How Leaders Can Prevent Burnout by Understanding Work Styles

As team leaders, we need to understand what prevents burnout, understand work styles, and build thriving teams by creating environments where everyone can succeed, from the ultra-resilient to the highly sensitive.

This episode breaks down the “Dandelion-Orchid Theory” and what it means for your career, leadership style, and how you handle stress. You’ll learn:

• Why “one-size-fits-all” leadership leads to burnout
• The subtle signs your team is struggling—even if they say they’re fine
• How to support both high-achievers and deep-feelers

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Team Burnout Prevention
• 1:44 Understanding the Dandelion Orchard Theory
• 4:15 Identifying Dandelions and Their Burnout Signs
• 5:13 Recognizing Orchids and Their Warning Signals
• 7:20 Leadership Strategies for Both Types
• 10:20 Rethinking Performance and Real-Life Examples

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, this is Jill Griffin and I'm the host of the Career Refresh. Welcome back. Today. I'm talking about what every leader thinks that they are good at, but a lot of them get wrong, and it's how to prevent burnout on your team. Now you've probably noticed that some people bounce back from stress like it's just any other day. It's not that big of a deal. But others need a little bit more time. They seem a little bit low key. They need maybe a little bit more nurturing in order to be able to reset and function again.

Speaker 1: 0:34

And I want to point out this is not a weakness, this is wiring, and there's a concept called the dandelion orchard theory, and it's a framework that explains why some of your members thrive in chaos, while others sort of feel like they're shrinking back without the right support. And if you're leading teams of people, this matters. It matters that you, as a leader, notice this to create an environment in which all of your teammates are thriving. In this episode, I want to talk about how this theory shows up at work and what you, as a leader, should be observing, and how you can adjust your leadership style to support your team before burnout becomes the big headline of the day. Listen, your job isn't just about results. As a leader, it's to build an environment where everyone can thrive, and that includes all personalities, even your most sensitive, your most insightful and maybe your most misunderstood team members. All right, let's dig in. Here's what leaders need to know.

Speaker 1: 1:45

In every team, there seem to be people who tend to bounce back really easy. I always talk about there's culture and there's climate, and if your culture is strong, you should be able to weather whatever the climate is, and climate is wins and losses and new business and restructuring and new team members. If your culture is strong, you can withstand the climate, and part of making that culture strong is really understanding how your teammates work and what helps them thrive. So there's people who are going to be totally fine with the last minute meeting, the pivot, they're good to go, it's no big deal. And there are other team members that are going to feel really stressed out by those high stake moments where they need to perform on the spot and they tend to disengage if you give them feedback and they may struggle more visibly with change, and I want to really talk about that. This is not about their performance. We don't want an environment in which we only have the exact same type of people right? We want diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of what people are bringing to the table. Right. We want to make sure that we're not just putting all emphasis on go go, go performance and not also looking at the other essential skills. This is how people are wired, and people are all wired differently.

Speaker 1: 3:07

So the orchard dandelion theory comes from it's W Thomas Boyce. I've talked about him on the show before and he explains that people differ based on the environment and the level of stress. So a dandelion is resilient, adaptable. They can thrive in a range of environments, whereas the orchard is highly sensitive to context, meaning they can struggle in misalignment or harsh environments, but they excel in ones that are much more supportive and emotionally intelligent, and this shows up everywhere, from hiring to hand-raising, to collaboration and burnout. So great leadership means observing those subtle, not just the metrics and the deadlines, but the energy, the behavior and the interpersonal dynamics of your team. So, as a leader, this is what I want you to look for.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Your dandelion team members are going to thrive in the fast pace, the ambiguity. They're much better in startup environments, or they're visibly much better in startup environments. They rarely complain. They're fine even when they're not, and they can handle conflict pragmatically. They move on quickly. They're often perceived as dependable, sort of low maintenance and leadership ready. But the burnout warning signs of someone who is a dandelion is that there may be increased sarcasm or detachment. You should be watching out for that because if that's happening, they're starting to get a little bit burnt out. They may withdraw after long-term overperformance. Right, they were on a marathon and now they're like, oh my God, I can't keep this up. There may be sudden unexpected drops in their motivation or the quality of their work and being in that crisis mode which is their default operating system like if any of you are watching the Pit or have watched it I mean, I loved it. I was like, oh, this is my favorite place ever. Clearly I'm the dandelion here, but if you're in that crisis mode by default for too long, you're going to fall into burnout.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Our orchard team members are the ones that are sensitive to tone, unspoken dynamics, the emotional undercurrents. They're going to do best when they have clear expectations, regular feedback and some level of safety where they feel like they can ask you a question and they're not going to get an abrupt or curt or clipped answer. They are thoughtful, intuitive and detail-oriented and at times they're misinterpreted as high maintenance or not ready for leadership roles or soft. Right, we're going to use that as a negative here that they might be soft and their warning signs might be obsessive, overworking so that they start to earn your approval. They may be taking vague or poorly delivered feedback. Personally, there might be signs of physical stress, fatigue, illness or over apologizing and they may start asking fewer questions or they may speak up less than usual. And I just want to remind us as leaders, just because someone looks fine doesn't mean there are right.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Orchids mask and dandelions minimize, and both types of people need proactive check-ins. And here's how it impacts career growth and the team dynamics Without realizing it, many managers start to promote and reward the dandelion traits speed, visibility, loudness, comfort and chaos right. But they start to overlook the orchid strengths like emotional insight, thoughtfulness, pattern recognition, empathy really good nurturing their teams. So what does it mean? It means that orchids could be under leveraged in leadership roles and dandelions may be over relied upon without adequate support. So if you want more innovative, inclusive leadership with diversity makes us stronger, right, we're having diversity of thought and ideas and experiences to bring into our business. We want to look beyond who may be those initial and early hand raisers. So when you're thinking about how you, as a leader, can support and also prevent burnout in both types is I'm going to tell you leadership is not about treating everyone the same.

