Read the 5-minute summary for this episode and many others at owl.ceo. The OWL (Owner Wisdom Library) turns insights from more than 1,200 Exit Coach Radio interviews into short, practical lessons for business owners on growth, leadership, operations, and exit planning.
What does burnout look like before it becomes a crisis, and what can leaders do to prevent it in themselves and their teams?
In this episode of Exit Coach Radio, Bill Black talks with Christina Haxton, Founder and CEO of Sustainable Leadership, Inc., about burnout, stress, engagement, and the leadership habits that help create healthier and more sustainable workplaces. As a licensed marriage and family therapist who worked closely with burned-out executives, Christina brings both clinical insight and practical business relevance to this important conversation.
Christina explains how many leaders wait too long to address stress, often taking action only after a wake-up call from a doctor, a loved one, or a serious decline in performance and well-being. Her mission is to help people recognize the warning signs earlier and take proactive steps before burnout reaches a damaging level. In this discussion, she shares five common warning signs of burnout and offers practical ways leaders can improve stress management, connection, and workplace culture.
The conversation also highlights the role of leadership in shaping a healthier organization. Christina discusses why disconnection inside a company can increase stress and reduce engagement, and why more cohesive, connected cultures are not only healthier for people but also stronger for business performance and long-term value.
This episode is especially valuable for business owners, CEOs, managers, and leadership teams who want to improve employee well-being, reduce burnout risk, strengthen culture, and lead with greater awareness and sustainability.
Topics include:
burnout warning signs
stress management for leaders
employee engagement
healthy workplace culture
sustainable leadership
Listen for more conversations on leadership, growth, succession, and exit planning through Exit Coach Radio.
Join Bill Black for his weekly humor column at BlackPapers: blackpapers.substack.com
Exit Coach Bill Black interviews Top Advisors for Tips, Ideas & Precautions for Business Owners who want to grow and protect their company value and plan for a successful Business Sale or Transfer. Listen daily so you can be well-planned!
Curators1
People who have contributed edits to this page.
Oct 2026
Zolid AI
+0/−0
Published
May 21, 2024 This podcast is supported by TalkSpace. When my husband came home from his military deployment, readjusting was hard for all of us. Thankfully, I found TalkSpace. Talkspace provides professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatric providers online. Military members, veterans, and their dependents ages 13 and older can get fast access to providers, all from the privacy of their computers or smartphones. I just answered a few questions online and TalkSpace matched me with a therapist. We meet when it's convenient for me, and I can message her anytime. It was so easy to set up, and they accept Tricare. Therapy was going so well, my husband and I started seeing a couples there. through TalkSpace too. TalkSpace works with most major insurers, including Tricare. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com/military. Go to Talkspace.com/military to get started today. That's Talkspace.com/military. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for. Their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And don't miss our one minute exit coach tip of the day on exitcoachradio.com. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Thanks very much for joining us. Welcome, and I want to get right into it with our next guest. She is Christina Haxton, and she joins us from Sustainable Sustainable Leadership Inc. She's a CEO and founder. It's a Fort Collins, Colorado company. And you know, are you facing that burnout? You feel like you're, you're you're just spinning your wheels sometimes, you've been doing what you do for so long? Well, I want you to listen carefully to this interview because Christina Haxton develops. Uh, sustainable leaders helps them avoid burnout, helps managers and business owners transform stress into increased engagement. So Christina, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Oh, it's my pleasure. I really, uh, this is a topic that is, is at the heart of what the baby boomers are going through. So many have been in their, at their desks running businesses, dealing with people problems for so long that they're starting to feel the, the strain. So tell us about how you started sustainable leadership and what you do there. Well, um, I started sustainable leadership kind of as an outcropping of my clinical practice. