What to Do When Your Senior Role Feels Totally Unsustainable.

The article addresses the growing challenge of burnout among senior executives, highlighting that many find their roles unsustainable and consider early departure, which poses risks to organizational stability. It introduces the Personal Retention Plan (PRP), a self-directed framework designed to help leaders realign their roles, relationships, and expectations to better fit their strengths and energy, enabling them to remain effective without sacrificing well-being. The PRP involves three steps: reassessing the true demands of the role, conducting an internal inventory of personal drivers and limits, and documenting actionable changes to redesign the role. Through examples, the article illustrates how small, intentional adjustments can restore leaders' engagement and sustainability, suggesting that PRPs could become as vital as performance plans in retaining top talent.