The Leaders Who Look Fine But Are Quietly Cracking

Some leaders closest to breaking point are the least likely to look as though anything is wrong.

They are still turning up, making decisions, protecting their teams and delivering results. On paper, and often in real life, everything looks good. They appear capable, composed and in control.

But performance can remain intact long after capacity has begun to erode.

That is what I mean by leadership quietly cracking: the slow deterioration that can happen while a leader is still functioning at a high professional level. It is not burnout. Burnout is the outcome I want leaders to avoid. Quietly cracking is the earlier period when something is wearing away, but there may still be enough capacity to notice it and change direction.

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2025 found that 71% of leaders reported significantly higher stress since stepping into their current role, with nearly one in six experiencing burnout. TalentLMS found 54% of employees experiencing some level of “quiet cracking”, where workplace satisfaction erodes before performance necessarily drops.

When Burnout Sounded Like a Badge of Honour

In the 2000s, and perhaps into the early 2010s, I remember “executive burnout” being used almost as a workplace joke. It was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying somebody was working exceptionally hard and pushing themselves to the wall.

I think it was mostly misunderstood. Burnout became shorthand for effort and commitment: almost a badge of honour.

I could never hear it quite that casually. In 1998, during my first management role in retail, I found my assistant manager literally rocking in a corner. She had pushed herself beyond what she could sustain while trying to do the best job possible. I have never forgotten that image…. it haunts me to this day.

The first thing I felt was ‘have I caused this?’ and then ‘what could have I done differently to help prevent this from happening?’

The World Health Organization classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.

In 2024, more than 20 years later, I was in a senior director role with responsibility for a business area of around $400 million. I retold that earlier story to a direct report because I was concerned about them and wanted them to understand that no employer wants to see somebody reach that point.

I later discovered, through another channel, that the story had caused offence. They never raised it with me directly, and I did not force the conversation.

That contrast has stayed with me. Around 2010, people could joke about “executive burnout” without understanding what genuine burnout could look like. By 2024, even a well-intentioned attempt to discuss serious deterioration could land very differently.

The answer is not to stop talking about it. We need to become better at having those conversations.

The Leader Still Looks Exceptional

Quietly cracking is difficult to identify because competence becomes camouflage.

The leader may still be operating at a high level, hitting targets, leading meetings and reassuring everyone that things are fine. These are professionals who have spent years becoming the person others rely on, so admitting they are struggling can feel incompatible with their identity.

Research published in BMJ Open has described a culture among doctors of needing to appear invulnerable, with stigma around work-related stress and distress sometimes delaying help-seeking. Medicine is not unique in this, but it illustrates the tension clearly.

I understand some of that personally. I often describe leadership as being the lighthouse for other people, yet even I have hesitated to admit when I am finding something difficult. Sometimes the brave thing is simply saying: this is becoming difficult, and I need somewhere to think about it honestly.

Sometimes the Leader Does Not Crack First

During a major turnaround from late 2017 through 2020, I was given responsibility for a business that needed realignment, refocusing and pace. Over that period, we roughly doubled the team and doubled turnover from around $6 million to around $12 million.

The business result was there. The first signs of erosion, however, did not appear obviously in me. They appeared in the people and relationships around me.

At home, I was physically present but frequently not mentally present. My family life was being slowly damaged by the attention the mission consumed. At work, people were trying to keep up with my pace. When somebody had more sickness absence than I expected, I could explain it through individual circumstances rather than ask whether the environment and speed I was creating were contributing.

The business performance told me the approach was working. It did not show me the full cost. Sometimes the leader does not crack first; the team, family and relationships around them begin to fracture under the pressure they are carrying and transmitting.

The Financial Times has reported on executives reconsidering the relationship between pressure, health and sustainable performance. Harvard Business Review has also examined how executives can become overloaded precisely because they are known for getting things done.

A leader’s pace is never only personal. Eventually, it becomes cultural.

When the Mission Removes the Question

Looking back, I did not keep justifying the pace to myself. I was too focused on the mission to ask whether it required justification.

Whether the assignment is to grow, save, restructure or transform a business, the objective can become so dominant that almost everything is judged against it. The work matters, but it is still not more important than health and family. The problem was not commitment. It was distance.

