Every leader hits the wall — that point where responsibility outweighs reward, where the praise disappears and the criticism multiplies. That’s the breaking point.
The question is: do you burn out, or do you burn through?
Tara almost didn’t make it. Her company scaled fast, her team doubled, and every day felt like sprinting on ice. She started losing sleep. The joy of creation — gone. Leadership had turned into survival.
Then one night, staring at the blinking cursor of yet another performance review, she asked herself a brutal question: “Why am I still doing this?”
The answer wasn’t money, status, or even pride. It was the people. The ones who still believed in her even when she didn’t. The junior dev who said, “You’re the reason I stayed.” The designer who kept shipping beauty into chaos.
That’s when she understood: leadership isn’t about endurance — it’s about meaning. You lead not to stay in control, but to keep hope alive.
After that, Tara started protecting her energy like code in production. She took breaks. She delegated ruthlessly. She spent one-on-ones asking about dreams, not deliverables.
A year later, her team was thriving — not because she worked harder, but because she rediscovered why she cared in the first place.
Every leader burns. The trick is choosing what for.
Real leadership isn’t a fire that consumes. It’s one that warms everyone around it — including you.
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Very Nice
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