previously a contentious probate lawyer spoke of her struggles with burnout in the legal industry, was the main speaker for the discussion.
“I experienced my own issues with burnout, and I didn’t know what it was at that point, none of us were really talking about burnout. I couldn’t really understand why I was exhausted and wasn’t able to keep up with everybody else anymore, and that’s where “Searching for Serenity” came out because I got sick of seeing brilliant people leaving the profession because it wasn’t sustainable and it wasn’t supportive.
I work with individuals and with organisations, including law firms to talk about burnout imposter syndrome, resilience, and stress and basically how we can do work really well and be profitable and for work to not feel like a special form of self-harm.”
Steele explained how sustainability is the opposite of burnout and how sustainability should be the aim for workers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies burnout as:
“A syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed
Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.”
The WHO characterises it by three dimensions:
- Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
- Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- Reduced professional efficacy.
Steele stated:
“We only start to see it as a problem when the issues start arising.
77% of people are experiencing some level of burnout in their current job.
Burnout is a systemic issue that presents itself in individuals. It is not a personal failing.”
What is resilience?
Emma Baddeley from Estatesearch argued resilience is “a healthy sense of wellbeing in mind and body”.
A study on the longitudinal resilience assessment (LORA) story, in July 2020, defined it as:
“Resilience is conceptualised to result from a dynamic process of successful adaptation to stressors.”
Steele argued this definition shows workers don’t have you have to be perfect every time and requires you to fail and respond to stressors.
“Resilience isn’t a state to be achieved, it’s a daily process. It’s a response. It’s not necessary to endure everything. Resilience isn’t something you’re born with.
The more resilient you are the more adaptation to change you’ve developed, and it shows the more you’ve been through.”
How do we end up burned out (or not)?
Steele claimed it is down to three things:
- Beliefs – drive people, such as fear, imposter syndrome (not feeling good enough or worthy), aiming to be perfect, and try to fix everything.
- Behaviours – these are stated to lead to overworking, multitasking, aiming to please people, and delaying rewards as people fail to switch off.
- Maladaptive coping mechanisms – where people avoid the problem and go into withdrawal which can lead to anxiety, repression, and absenteeism which causes people to leave their profession altogether.
Steele stated:
“Burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
If we want to be sustainable, we have to identify workplace stressors and successfully manage them.”
What does managing stress mean?
Steele suggests mapping out your stresses and figuring out what works and what doesn’t work for you. She added:
“Managing stress means being able to walk away from it. Remember it’s a systemic problem, so we can be part of the solution as well.”
Steele claims resourcing is crucial. Managing workloads is needed and making sure this is something that is achievable is key to reducing stressors.
Beliefs and learned behaviours
Steele stated burnout costs businesses in the UK £27 billion due to staff turnover, staff firing, absenteeism, sick leave, presenteeism and general lack of productivity.
Steele argues this doesn’t have to be the case and a change in mindset could resolve this. She claimed:
“By speaking up we can remove the stigma around burnout. We can open the floor to iterative learning and active growth.
All the evidence shows that if managers speak up, we are going to empower our teams to speak up and change the psychological culture to one around growth, rather than shame, anxiety and worry.”
Steele refers to a study by Linda Babcock on gender pay gaps. Babcock refers to “office housework” where women are more likely to do non-skill developing work in an office which facilitates everyone else.
This is work that people don’t want to do, but people do because they believe they have to. This further increases the likelihood of stress which Steele argues exacerbates burnout.
Conclusion
Steele concluded that if sustainability is to be achieved then maintaining balance within is needed.
If this is done then burnout should be minimised, which should help workers and employers alike.
The Searching for Serenity website is www.searchingforserenity.co.uk and Facebook page is www.facebook.com/serenitysearch.
You can also follow Leah Steele on LinkedIn via this link www.linkedin.com/in/leahysteele.
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