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, my area of expertise is business partnerships. So, um, primarily working with, um, business owners at, at all, you know, in, in, at all, of all different size companies, um, helped them build a values-based business is, is where I started sustainable leadership. However, I found that um the clients that were coming through the clinical door, if you will, were coming because they've had a, a, a wake-up call, a big wake up call. Um, they were CEOs of, of some very um easily identifiable, um, uh. Um, companies that you would, you would know if you heard the name, but they had a wake up call from the doctor that said if you don't slow down, if you don't turn things around, you're going to die, or they've had a wake up call from the spouse, typically the wife that says if you don't stop working so much or if you don't become a nicer person, if you will, I'm going to leave you. And so from my clinical practice, I noticed that I was getting a lot of executives that were really burned out. And it was not necessarily too late, but it was too late, you know, they'd lost their business they lost their family. So I decided that my life was too short to help one person at a time, and I wanted to bring what I knew as a therapist as a marriage counselor, as a therapist in about relationships into the corporate arena. So I started sustainable leaderships with the idea that I, you know, if people could use these strategies and tools at work in their relationships at work, they would be much happier not only at work but at home, but their teams would also experience a positive effect. That's great. I think that's so important because You know, so, so many people try to demonstrate their, their love for their family by working and working and working, and that's not necessarily uh communicating, uh, what, what their spouse or, or even their employees or business partners want to hear, and people just burn themselves out. So. So, uh, you transformed your practice basically from marriage and family counseling into working with business owners. What did you find were some of the symptoms of, of, uh, what's going on out there? Well, interesting, you know, I, I developed a survey. It's a leadership stress assessment survey about 6 months ago, and just looking over the results and then giving people really honest feedback around, you know, how they answered the survey and where they were at and what they needed to do to turn the ocean liner around quickly, if you will, with. Respect to transform, avoiding burnout or recovering from burnout. There were 5 early warning signs that people were missing completely, and I, and I know this to be true because, you know, the very same characteristics that that advance somebody from the mailroom to the top of the ladder or Help somebody go from, you know, startup to 2nd or 3rd stage company. Those very same characteristics of focus, hard work, huge work ethics, somewhat perfectionism, inability to delegate, tendency to isolate and just get extraordinarily driven, those very same characteristics also cause their downfall. So oftentimes people would, they, because they were so disconnected from where they started to where they were now, they were disconnected from themselves, their purpose, their team, their relationships. I find that they really missed these early warning signs. And so the first early warning sign was that they weren't getting the positive feedback from anyone else. They were, they were receiving the dollars and the bonuses, and they could see the bottom line increasing, but they really just didn't get that positive feedback. The second was they felt detached from their company's purpose. They might have had a purpose and the purpose changed, or maybe they didn't even have a purpose that they could clearly identify and help their team and their employees identify. The third was, you know, they were concerned about, they were noticing they were being concerned about. Assumed about losing everything and then instead of moving towards their goals and why they the company existed, they were so they were scrambling to try to keep from losing it. No surprise, my business boomed in 2008 and 2009 for these very same reasons. Um, the fourth is called the mushroom complex. Basically their, their peers and and or their board weren't giving them the information they needed, and the 5th warning sign that most people missed where the team was withholding information from them. Um, primarily when I and so when I work with my clients and I interview the team members, I, you know, this is not uncommon. I come to find out when I say, you know, why didn't you tell, why didn't you tell Brian, um, about giving this information as well when I tell Brian something he doesn't want to hear, he gets mad. Or he argues with me or he, you know, he says it's not, not happening or denies it, so there's no purpose. So and so, so that's that those 5 early warning signs of burnout where it was kind of an interesting recent development and so I really want people to be able to to change things before they get to that burnout stage. Yeah, so those are the early warning signs that you've become either an unpleasant person or just in that stage where you really need to take heed and realize that something's amiss. So you talk about the topic of transforming stress into engagement. Why is that so important for business owners? Well, first of all, you know, and I, I have a confession to make. Um, for 20 years, I've been helping people avoid stress, telling them stress was bad, um, that they should reduce it or eliminate it. In fact, I have a video on my website right now that says it reduce, eliminate, and leverage stress. Well, the truth is we cannot do that anymore. We just can't. We cannot eliminate