As someone interested in both morality and human motivation, I’ve found myself thinking recently about the connections between burnout and moral injury. Burnout, as you may have experienced viscerally, is a state of profound exhaustion in which you feel depleted and unmotivated after being too stressed for too long.
Moral injury, meanwhile, often happens when you know the ethical thing to do in a given situation, but can’t do it because you lack resources or support. During the COVID pandemic, doctors and nurses were often unable to treat patients adequately because they ran out of supplies and hospital rooms. And at countless workplaces, people who witness colleagues fudging numbers or cooking the books keep silent, fearing they'll be ostracized if they speak up.
While burnout and moral injury are distinct phenomena, research suggests that not only are they intertwined, but moral injury can actually make burnout worse. In one study, the more morally distressing situations people faced, the more emotional exhaustion they felt, which is a major component of burnout.
Studies like this pass the smell test. For most of us, it’s easy to think of times when witnessing wrongdoing or injustice made getting through the day feel like a struggle. If you feel morally compromised at work, even setting a healthy work pace that balances rest and engagement isn’t going to replenish your energy.
In a recent editorial, American Medical Association president Bobby Mukkamala argues that burnout and moral injury can’t be solved just on the individual level, by those who are already suffering. Instead, these issues call for systems-level solutions.
I couldn’t agree more, and the good news is that certain systemic changes can strike at the root of both problems. Organizational research suggests that when managers encourage an atmosphere of trust and openness within their teams, people can feel safe speaking up about both moral qualms and mental overload, and team members can solidify practices of helping each other through these challenges so that no one feels isolated or cut off from support.
While writing my book The Art of Pacing, I was lucky enough to observe this kind of culture incubating among Brown University surgeons-in-training. When people feel psychologically safe from the get-go—an atmosphere Brown program leaders have worked to foster—it's easier for them to pace themselves through satisfying, decades-long careers, rather than hitting a mental or moral wall and leaving their chosen work behind.
Copyright Elizabeth Svoboda. A version of this post appears in my newsletter.