Original research · Master’s dissertation, 2026
Charged twice: why burnout in female executives goes unseen.
These women weren’t burning out because they couldn’t handle the job. They were doing the job and, on top of it, constantly proving they deserved it. Standard burnout surveys only notice the first part.
Three literatures that rarely talk to each other
Role congruity theory documents the prejudice women face when leadership demands behaviour that society codes as male. The impostor phenomenon describes high achievers who cannot internalise their success. Burnout research describes depletion at work. Each acknowledges the others; almost none connect them, and very little burnout research looks at executives at all.
This study asked female executives what caused their burnout, how role incongruity and impostor feelings appeared in their accounts, and why their burnout so consistently escaped notice. Their answers suggest these may not be three separate problems, but one process.
The process participants described
Choose how someone enters, then select any stage. Arrows show the order participants narrated, not proven causation.
Stage 1
Gendered structural conditions
Heightened scrutiny, contested legitimacy and the expectation of communal behaviour: questioned credentials, pay disparities, diversity-hire framing and “office mom” tasks that male peers were rarely asked to absorb.
Stage 2
Internalisation
External signals are turned inward as self-doubt. Participants described believing for a long time that the problem was them: not smart enough, not strong enough, not qualified, despite objective success.
Stage 3
Compensatory legitimacy work
Continuous effort to prove belonging: credential-seeking, managing a carefully balanced persona, taking on extra work, proving themselves “more than required.” None of it appears in a workload measure.
Stage 4
Resource depletion and burnout
Consistent with Conservation of Resources theory, burnout tracks effort that does not pay back rather than workload volume. Depletion in turn renews self-doubt, which is why one participant called the whole thing a loop.
Stage 5
Under detection
Because output stays high, reviews, surveys and even physiological markers see nothing. Self-blame makes the person best placed to report burnout the least likely to name a cause, so help is sought privately, or not at all.
Structure-first: about half of participants narrated external discounting first, which they then internalised.
The detection gap
Exhaustion was near-universal. But on the inventory’s efficacy items, which ask about output, most women still rated themselves effective. Protecting performance is exactly what kept them productive, and exactly what kept them invisible.
Read the way an HR team typically would, the survey flagged 30% as at risk and missed two of the richest burnout accounts in the study entirely.
Five themes from the interviews
Achievement at all costs
Participants arrived at the executive level already carrying high standards and achievement-contingent self-worth, formed long before the job.
Gendered work conditions
Legitimacy had to be continually re-earned: diversity-hire framing, pay discoveries, communal “office mom” labour, and penalties for being either too agentic or too communal.
Feeling fraudulent
70% of participants described impostor-consistent feelings; 40% raised them unprompted, inside their burnout stories.
Ignored signs and symptoms
Burnout began with ignored physical signals and cognitive checkout. No single sequence fit everyone; one participant called it “a loop.”
Masking burnout
Output stayed high, distress was masked with humour, and formal workplace support went unused.
What organisations can do
Start with structure, not the individual.
- Audit invisible work. Check how communal and non-promotable tasks are distributed, and rebalance them.
- Make support genuinely confidential. Fear of career consequences was the reason for concealment, so support needs to sit outside boards and investors.
- Change the conditions behind impostor feelings. Representation, role models, and feedback practices, rather than coaching the feelings away.
- Then add individual support. Mentorship budgets, truly confidential executive coaching, and training on role-congruity dynamics for leadership teams.
The research is ongoing
Have you lived this? Your story could shape what comes next.
I’m continuing this work with more interviews, panel discussions, and new writing. If you’re a woman who holds or has held a senior leadership role, from senior manager to C-suite or founder, and you’ve experienced burnout, I’d love to hear from you.
Everything you share stays confidential and is anonymised in anything I publish. You choose how involved you want to be, and you can step back at any time.
Share your experience in an interview
A one-to-one conversation over video, roughly an hour.
Join a panel discussion
Talk with other women leaders about what you’ve seen and what would actually help.
Contribute to new content
Help shape articles, talks, and resources on the topic, named or anonymous.
Bring the research to your team
I speak on these findings for leadership teams, HR and people leaders, and conferences. You can also request the full paper.