Summary

Burnout is a long-term condition caused by sustained emotional, physical, and mental stress – not just a need for a break.
Quick fixes don’t work – superficial solutions don’t address the underlying causes of burnout.
Belbin helps identify and address burnout by revealing behavioural patterns and coping strategies, offering a safe, structured way to open up conversations.
Tailored support matters – understanding individual needs and strengths is key to preventing and managing burnout effectively.

What is burnout?

Under pressure, we fall back on familiar behaviours – those that come most naturally.

When pressure is prolonged, these behaviours become coping strategies, often hiding deeper issues like burnout.

Burnout is often mistaken for simply needing a break. That’s why many organisations offer surface-level fixes – like yoga, mindfulness sessions, or “Zoom fatigue” workshops – without addressing the root causes.

But burnout is more than stress. It’s a chronic state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. Symptoms include detachment, cynicism, overwhelm, procrastination, and self-doubt.

The real cost of burnout

In 2019, the World Health Organization recognised burnout as a workplace phenomenon that harms both mental and physical health.

A yoga class may provide short-term relief, but the core problems remain back at the desk.

Beyond the human cost, burnout damages business performance.

According to the American Psychological Association, companies that neglect employee wellbeing face higher turnover, lower productivity, and rising healthcare costs.

Tackling burnout isn’t straightforward. It touches on sensitive issues like mental health, and managers may struggle to spot the signs or know how to help.

This article explores the causes and signs of burnout, and how to use Belbin to recognise and address it.

What causes burnout?

The answers might surprise you.

A Gallup study found the top five causes:

Unfair treatment at work – A lack of trust breaks the psychological bond that makes work meaningful.
Unmanageable workload – Even top performers can buckle under excessive demands.
Lack of role clarity – Only 60% of employees know what’s expected of them, creating tension and confusion.
Lack of support from managers – Supportive managers reduce burnout risk by 70%.
Unreasonable time pressure – Having enough time to do the job well lowers burnout risk by 70%.

These behaviours reveal patterns. With the right observations and data, managers can ask better questions—and support their teams more effectively.

So how do we spot burnout in teams?

Belbin can help. We focus on workplace behaviour, offering insights into how people cope under pressure.

Let's take a look at how people with different Team Role strengths might respond to burnout – and some helpful questions to ask.

(Of course, we each have a combination of Team Role strengths. This is just for illustrative purposes.)

Shaper

One of the key elements of burnout is feeling less productive than we would like. For an achievement-oriented high Shaper, an outward sign of burnout is likely to be increased frustration. They might push harder than is needed for action, which could alienate the team or lead to rash decision-making.

Ask them what frustrates them. Do they feel that things aren’t moving as quickly as they’d like? Are there quick wins they can be involved with that might satisfy the need to be ‘doing’?

Completer Finisher

Those with Completer Finisher strengths are likely to have higher levels of anxiety than those with other Team Role strengths. They find it difficult to delegate work to others (whose standards might not match their own) so they are among the most likely to be experiencing burnout from a heavy workload. If this is combined with time pressure, they’ll be left feeling as though they have to compromise on quality in order to meet deadlines, which compounds the anxiety.

Ask them about their workload. Boundaries need to be really clear. They can be supported by others taking things as far as they can. For example, checking for typos before leaving the Completer Finisher to do the final sweep, rather than leaving documents unchecked or even half-finished. Let them know deadlines as soon as possible to avoid last-minute rushing.

Teamworker

If the Completer Finisher is overwhelmed by work, those with Teamworker amongst their top roles are overwhelmed by people – suffering emotional overload. They’re likely to be acutely aware of all the pressures in the team, and trying to help alleviate the inevitable conflicts arising, often at the expense of their own wellbeing.

Ask them what they need, and if they deflect this to the team’s needs, point out this tendency. Sometimes they might need someone else to take a turn as the listening ear, just to relieve some pressure.

Implementer

Those with high Implementer behaviours can struggle to respond to change effectively, so are likely to cling to policy and order when things are falling down around them. They keep their heads down and cleave to existing processes, even when these have become cumbersome or obsolete.

Ask them what is working well and how they think processes might be improved to better support their work. Simply pulling the rug out from under them and changing everything around is unlikely to help.

Plant

Someone with Plant tendencies is likely to retreat into themselves and become lost in their own ideas. They may lose their grounding in what the team needs from them (if they had that to begin with!) and the result is that ideas may not be appropriate or relevant.

It’s crucial to keep the lines of communication open. Ask them what they’re working on, and how it relates to the problems the team needs to solve. Would they benefit from checking in with the team’s Monitor Evaluator more regularly (with a little mediation from a Co-ordinator) to assess the viability of their proposals? This might avoid frustration or the feeling that no one is listening to their ideas.

