The Unseen Cost of High-Functioning Leadership
By the time ‘Gina’ logged off most nights, she couldn’t tell you what she had accomplished—only that she had survived it.
Meetings bled into crisis control. Crisis control blurred into smoothing over tension no one wanted to name. Somewhere between the budget revisions and the morale-boosting one-on-ones, she lost track of herself.
Her inbox, however, told a different story.
👏 Thank you for your leadership.
👏 Appreciate your calm.
👏 You’re amazing at keeping us steady.
‘Gina’ didn’t feel steady.
She felt hollow.
Another day spent pouring into everyone else’s cups while hers sat cracked and bone dry.
And still…the world kept rewarding her for it.
This is the quiet, corrosive reality for far too many senior women leaders and seasoned individual contributors.
Leadership isn’t just about what gets built.
It’s also about what leadership can quietly deplete—and how easily that depletion goes unnoticed when only output is measured.
The Myth of Limitless Leadership
The corporate world adores leaders who can “handle it all.”
The unspoken badge of honor?
Capacity without complaint.
Over-functioning in leadership becomes an expectation, not a red flag. Especially for women.
The 2024 Women in the Workplace report by McKinsey confirms what many already know intimately: senior women leaders take on more employee well-being work, more DEI efforts, and more “glue work” that keeps teams human but rarely gets recognized or rewarded (McKinsey, 2024).
Harvard Business Review calls this the trap of “non-promotable tasks”—essential labor that props up organizational culture but does nothing for career progression (HBR, 2022).
Add to that the “performance tax” (Fast Company, 2020): the invisible surcharge high-performing women pay simply for being seen as capable. The more you deliver, the more you are asked to deliver. Being the ‘Olivia Pope’ of the organization comes at a cost.
And for women of color, the cost climbs even higher. Catalyst’s landmark research describes the “emotional tax” of navigating bias and isolation daily (Catalyst, 2016).
The system’s myth is simple:
The more you carry, the more valuable you are.
The reality is brutal:
The more you carry, the faster you erode, and no one comes running with a refill.
Invisible Load, Visible Praise
‘Gina’ never signed up to be the emotional thermostat of her team.
But she became it anyway.
Because when you lead quietly, competently, and clean up messes without demanding applause, you get something even more dangerous than criticism: You get more.
More projects.
More roles no one else wants.
More emotional labor stapled invisibly onto your actual job description.
Each quarterly review praised ‘Gina’’s steady hand, her ability to “keep the trains moving.”
No one mentioned the weight she quietly redistributed across her own back—conflict mediation, morale rebuilding, mentorship of leaders not yet ready for the seats they occupied.
The math stopped working.
More responsibility.
Fewer resources.
No relief.
She didn’t collapse dramatically.
High-functioning leaders rarely do.
Instead, the erosion was quiet:
Less creativity.
Less energy.
Less spark.
Until one day, even praise tasted like ash.
The Emotional and Physical Receipts
Leadership well-being doesn’t collapse overnight.
It bleeds out over time.
The 2024 Deloitte Women @ Work report found that 54% of senior women report feeling consistently burned out (Deloitte, 2024). Yet many fear speaking up, worried they’ll be seen as “less committed” or “less leadership material.”
Harvard Business Review (HBR, 2022) echoes it: managers internalize the belief that leadership means always putting others first—and in doing so, compromise the very effectiveness they’re praised for.
Meanwhile, the body keeps the score (Van der Kolk, 2014):
- Sleep disturbances that don’t resolve with weekends.
- Decision fatigue so acute even small choices feel overwhelming.
- Erosion of once-anchored confidence.
By the time physical symptoms show up, emotional depletion has been silently setting in for months, sometimes years.
‘Gina’s real turning point didn’t come from a breakdown. It came from a question asked during a coaching session:
“How would your leadership thrive if you weren’t merely surviving?”
It was the first time she realized she had mistaken survival for sustainability.
Leadership Built on Extraction Is Unsustainable
The system rewards extraction—until it doesn’t.
