How Faking Emotions at Work Leads to Burnout and Impacts Leadership
Ashish Prabhu has a wide range of experience when it comes to promoting equality in society.
People being forced to fake how they feel in the workplace is one of the main causes of occupational burnout. That’s according to new research by Emlyon Business School. Researchers have discovered that surface acting creates a form of exhaustion that drains an employee’s ability to organise themselves and engage in everyday work-related tasks. This affects an organisation’s ability to function well and cater to its own staff and customers. This creates a huge impact on each individual’s ability to manage their cognitive capacity while eroding their sense of authenticity. It also negatively impacts team trust and makes engaging in leadership more difficult.
The study, conducted by Gordon Sayre, Professor of Management at Emlyon Business School, alongside colleagues from Pennsylvania State University and National Sun Yat-Sen University, explored common behavioural patterns and analysed how the emotions individuals exhibit align with their need to meet personal expectations.
The findings illustrate that emotional masking reduces each leader’s energy levels, increases tiredness, and creates a self-reinforcing cycle that becomes harder to escape. This cycle hampers their ability to develop ways of finding solutions to particular problems.
Participants took part in two intensive studies, with 55 employees in the first and 87 in the second. They reported on their emotional energy, emotion regulation, and recovery activities several times per day across multiple working days.
According to the findings, employees who begin the day feeling emotionally drained are more likely to engage in surface acting. This behaviour further intensifies fatigue by the end of the day. Over time, it traps individuals in a spiral of maladaptive surface acting that can be difficult to break free from. It also reduces leaders' capacity to remain present, authentic, and effective in their roles, affecting the quality of their interactions with colleagues and teams.
Professor Sayre says that "recovery after work effectively breaks the loss spiral of surface acting. By building in moments of emotional recovery, leaders are better equipped to shift from surface acting to more authentic emotional engagement, reducing strain, strengthening trust, and preventing exhaustion from taking hold."
Professor Gordon Sayre explains that "employees may surface act not of their own volition but because they are 'stuck' in a loss spiral." This means employees continue to put on a positive front, not because it is effective or healthy, but because depleted energy and emotional resources leave them without the capacity to engage in more genuine, adaptive forms of emotional regulation. The main findings of the research highlight the importance of allowing time for genuine recovery to wind down from strenuous tasks.
Clearer boundaries should be set between the emotional demands of work and reducing customer mistreatment. There are many measures people can take to avoid burnout. These include:
Self-care
It is important to switch off after work and maintain a work-life balance. Make time to practice self-care and do activities you enjoy outside of work. When feeling burnt out, you may not be able to do as much as usual. Try to pace yourself and reward yourself for what you can do. You could try mindfulness to relax and feel more present.
Take breaks
To maintain a work-life balance and reduce the chances of burnout, it is essential to take breaks from work. Ensure you use your annual leave and leave work behind when you are away. Try not to check work emails when you are off and be clear if you are uncontactable.
Stress awareness
Check in with how you are feeling each day. You could try recording your stress levels in a diary to identify any triggers. Monitoring how you feel and taking prompt action to address your difficulties and minimise stress can reduce the likelihood of becoming burnt out.
While burnout can be caused by stress, it isn’t the same as stress. Stress tends to be short-term, and while it may impact your sleep, energy, and emotions, you are still able to engage in the activity causing you stress. With burnout, you feel so detached and demotivated that it impacts your ability to function, and you feel hopeless that your situation can change.
Burnout can occur when you have repeated and prolonged high demands that exceed resources. It’s likely that burnout, whatever the cause, will impact the individual’s well-being at work and in their personal life, such as their relationships. Due to the consequences of burnout, it’s important to recognise it before it saps energy and motivation and becomes overwhelming.
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Ashish Prabhu, Company Director and Freelance Journalist
I'm a multi award winning freelance journalist who covers news, current affairs and sports stories specialising in disability, equality and diversity issues.
