Leading responsibly in the age of burnout: A new social contract for managers

The modern workplace has reached an inflection point. Across boardrooms, corporate offices, and business teams alike, a salient epidemic is eroding the very foundations on which organisational harmony and success rest, which are the well-being of employees. Burnout among employees, a situation once dismissed as individual weakness or a consequence of poor time management, now stands revealed as a systemic failure of leadership, which requires urgent rectification, especially as it concerns the social contract between organisations and their employees.

For middle managers and HR leaders, this is a crisis that is both an ethical and professional imperative. Since they occupy a crucial place that interfaces between the ambitions of the executives and the realities of the employees, middle managers and HR leaders are uniquely positioned to either perpetuate harmful patterns or forge a more sustainable path forward. Therefore, the question is no longer whether employee well-being matters but rather what ethical obligations middle managers and HR leaders bear as stewards of employees’ working lives.

The traditional managerial social contract operates on a simple premise: employees trade their labour and loyalty for compensation and career progression. However, this framework has buckled under the weight of contemporary workplace demands. The modern expectations of constant connectivity, relentless pursuit of productivity, and increased digital transformation that allows remote work have transformed work into an all-consuming identity, thereby blurring professional and personal boundaries. Therefore, when employees experience chest pains from anxiety, when sleep deprivation becomes a badge of dedication, and when the mental health of employees deteriorates in the service of quarterly targets, then managers and HR leaders must ask themselves, ‘At what point does managerial authority become complicit in harm?’

Responsible leadership in this context requires managers and HR leaders to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that a system that glorifies overwork and normalises weekend emails and the implicit messaging that taking a vacation demonstrates insufficient commitment is fundamentally unsustainable. Research indicates that burnout costs the global economy billions of dollars annually through decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, and elevated healthcare expenditure. Even more so, burnout diminishes human vitality, strains family relationships, and compromises the health of employees.

The ethical dimensions of this problem extend beyond individual suffering to collective responsibility. As middle managers, when a team member is observed to show signs of exhaustion, it is unethical to assign additional projects to meet departmental targets. This raises the question: What message do you, as a manager, convey about organisational values?

Care must be taken to avoid situations where managers rely only on so-called high fliers who are often overexposed and overworked while other employees are ignored, unexposed, and untrained. The resultant burnout of the high fliers and deterioration of those other employees are ethical concerns that managers must be aware of and intentional in managing.

Likewise, when HR leaders design wellness programmes whilst simultaneously implementing performance metrics that necessitate unsustainable work patterns, does this not constitute a fundamental contradiction? Hence, these are not merely operational tensions but ethical questions about the kind of leaders and people modern organisations need.

A new social contract, hence, must rest on the recognition that employee well-being represents not a constraint on productivity but a precondition for it. Sustainable performance emerges from rested minds, balanced lives, and workplaces where human dignity takes precedence over short-term gains. Thus, it demands courage from middle managers to challenge unrealistic expectations from executives, even when it carries professional risks, and it requires HR leaders to champion policies that protect employee welfare rather than create a veneer of concern.

In practical terms, this transformation will manifest in small but significant choices. Managers should not send non-urgent emails outside working hours, as this establishes an expectation of constant availability. They should not celebrate those who work extensive hours whilst overlooking those who deliver results within reasonable boundaries. Managers should create psychological safety for employees to acknowledge their struggles and not create a culture that punishes honesty.

There is resistance to this reimagining of the social contract in organisations. Critics often cite competitive necessity, which is an argument that in the highly demanding markets of today, organisations cannot afford to prioritise wellbeing over results. However, this presents a false logic. The most compelling evidence suggests that organisations investing in genuine welfare demonstrate superior long-term prospects, such as performance, innovation, and talent retention. More fundamentally, this objection reveals a troubling assumption that human well-being is a mere variable in the pursuit of profit.

Therefore, managerial responsibility demands both structural change and personal accountability, which advocates for realistic workloads, models healthy boundaries, and measures success in terms of teams’ sustainability, satisfaction, and continuance commitment, rather than merely on outputs. Hence, the duty of managers and HR leaders transcends legal compliance and includes ethical responsibility.

Managers must therefore ensure that they do not accept unrealistic deadlines from their clients and even when they do, arrange for more employees to be deployed to the project or employ contract employees to help out where possible. They should be mindful of employee well-being and should allocate workloads that ensure employees do not suffer from burnout. That way, employees are more able to contribute meaningfully to the organisation’s growth and sustainability.

Dr. Rose Ogbechie is a Senior Lecturer at Lagos Business School (LBS), Pan-Atlantic University, where she teaches courses in Business Ethics, Sustainability, and Leadership.

Dr. Emmanuel Orakwe is a Research Associate at the Christopher Kolade Centre for Research in Leadership and Ethics (CKCRLE), Lagos Business School.