Personalities and burnout

We had a virtual leadership “off-site” meeting today. It was a lot of getting to know each other much more on a personal level and team building activities. I had a lot of fun over the nearly 6 hours we spent via Zoom together. I think we also set a record for longest company Zoom call on record so far.

We discussed each others’ personality types after taking the Insights Test. Most people that have been at corporate jobs or big companies will have likely done one of these tests. The idea is that it characterizes you in a category as a personality type. It’s an imperfect system, but I’ve always found that they are directionally correct.

I for one am described as an extreme “red” type aka “Director”. I have known this for largely most of my life and I suspect that it has something to do with growing up with a single father who was an immigrant entrepreneur. In short, red types are highly competitive and commanding. We want to win and sometimes draw people along with us.

What was particularly interesting is that 3 out of the 9 members on the call (including myself) were classified as red. All 3 of us also discussed problems with burnout and work-related stress. A couple of us have been to the hospital due to overwork. It was an alarming insight into the reality of our personality type.

Of course everyone is susceptible to burnout, but there is clearly a pattern that those red types are particularly sensitive to overwork. This is something that our leadership team is taking seriously. Burnout is dangerous for just for the individual but for the company. I’ve been through it many times before.

Luckily for me, I’ve got a lot of great teammates alongside me. We’ve committed as a team to help each other out to avoid burnout and have a few great ideas in place to execute on that commitment.