🗞️ The Wellness Briefing – Edition No. 08: “Overfunctioning Is Not a Flex” | August 19, 2025
Quick, high-impact wellness insights for ambitious professionals. Delivered Tuesdays.
Welcome Back to The Wellness Briefing
Burnout Culture Rewards the Wrong People
You’re the first to volunteer, the last to leave, and the one who always “gets it done.” On paper, it looks like leadership. In reality? It’s overfunctioning—an adaptive response to chaos that eventually collapses into exhaustion.
Organizations love overfunctioners until they burn out. The cost is high, but the reward? A thank-you email, maybe. Recovery starts with this truth: your ability to not do everything is the real leadership skill.
Let’s begin.
đź“° 1 Study to Know: New research published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes reveals that managers consistently rate employees who unplug from work as more recharged and productive, yet still penalize these same workers when it comes to promotions and career advancement.
This “detachment paradox,” where leaders recognize the benefits of disconnection but punish those who practice it, creates a troubling contradiction. Read more about this study on Forbes
💡 What That Means for You: Being the go-to person feels good—until it erases your boundaries, credibility, or career clarity. If you’re in an organization where unplugging from work is punished, it’s important to find safe ways to ruthlessly, and quietly, audit your workload to make sure you’re not carrying what isn’t yours. High contribution ≠high sustainability.
✅ Try This: Do a “Responsibility Audit”:
What tasks did you take on without being asked?
Which of them could be delegated, delayed, or declined?
What are you protecting by overfunctioning—your role, your identity, or someone else’s comfort?
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