Monitor Evaluator

Those who score highly for Monitor Evaluator are likely to experience difficulties with time pressure, since they need sufficient time to consider decisions carefully and don’t like being pushed into action. If sufficient care is not being taken, they may become apathetic and remove themselves from the process, thinking that the project in question is a pointless exercise if things aren’t going to be done properly.

It’s important to acknowledge the difficulties in reconciling quickly-changing circumstances with taking the right course of action. Ask them what is most engaging in their work, and how these elements can be brought into new projects.

Co-ordinator

As the team's conductor, the Co-ordinator is simply trying to hold everything – and everyone – together. But the woodwind section are doing their own thing, and half the orchestra have skipped the chorus. Rather than getting flustered, they're likely to shrug and walk away, figuratively speaking. This is where employee engagement suffers.

Ask them about the talents they see in the team and whether people’s skills are being utilised to best effect. Explain that others may have their heads down, not because they don’t appreciate the importance of the bigger picture, but because they’re trying to cope in their own way.

Resource Investigator

Those who have Resource Investigator high in their profile are likely to be hearing the sound of smashing crockery. There are too many plates spinning and something has to give. People with this strength are likely to be more attuned to what is going on in the outside world, but rather than interaction with others re-energising them, it’s bringing them down. The resulting feeling of being overwhelmed is not surprising.

Ask them which plate they can let go of, or hand over to someone else, especially if it means follow-up or routine work that is likely to be tiresome for them. Find out if there’s a particular project or idea that still sparks their energy and let them run with it, where possible.

Specialist

Those with Specialist tendencies are likely to deep dive into their work or research, complete with literal or metaphorical headphones to block out the world. The problem with this is that no one can check the relevance of their work to the team, which means that work can go to waste. And a Specialist whose expertise is not recognised is an unhappy Specialist.

Communicate frequently and make role boundaries and expectations clear. Ask them what they’re working on. Express an interest and explain how it might add value to the team.

Asking the right questions

The good news is that many of the causes of burnout are solvable – and solvable within the workplace.

As written in Harvard Business Review, “burnout is preventable. It requires good organisational hygiene, better data” and “asking more timely and relevant questions”.

That's where Belbin comes in.

As a work-focused, evidence-based behavioural tool, Belbin helps managers ask the right questions. It creates a safe, objective space to explore challenges—focusing on strengths and contributions while also opening the door to discuss what might not be working.

For those feeling overwhelmed or unsure how to explain the complexity of burnout, Belbin offers practical prompts and discussion starters to help navigate these difficult, layered conversations.

John Yellow Page 6 Showcase Belbin Team Role Report

Explore strengths.

Begin by talking about the value that person brings to the team and the importance of what they do.

The Team Role Feedback page of the Belbin Individual report explores someone’s contribution in depth and might help someone to consider what they enjoy most in their role.

Next, explore the strengths colleagues see in them. Is there anything that surprises them?

Talk about frustrations.

Are there any areas where the person is being asked to play out of role (causing ‘Team Role strain’)? Or perhaps their strengths are not valued by a team with predominantly different Team Role contributions?

The Placement Suggestions and Suggested Work Styles pages of the Belbin Individual reports come into their own here. Does the individual get to spend much time working in those particular styles? How does their ideal working environment square with their current one? Are there any ‘quick win’ changes that could be made?

John Yellow Page 8 Showcase Belbin Team Role Report

Belbin Team Report Team Role Circle Strong Examples Showcase

Analyse the team as a whole.

If work is to be redistributed (as in the case of overwhelming workloads, for example), you need to know where else it can go. In other words, you need to know the strengths present in the rest of the team.

If there are particular working relationships causing difficulties (those with very similar, or opposite Team Role behaviours often clash, for example), the Team report can help to flag these up.

It’s worth checking the ‘Comparison between Individual and Team’ page in particular, to see where the team might be reliant on one person to fulfil a particular Team Role.

Compare the individual to the job.

It’s difficult to clarify role boundaries and expectations to someone if you don’t have a clear idea of what their job entails, or if your idea of the role clashes with someone else’s.

The Belbin Job reports allow you to characterise a particular job in Team Role terms, so you can compare these to the jobholder and look at the synergy between the two. This can give you pointers as to where the job is pulling an individual out of role, or where their hidden strengths are not being utilised to best effect.

The traffic light system gives an at-a-glance view of where an individual might be out of step with job demands, offering insights to aid discussions and more in-depth gap analysis.

Belbin Job Comparison Report Jean Paul Pink And Sales Manager Showcase 1

Don’t make any assumptions.

It’s natural to manage others the way we’d want to be managed – but in a diverse team, signs of burnout will vary and may be harder to detect.

That’s why listening is key. Some people need small, practical adjustments; others may need bigger changes to how work is structured or supported.

Either way, burnout can affect anyone – even top performers – and the cost of ignoring it is far greater than the effort to address it, both for individuals and the organisation.

How to tackle burnout with Belbin

Understand the behaviours at play, and how to ask the right questions