Wisdom and Nabors (2024) found that prolonged emotional labor without replenishment fractures leadership identity. Leaders don’t just burn out; they start to detach, quietly exiting leadership roles they once fought to attain.
Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (2024) highlights a clear remedy: Leaders who model transformational behaviors, boundary-setting, and recovery practices not only sustain themselves; they create healthier, higher-performing teams.
Recovery isn’t indulgence. It’s infrastructure.
Boundary-setting isn’t selfish. It’s a leadership sustainability practice.
Self-awareness isn’t optional. It’s survival with integrity.
A Quiet Shift
For months, ‘Gina’ told herself she could hang on a little longer. That, surely, someone would notice she was drowning.
But no one hands breathing room to leaders who perform high-functioning invisibility.
Breathing room has to be claimed.
Her first acts of ‘rebellion’ were almost imperceptible:
- Blocking quiet time for strategy instead of back-to-back meetings.
- Saying no to non-promotable work when her plate was already full.
- Reframing self-care as a leadership responsibility, not a guilty luxury.
It was hard. It was uncomfortable. It sometimes felt like betraying the very brand of ‘hero’ leader that had gotten her where she was.
But it was necessary.
Sustainable leadership isn’t built on endless endurance. It’s built on self-awareness, self-trust, and self-stewardship.
‘Gina’ didn’t become less committed to her work. She finally became more committed to protecting the parts of her that made her an exceptional leader: her insight, her creativity, and her vision.
🍵 Small Sips: The Invitation to Lead Differently
If any part of ‘Gina’’s story feels familiar, you’re not imagining it.
You didn’t invent the pressure to over-function. But you have the agency to stop co-signing it.
Leadership well-being isn’t about perfect balance every day.
It’s about refusing to build your success on top of your own erosion.
Instead of asking, “How much more can I carry?” —
Maybe it’s time to ask:
“How do I protect the energy, vision, and clarity I need to lead differently?”
Because leadership sustainability begins where extraction ends.
Because thriving leadership doesn’t whisper, “Do more.”
It insists: Protect your future self.
Every day you choose not to pour into yourself, the system wins a little more.
If you’re ready to lead differently, even if the path isn’t fully clear yet, there’s a space waiting.
✨ Start with a Quick Brew: The Spark Session (60 minutes) for a focused recalibration or steep deeper with a Strong Brew: Bold Infusion (3-hour intensive) to reignite your leadership clarity.
You deserve to lead with an overflowing cup. Leadership sustainability isn’t a luxury; it’s an intentional decision.
References
- Catalyst. (2016). Day-to-day experiences of emotional tax among women and men of color in the workplace. Retrieved from https://www.nigp.org/forum/pre-reads/Day-To-Day-Experiences-of-Emotional-Tax-Among-Women-and-Men-of-Color-in-the-Workplace.pdf
- Deloitte. (2024). Women @ work: A global outlook 2024. Retrieved from https://www.deloitte.com/content/dam/assets-shared/docs/collections/2024/deloitte-women-at-work-2024-a-global-outlook.pdf
- Fast Company. (2020, March 5). The truth behind the ‘performance tax’ women pay at work. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90473820/the-truth-behind-the-performance-tax-women-pay-at-work
- Harvard Business Review. (2022, January). Managers, you don’t have to put yourself last. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2022/01/managers-you-dont-have-to-put-yourself-last
- Harvard Business Review. (2022, April). Are you taking on too many non-promotable tasks? Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2022/04/are-you-taking-on-too-many-non-promotable-tasks
- McKinsey & Company. (2024). Women in the workplace 2024: The 10th-anniversary report. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace
- National Institutes of Health (NIH). (2024). Mitigating workplace burnout through transformational leadership and employee participation in recovery experiences. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11249184/pdf/26890216_vol5_iss3_215.pdf
- Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking Press.
- Wisdom, J. P. & Nabors, N. (2024). Women’s traumatic experiences of leadership: Case studies and hypothesized mechanisms. 2024 American Psychological Association 2024, Vol. 27, No. 2, 268–287, https://doi.org/10.1037/mgr0000156