I used to believe that if I worked hard enough, eventually the truth would win.
Maybe that’s naïve. Maybe it’s the product of being raised to believe that integrity matters, that effort matters, and that results matter. Maybe it’s because healthcare is one of those professions where you learn very quickly that excuses don’t save lives. Performance does. Accountability does. Competence does.
Whatever the reason, I spent most of my career believing that if I showed up, did the work, treated people well, and delivered results, everything else would take care of itself.
For a long time, it did.
I wasn’t handed opportunities. I earned them. I started on the frontlines as a nurse and spent years climbing my way through healthcare leadership. Every promotion came with more responsibility, more complexity, and more people depending on me to get it right. I worked my way from bedside to boardroom, eventually leading hospitals and large teams through some of the most challenging periods healthcare has ever seen.
The thing I’m most proud of isn’t the titles. It never has been. It’s the people. The teams we built. The cultures we created. The employees who stayed because they felt valued. The leaders who grew under my mentorship and went on to accomplish incredible things.
The fact that during some of the most difficult years imaginable, our retention remained strong, our engagement remained high, and our outcomes reflected the commitment of people who genuinely cared about one another.
I had a seat at the table. My voice mattered. My opinions were respected. I wasn’t always right, but I was trusted. Then something happened that I didn’t fully understand until years later. One leader entered my orbit and slowly began dismantling everything I had spent years building. Not openly. Not dramatically. Not in a way that would have been obvious to anyone looking from the outside.
That’s the part people don’t talk about enough. Most career destruction doesn’t happen in one spectacular explosion. It happens through erosion. A little at a time. So slowly that by the time you realize what’s happening, you’ve already lost significant ground.
At first it was subtle enough that I questioned myself. A meeting I would normally be included in happened without me. A decision was made that historically would have involved my input. Information started arriving after the fact instead of before it. I noticed shifts in conversations. Changes in tone. Small things that individually seemed insignificant but collectively felt different.
I assumed I was imagining it. Then I assumed I had somehow caused it. What never crossed my mind was that I had become a threat. Because that’s not how I viewed leadership.
When I encountered talented people, I wanted them close. I wanted their ideas. I wanted their expertise. I wanted them to challenge my thinking because better ideas create better outcomes. I assumed everyone viewed leadership that way.
I was wrong. Some leaders see talent and think opportunity. Others see talent and think competition. The “leader” (insert eye roll here) who changed the trajectory of my career fell squarely into the second category. Looking back now, I can see exactly what was happening. At the time, I couldn’t. And that’s just it. We rarely can see it for what it when we’re living it!
What I experienced over the next four years wasn’t traditional workplace conflict. It wasn’t a disagreement over strategy or priorities. It was something much harder to identify because it disguised itself as accountability while functioning as something entirely different.
The rules kept changing. Expectations shifted without warning. The same behaviors that had once earned praise suddenly became liabilities. Confidence became arrogance. Direct communication became aggression. Expertise became intimidation.
As the narrative changed, I found myself working harder than ever to regain ground I didn’t realize I was losing. I thought if I could just produce enough results, eventually things would return to normal.
So I worked harder. I delivered more. I solved bigger problems. I absorbed more responsibility. I over-functioned in every conceivable way. What I didn’t understand was that I was trying to win a game that wasn’t being scored on performance. I was trying to repair a reputation that was being damaged behind closed doors by someone who viewed my competence as a threat to her own security.
And here’s where this story becomes bigger than me. Because after leaving corporate healthcare and beginning to speak publicly, write, coach, and work with women across industries, I discovered some version of this story everywhere. The details change. The industries change. The titles change. But the pattern remains remarkably consistent. The highest performers are often the first people to burn out.
Not because they’re incapable. Not because they’re weak. Not because they care less. Because they care more. They’re the people who stay after everyone else has mentally checked out. They’re the people who take ownership for problems they didn’t create. They’re the people who lose sleep trying to figure out how to make things better. They’re the people who internalize feedback, reflect on criticism, and constantly ask themselves what they could be doing differently. Ironically, those qualities make them incredibly vulnerable in toxic environments.
The highest performers are often the most gaslightable. They care too much to quit early. They reflect too deeply to dismiss criticism outright. They push themselves harder before they push back. So when something feels wrong, they don’t immediately blame the system. They blame themselves.
I know I did. I spent years wondering what I was missing. Years trying to identify the flaw. Years believing there must be some magical combination of performance, patience, diplomacy, and perseverance that would eventually solve the problem.
What I eventually realized was devastating. The problem wasn’t my performance. The problem was that I was operating inside a system that benefited from my willingness to keep trying. Every time I worked harder, the system extracted more. Every time I absorbed additional responsibility, the system demanded more. Every time I demonstrated resilience, the expectation became that I would continue carrying the burden.
The reward for being capable became additional weight. The reward for being resilient became additional suffering. The reward for being loyal became additional exploitation. That’s the conversation I wish more organizations were willing to have. We’re constantly talking about burnout as though it’s primarily a workload issue.
Sometimes it is. But often burnout isn’t caused by the work itself. It’s caused by the gap between effort and experience. It’s the exhaustion that comes from caring deeply inside environments that care selectively. It’s the exhaustion that comes from watching politics outperform competence. It’s the exhaustion that comes from carrying responsibilities while simultaneously defending your credibility. It’s the exhaustion that comes from spending years trying to prove something that was never actually in question.
Today we hear endless conversations about disengagement. About retention. About healthcare staffing shortages. About leadership distrust. About employees leaving organizations in record numbers.
What strikes me is how often these conversations focus on the departure while ignoring the years that preceded it. By the time most high performers leave, they’ve already spent years trying to stay. They’ve already had the conversations. Already extended grace. Already given second chances, or he’ll…third and fourth. Already convinced themselves things would improve. Already worked harder than they should have. Already sacrificed more than they should have.
When organizations label those departures as attrition, I often cringe. Because from where I’m sitting, attrition suggests something natural. Something inevitable. What I witnessed—and what I experienced—was something entirely different. It was extraction.
Years of loyalty extracted. Years of emotional labor extracted. Years of creativity extracted. Years of leadership extracted. Years of commitment extracted. Until there was simply nothing left to give. Then everyone acted surprised when the person finally walked away or as in my case was shoved out the door.
The greatest irony of all is that many organizations will spend years protecting the very leaders responsible for driving away their strongest people. They’ll invest more energy defending dysfunction than addressing it. They’ll convince themselves the problem is retention while ignoring the behaviors creating the departures.
Then they’ll wonder why engagement keeps dropping. Why trust keeps eroding. Why the people they desperately need are quietly planning their exits. Or perhaps worse, have simply gone silent on the job.
I’ve thought a lot about resilience over the last several years. Corporate America loves that word. But somewhere along the way, resilience became confused with endurance. We’ve started treating resilience as the ability to tolerate dysfunction indefinitely.
I don’t believe that’s resilience at all. I think true resilience is having the courage to acknowledge reality. To stop arguing with what is. To stop sacrificing yourself in hopes of changing people who benefit from things staying exactly as they are. To recognize when your loyalty has become self-abandonment. To understand that protecting your peace isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom.
If you’ve found yourself exhausted despite doing everything “right,” I hope you’ll consider the possibility that you aren’t failing.
Maybe you’re simply carrying more than any one person was ever meant to carry. Maybe the burnout you’re experiencing isn’t evidence that you care too little. Maybe it’s evidence that you’ve cared too much for too long in an environment that was more interested in extracting your gifts than honoring them.
And maybe—just maybe—the most resilient thing you can do isn’t learning how to survive the dysfunction. It’s deciding you deserve better.
