📣 Please note, these events are for Agency Hackers’ members only.

If your agency isn’t a member yet, get in touch with Anne or sign up here.

L

Leadership isn’t just about strategy and decision-making – it’s about carrying everything. The business, the team, the highs, the lows. But when burnout strikes? It’s rarely spoken about.

It’s easy to recognise burnout in employees, but what about those at the top? Founders, leaders and directors are expected to push through exhaustion, keep the business moving, and always have the answers – often without anyone checking in on them.

For many leaders, burnout isn’t sudden. Instead, it creeps up on you – until one day, it’s too much to bear.

“I had to step away from everything,” says says Cory Miller, chief evangelist at World Host Group. “We were running four businesses at the time. My wife took over everything. I remember saying to her, ‘I don’t care if they burn down. I just can’t.’ I physically couldn’t get in front of a computer.”

And it’s particularly hard when your baby, the thing you have worked hard for every single day, is the thing that causes the problem.

“You think you’re doing what you love, and suddenly the joy is gone,” says Cory. “You feel guilt for even feeling burned out, like you’re letting people down for being human. The only way I came back was by giving myself permission to step away. That’s what saved me.”

This is echoed by many. “It feels like you’re on a hamster wheel,” says one former head of operations. “You’re grafting and grafting, but the uplift for the work is so marginal. And sometimes, it’s easy to cover up how you’re really feeling.”

“Really, I was utterly frazzled. I’d done an MBA alongside work, plus other commitments. My psyche for work was really unhealthy. I was trying to do everything, please everyone, and do everything at once. Eventually, I had to stop.”

“I’ve always been a ‘burn the candle at both ends’ person, and usually I love it,” says one agency leader. “But last year, I was starting to collapse. I started to realise, I can’t keep this up.”

But experiencing burnout at the top of the tree isn’t just personal – it affects the entire agency.

“If you’re burned out, decisions take longer, the agency stops being proactive, and the energy completely changes. It affects your vision. If you’re that emotionally and physically exhausted, you don’t have the headspace to think ahead, and it slows everything down. And it trickles down to your team, too.”

The pressure to keep going never stops – after all, the agency business isn’t going to stop just for you. But some seem to think because you’re higher up, these things shouldn’t affect you like they do others.

“There’s this cultural, very British ‘stiff upper lip’ attitude of, if you’re high up, and paid well, you should just deal with it. But that’s not how it works,” says another agency founder.

This session isn’t about fixing burnout – but it is about talking about it. A space to chat candidly and privately with others who’ve experienced it firsthand, or are starting to notice the signs creeping in.

We’ll discuss the emotional toll of burnout on those in leadership positions, why it’s rarely spoken about, and how it can affect the entire business.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted, overwhelmed, or like you’re running on autopilot, this is your space to connect, vent, and speak to others who get it.