being a burned-out individual contributor is one thing. being a burned-out manager is different. there's a guilt layer on top that i did not anticipate.
you're supposed to be supporting your team. that's the job. and when you're burned out you can't. you show up to 1:1s and you're half-present. you forget things people told you last week. you give feedback that's technically fine but has no energy in it. and the whole time you're aware that your reports need something from you that you cannot currently provide.
i managed 5 people during the worst of it. nobody quit. nobody raised a formal concern. but i can look back now and see the period where i was genuinely failing them. the team slowed down. not dramatically. but the momentum we'd had in h1 last year just. wasn't there in h2. i had attributed it to market conditions and increased scope. it was probably at least partly me.
some specific things that made it worse: manager burnout is invisible from above. ICs at least produce or don't produce. managers produce an environment, which is hard to measure. so i could look fine on paper while being useless in practice. the usual advice for burnout (take a vacation, reduce scope) is genuinely harder when you manage people. i can't just not be their manager for two weeks. i can delegate but i can't disappear. i felt like i couldn't tell my own manager. the 'burned out manager' is bad for your career in a way that 'burned out IC' isn't, or feels like it is.
how i got out of it: told my skip level. not framed as burnout, framed as 'i'm concerned i'm not able to give my team what they need.' she was genuinely helpful. we renegotiated my scope for a quarter. i had more headspace. the team noticed within 6 weeks.
if you're a manager and you're reading this: you are not immune. and your team will absorb what you bring. taking care of yourself is part of the job, not a break from it.