This is where The Loneliness of Senior Leadership becomes more than an emotional issue. The higher you rise, the fewer people there are who can challenge you with complete honesty. Being surrounded by people is not the same as having somewhere to think freely.

As I explored in The Quiet Risk of Unchallenged Leadership, authority can gradually insulate leaders from the feedback they most need. Direct reports are unlikely to tell you that the results are improving but your pace is exhausting them and your family is paying for it.

Unless leaders deliberately create an environment in which they can be challenged, they have very little chance of seeing the whole picture while operating at speed.

What Quietly Cracking Sounds Like

Leaders do not usually arrive in coaching saying, “I am quietly cracking.”

They talk about exhaustion, plateauing, loneliness or lost purpose. They question what they are doing and why. They describe marriage difficulties, family disputes or children becoming more distant. They may stop wanting to do the things that once restored them: walking, cycling, swimming, reading or cooking.

They are often still succeeding professionally, which is exactly why the erosion can be dismissed for so long.

I explored a related pattern in The Hidden Cost of Being Too Capable. When somebody repeatedly proves they can cope, the system keeps giving them more. Eventually, capability becomes the reason nobody asks whether the load remains reasonable.

Sometimes the turning point is not a missed target or boardroom failure. It is a personal consequence.

I once coached a very senior leader whose child made it clear that, although the love between them remained, their respect for the person work had allowed the parent to become had been damaged. The leader had worked relentlessly partly to provide an exceptionally comfortable life for the family, but providing for them had gradually replaced being present with them.

That individual later chose to retire many years earlier than expected and has since spent substantially more time with family. It showed how the first person to make a leader confront what is happening may be somebody at home.

Coaching Before the Crash

This is where I believe executive coaching can be at its most powerful: before the crash, while the leader still has the capacity to reflect, make decisions and change course.

My first responsibility is not to arrive with solutions. It is to create a confidential space in which that person no longer has to look fine.

They can talk openly about what they are feeling, what brought them to this point and what they want next. We can begin to hone in on the plateau, imposter syndrome, loss of confidence, exhaustion or disconnection beneath the visible performance.

Through the Elevation Model™, that space develops into deeper awareness, clearer pathways, commitment, accountability and ultimately embodiment. The purpose is to help someone see what they may no longer be able to see from inside the pace.

There is also an important professional boundary: coaching is not counselling, therapy, psychology, psychiatry or medical care.

Early in my coaching career, when a conversation touched territory beyond my expertise, I sometimes clammed up because I did not want to pretend to be something I was not. I invested in additional training to become better at recognising those moments, listening properly and knowing how to signpost when somebody may benefit from additional support.

I still do not diagnose and I do not counsel. A responsible coach should know the limits of coaching.

Do You Need a Coach?

I do not expect everybody reading this article to work with me. I could not coach everyone, and I would not suit everyone.

What I would like is for the right person to pause and ask: do I need an executive coach now? Might I need one when I enter my next leadership role? Am I already allowing the pressure to cost more than I realise? Or have I reached a point where I need a different form of support first?

A leading PhD-qualified doctor recently told me that when they move into leadership, they intend to seek me out as their executive coach. What interested me was that they had already identified when independent challenge and confidential thinking space could become valuable.

That is the position I want more leaders to reach.

Do not wait for your performance to collapse before deciding that support is justified.

The right time to ask whether you need a coach may be while everything still looks fine.

References

1. DDI — Global Leadership Forecast 2025.
2. TalentLMS — Quiet Cracking: The Hidden Crisis Silently Reshaping Work.
3. World Health Organization — Burn-out an Occupational Phenomenon: International Classification of Diseases.
4. BMJ Open — Sources of Work-Related Psychological Distress Experienced by UK-Wide Foundation and Junior Doctors: A Qualitative Study.
5. Financial Times — “You Can’t Be at the Peak Forever”: How CEOs Are Learning to Pace Themselves.
6. Harvard Business Review — When You’re the Executive Everyone Relies On—and You’re Burning Out.

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About Laurence Loxam

I’m Laurence Loxam – I’ve pushed limits in business, on mountains, and at the finish line.

Now I help elite professionals do the same, pushing past the point most people stop.

I coach CEOs, doctors, lawyers, and founders who’ve hit success, but still feel there’s more.

Together, we unlock clarity, sharpen confidence, and lead with conviction.

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