stress. First of all, stress is good. We need stress to be motivated or we'd be a lump on the floor. Um. Too much stress or too much unusable stress is what eventually leads to overwhelm or chronic state of overwhelm, uh, frequent state of overwhelm, and then to burn out. So what I mean by transforming stress is instead of believing stress is bad and something to be avoided, I say, you know, let me teach you some strategies to take the bull by the horns, have a different relationship with stress, destress as something positive, destress is, is something that actually is very normal. And for human beings to experience stress and then reach out to experience caring, empathy, compassion, connection, which are the very same things that I I work with a lot of very successful CEOs that are so distant from that, and they have lost that for whatever reason they've gotten. There's a big gap between experiencing stress and feeling that connection. They tend to isolate. So, so that said, the very cure, if you will, for stress is connection. And when we connect with, um, you know, with our purpose, with our team, and with ourselves, um, we actually increase engagement. Engagement is, is a big buzzword now, but I will say engagement is people's emotional connection to their work, their company, their team, and their boss. And so it's, it's very simple, it's probably not easy because we have to break some rules. About showing people we care, but the truth is there's a, I call it professional intimacy, and there are 4 or 5 absolutely very simple, very professional communication tools one can use to increase engagement in the face of stress, whether it's for the individual themselves or for for the team when when the boss notices the team isn't performing. So it's taken this that's that we can't avoid stress and rechanneling it in in certain ways with some of your exercises to to become a productive tool for us to become engaged back into our business. And um what, what's your background with transforming stress into engagement? Well, I think that as a, as a licensed marriage and family therapist, I learned all the tools, and I've been practicing these tools and helping people get along both at home and at work and using the tools of communication and understanding somewhat the neuroscience of the science behind motivation and connection and positive emotions and being able to help them take these strategies to work and I've been doing it for over 20 years. I've been Doing consulting, training, and coaching for a little over 15 now. And it's interesting how when I was first mentored, I was told when I'm going into corporate, I shouldn't tell people I'm a therapist. I thought, OK, well, it was like, you know, it was like going into a nice, you know, going into battle with the, with a knife and not a gun. I couldn't tell them why I knew what I knew. And at some point, I guess. About 10 years ago I said heck with that. I'm not going to listen to that that advice, and it's very interesting now to see, you know, you see, you know, you pick up any great leadership book and it talks about relationships and it talks about connection and caring and, and I love to show people how they can get reconnected with the purpose of their company and their business. As well as with the team that's making that happen, whether they're going to keep their business or they're going to sell their business, you know, having a company that people are, they stay, they're attracted, they want to come to work, you don't have those issues of turnover, but that's, I mean, how, how much more valuable can a company be to sell if it had that kind of reputation. And that's that's not just about one thing, yeah. Right, right. It's a huge topic. It's a huge topic and, uh, of course, business relationships are often, uh, very similar to, to marriage relationships. They're about people caring and not taking each other for granted and And being part of a a caring warm environment and a lot of times people turn their back on each other in business just like in marriages. So I think there's a lot of parallels there. What, what do you think the main challenges a business owner has that transforming stress into engagement can solve? The main challenge I think that is, is it really avoiding the burnout, avoiding, avoiding um it getting to the you know that the place that the business owner says, you know, stops caring or stops being involved, um, boy, I, I, I, I'm sure you know, Bill, you know our our. Our bottom line can go to hell in a handbasket really quickly. And it's because if, if the, if the boss doesn't care, or if the boss is hypocritical, or if the boss is a, you know what, Um, people leave in droves, you know, they don't show up engaged. You know, if you had 10 people rowing a boat and you had 3 people rowing the 10 people in a boat in a race, 3 people rowing their hearts out, 5 of them are taking in the scenery, and 2 of them are actively sinking the boat. And let's just imagine these are your employees and then you have 100 or 1000 or 10,000 of them and you have 30% of them engaged. And and doing great work and extraordinarily productive, love the hell out of what they do. You had 50% of them, you know, one or was in the water and they were taken in the scenery, half your workforce, and 20% of your workforce trying