Some of a manager’s exhaustion comes not from the work itself, but from the constant absorption of other people’s anxieties and emotions. This isn’t about making decisions or planning strategy. It’s the effort of managing the team’s emotional climate and smoothing over problems that no one asked you to fix.
It’s the work of turning vague complaints into clear actions, carefully giving feedback, and building up someone else’s confidence when you might be struggling yourself.
If you go to any online forum where managers speak candidly, without corporate euphemisms, you’ll find a recurring theme. The endless anecdotes aren't about “too much work”, but “too much everything else”. It's the weight of the unspoken issues and the constant need to reassure and interpret.
And mostly it is a slow drain, not a sudden burden. You might not feel it building up, but at the end of a seemingly normal day, you feel completely depleted. It shows up as a knot in your stomach before certain meetings or a feeling of retreat when you should be connecting.
The mental energy spent on emotional subtext leaves you with little left for actual thinking.
This kind of work is rarely acknowledged or rewarded. There’s no way to measure the emotional stability you provide or the conflicts you prevent. Maybe that's why it continues. It's easier to ignore a drain you can't measure.
Managers often take on this unseen burden out of a sense of responsibility. But this quiet effort has a cost. It leaves you with less mental energy for strategic thinking, innovation, and giving honest feedback.
This unmeasured effort ultimately damages the very qualities it was meant to preserve.