Speaker 1: 7:36

You have to tailor. If you want to be a good leader, you have to tailor your approach based on who you are talking to or the teams that you're talking to. So you might want to learn the stress response patterns right Asking a teammate, what does support look like for you when you're under stress? And normalize conversations around workload, processing, feedback, team dynamics. Make sure it's not something where people feel like they're complaining if they're asking for questions, and don't assume that silence is satisfaction.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Next, you want to diversify your communication style and your feedback style. Whereas orchids may prefer written feedback, so they have time to prepare and present their ideas, dandelions may appreciate fast feedback, but also they may benefit from that reflection time. So when you're offering both synchronous meetings and asynchronous opportunities, right Slack and documents. Finding different channels for ideas to be shared will make sure that both types of workers will have an opportunity to be heard. And then make sure that performance reviews and check-ins are predictable, that they're specific, they're actionable and, as always, that they are kind. This is going to benefit everyone, not just the orchids out there. So I want you to also think about how you're designing inclusive growth opportunities.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Don't conflate visibility with readiness. Some of your best strategic thinkers aren't loud in meetings. They are crafting their thoughts, they're processing and they're going to send you information after they may stretch projects and add in some buffer right. If you can do this, this is going to really help some of those people who are orchids to prepare and reflect and make sure your leadership again is psychologically safe, making sure that people can ask questions. They don't feel like their head's going to get bitten off or they're going to get a terse, a clipped answer. You want to make sure that you're not just being performative with your inclusivity, that you really are working on that, and this is a great opportunity, as you, as a leader, you're going to need support too. So this is where it's great for you to have a leadership strategy and for you to hire an executive coach. I might know one.

Speaker 1: 9:55

I also want you to rethink what high performance means. Is it speed or is it sustained contribution? Is it charisma or is it influence, credibility and trust? Is it the loudest idea or the one that actually creates impact and changing? These are not binary and I realize I'm asking them in ways that are binary. I'm just trying to get you to think about some of the ways that we measure what high performance is.

Speaker 1: 10:23

So look in some real life examples. If a dandelion joins a startup, adapts quickly and becomes the go-to for crisis management great. But in six months they quietly quit because it wasn't that they couldn't handle it. It's because no one ever asked them if they were okay. And an orchid might start in a rigid corporate structure and gets labeled too sensitive and then stops speaking up. Later they transfer to a more supported team, but within months they are one of the top performers and one of the most respected mentors right? So those are two real world examples of clients that again disguising them between the dandelion and the orchid, but those are real world examples. Both have potential, but one was in an environment to unlock it, whereas the other one ended up leaving because it wasn't something that they felt they weren't cared for.

Speaker 1: 11:17

So I want you to think about your leadership and how you're designing from an environmental standpoint. If you want high-performing, burnout-resistant teams, you need to understand how people are wired, build systems that adapt to their strengths, not the other way around, and make sure your culture is flexible enough to accommodate both speed and sensitivity, that intuition, because thriving teams aren't grown in identical rows like a garden right. They're more like great gardens that require light and space and care and give you a little bit of air to breathe and some time to marinate before you respond. All right, friends, as always, you know, I want to hear from you. Email me, hello at jillgriffincoachingcom, I want to know what you think and, until next week, I want you to watch for the signs of burnout on your team. Be in possibility. What's possible? How can I think about this culture differently? How can I make this a really inclusive environment and always, always, always, be kind? All right, I'll see you soon.