to sink your business. That's bad. So when the boss cares and show right, when the boss cares and shows up and isn't burn out or disengaged, then the team and the employees follow suit. So it's very much a mirror, I think, um, in a, in a company. So, so working on fixing the leadership and redirecting some of that stress and helping them understand that stress is normal. It's all around us, it's always going to be around us, but there are ways to productively redirect it and become more engaged with your company, your employees, your, your everybody around your business. It sounds like a tremendous. asset for someone to to go through that and you and you, as you said earlier, there's 5 stages early warning signs to know when, when it's happening when people are withholding information, people are starting to ignore you because you've become a stressed out leader and you need to get, you need to realize that is a sign and you need to start working with someone immediately. So you have a whole uh engaged leader jumpstart program to help people go through this, right? Tell us a little bit about that. I do actually. I've got 10 spots open and I just did a webinar, so I don't expect to have too many open, but it's basically it's a jumpstart program for leaders at all levels of a company to be able to identify one or two leverage points whereby they, they take action and the specific strategies and actions that I recommend they're going to be able to transform that stress whether it's for themselves. Individually or for the between themselves and their team, they basically, I will help them go through the step by step process of how to get, you know, figure out how to get more done in less time with fewer resources. Who doesn't want that, get immediately, immediate relief from stress and worry that keeps you from being productive, increasing your leadership effectiveness, motivating and building trust with your team, because you're right, it is about a relationship, but it's about building trust and respect as well. Um, learning practical tools you can use immediately to build effective leadership skills and um discover seven habits of highly sustainable leaders. So it's a 4 session coaching program. And um and I think that if people are interested in, in uh checking this out, you can go to my website at sustainable dash Les S U S T A I N A D L E dash leaders.com, and it's right there on the home page called um the Engaged Leader Jumpstart program and typically it's about a 1,700+ dollar value and with the bonuses and the uh the savings, it's only 997 and that's again only for the 1st 10 people who sign up, so it is limited. Uh, I'm, I'm looking at the overview of of what all is included. It is a tremendous value. If you're feeling that, you know, I, I just don't have the fire in my belly anymore. I just don't, I'm just. Feeling like I'm getting towards burnout, you're noticing that people are ignoring you, your business is at stake. You're, you're witnessing early warning signs that you need to do something about it, and Christine Haxton has the solutions that sustainable leadership. So please listeners, uh, take, take advantage of her offer and take a look at sustainable. Dash leaders.com. Get in touch, solve the problem before it it takes you out of the picture and it becomes a huge problem that could cost you your business, your relationships, and everything else. So Christina, I want to thank you for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure and I hope we can talk again sometime in the near future. You're also a visage speaker, are you not? So you're available for Visage groups. So again, if you're listening, if you're a visage member tell your chair that you want Christina of sustainable leadership to come talk to you about this topic because it's something your group needs. So again, Cristina, thanks so much for joining us today and I look forward to the next time we talk. Thank you, Bill. I sure appreciate it. We're gonna take a short break and we'll be right back after this, so please stay tuned. You're listening to Exit Coachradio.com, the information station for age 50 plus business owners, where we're interviewing top advisors for their best tips, ideas, and precautions so you can be well planned. We upload new one minute tips every day. Exitcoachradio.com. Come listen for a minute. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. This podcast is supported by TalkSpace. When my husband came home from his military deployment, readjusting was hard for all of us. Thankfully, I found TalkSpace. TalkSpace provides professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatric providers online. Military members, veterans, and their dependents ages 13 and older can get fast access to providers, all from the privacy of their computers or smartphones. I just answered a few questions online and TalkSpace matched me with a therapist. We meet when it's convenient for me, and I can message her anytime. It was so easy to set up, and they accept Tricare. Therapy was going so well, my husband and I started seeing a couples there. through TalkSpace too. TalkSpace works with most major insurers, including Tricare. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com/military. Go to Talkspace.com/military to get started today. That's Talkspace.com/military.
