In 2010 Angela Armstrong, a high-flying leadership development consultant at Accenture, found herself literally burned out. “It was classic biting off more than I could chew,” she recalls. “I had a big role, but no balance; I crashed. I was off work for three months and it took a further three months to complete my return.”

Ms Armstrong is now a leading coach, best-selling author of The Resilience Club and specialist in helping others, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and younger leaders, avoid the mistakes she made.

I had a big role, but no balance; I crashed

And it’s a need that couldn’t be more prescient. In June the World Health Organization, in its revised International Classification of Diseases, officially labelled burnout as an occupational phenomenon, defining it as “chronic workplace stress that has not successfully been managed”.

It follows research last year by services firm Advanced, among 500 small firms, which found a worrying 20 per cent of SME bosses say they feel under pressure all the time. It revealed 65 per cent say they struggle to switch off, while 48 per cent blame lack of time as the biggest contributor.

“Younger entrepreneurs are particularly prone to burnout because they are more inexperienced and need to suddenly acquire management skills rather than rely on being ‘ideas’ people,” says Ms Armstrong.

Not only does she see leaders getting sucked into burnout, “wearing stress almost as a badge of honour”, but Jackie Furey, director of workplace consultancy Where Workplace Works, also argues they can feel there is no alternative.

“SMEs genuinely do have to try harder to win clients and get onto procurement lists,” she says. “The pressure this creates is overwork and bosses overextending themselves. While we think of younger generations as being digital natives, and more used to being on their devices, the incremental impact of never being able to switch off hits the young just as hard as the old.”

Paying for new hires

Factors seemingly in their control could be hiring in advance of growth, rather than heaping more work upon themselves, but even this can be a difficult ask. According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, more than a quarter (27 per cent) of SMEs are worried about how they’ll pay for a new hire.

“Most SMEs won’t want to turn business away, even if they’re up to their eyeballs and pulling their hair out,” says Marianne Page, author of Simple Logical Repeatable. “But hiring is scary. Without it though, stress levels rise and burnout becomes unavoidable.”

Not only will SME owners have to face their own personal problems if they burn out, but they might also have to deal with fallout from staff.

“SME bosses that burn out struggle to delegate, especially when their business is growing,” says David Morel, chief executive at Tiger Recruitment. “Even if they do, the SME mentality of ‘everybody mucking in’ leaves people with less-defined roles, putting pressure on them to have a greater sense of accountability. It all leads to lower work-life balance which can lead to burnout.”

The problem with burnout is that even though owners accept its potential to occur, it can be hard coaxing them into stopping their contributory behaviour, especially if it means relinquishing control. “The risk really does need spelling out that they can’t pour from an empty glass,” says Ms Armstrong.

SMEs proactively taking a stance against burnout include loyalty programme provider Upgrade Pack, which is trialling working a four-day week. Staff now take every Friday off entirely.

Chief executive Craig Unsworth says: “Two months in and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Early indications point to improved work-life balance, increased productivity and reduced sick leave. Even amid a period of growth, we’ve been able to prove we can scale up while scaling back.”

Changing perceptions

Meanwhile, Mark Bracknall, director of Sunderland-based recruitment company Theo James Recruitment, says he specifically aims to change the perception of recruitment being a high-pressure, long-hours culture.

“I’ve worked at previous SME recruitment firms where burnout is tolerated because there’s a ready supply of new grads to come in and replace those who quit. We don’t want that here,” he says.

“I physically lock up and don’t let people stay on after 6pm. We all leave at 3pm on Fridays and we do ‘walking Wednesdays’, where we all aim to destress, going for 15-minute strolls.” He credits this with keeping attrition levels to just 10 per cent, compared with the industry average of 40 per cent.

The key to preventing burnout, argues Jo Macsween, former managing director of Macsween Haggis and now chair at SME leadership coaching organisation Vistage, is for bosses to be regimented about seeing the broader picture.

“I was the third-generation owner in my family business, but even being established was no protection from several near burnouts, as I undertook transforming it from a butcher’s shop to a major food manufacturing company,” she says.

Even amid a period of growth, we’ve been able to prove we can scale up while scaling back

“Leaders have to learn the importance of self-care and that by not doing this they’re not setting themselves up for success. It can be a difficult habit to break, but they must. They need to understand the behaviours they are choosing.”

It’s sound advice. And, if SME entrepreneurs don’t implement change themselves, they may well find external pressures will force change upon them.

“The startup investor community is slowly realising it’s been too ready to give money to inexperienced businesspeople who then find themselves drowning under the pressure of delivering their investors’ plan without having a resilience strategy in place to cope with these pressures,” says Nadya Powell, co-founder at culture change business Utopia, who is also involved with Mindful Investor, a network that gives investors guidance about how to support SMEs they invest in.

“Mindful Investor now stipulates to its investor members that certain mandatory mental health and wellbeing requirements should be there for businesses they invest in. For instance, it stipulates having one mental health first aider per 50 employees.”

If entrepreneurs are forced to outline their burnout precautions as a precursor to investment, maybe this issue will finally start to be taken more seriously.

UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of our economy, but why do many SME entrepreneurs suffer imposter syndrome and what is it?

The concept of being your own imposter was first described in the 1978 paper The imposter phenomenon in high-achieving women, by psychologists Suzanna Imes and Pauline Rose Clance. It has since been accepted to apply to both sexes and describes the sense successful people often have that they don’t attribute their success to themselves and their efforts, they don’t deserve or don’t have the skills to be where they are. In other words, they are somehow imposters in their role. At one level, it could be seen as a very British trait; as a nation we’re not at all good at rushing to pat ourselves on the back and celebrate success. But experts are finding it’s more common than we thought and particularly so among SME bosses, where rather than marvelling in the business they’ve created, they instead have massive self-doubt.

Is 'syndrome' the best description for this?

Well, not really, as this might imply a mental health aspect to it. It’s really a phenomenon, as described in the original research, although therapists have described how high achievers feel they’re fakes. So there is definitely a psychological component.

What are the roots of imposter syndrome and how does it manifest itself in small businesses?

There’s the initial self-doubt piece, but there is often much more to it than this. Being an SME boss can often be a lonely existence. There often isn’t a network of employees or experienced people around them to help them see the bigger picture; to prove to them the success they have is of their making. A facet of imposter syndrome is people believing success is more down to luck or external forces rather than their own guile. This loneliness can be reinforced by an ignorance whereby others around us might feel the same as us, but don’t speak up. Without people there to push against this, entrepreneurs can start to feel overwhelmed. The outward sign of this is overworking to always compensate for this, to continually prove their worth or to ensure more opportunity comes their way. Another reason it’s rife among SMEs is because often many entrepreneurs don’t always intend to start a business. They have an idea, a passion, and it gains traction.

Only then has a business suddenly been born. Often these very creative people are ideas people rather than managers; they are less good, or totally inexperienced, in doing the things that are needed to run a business: taxation, payroll, staff development and so on. When people don’t think they have these basic skills, it’s easy to feel they’re an imposter.

Does having a boss with imposter syndrome impact the rest of the workforce?

Absolutely. The culture created by someone who’s potentially on their way to burnout is easily cascaded down to others in the business. It tends to create an almost impossible demand for perfection in others. So staff too can feel they need to be “always on”, creating an overworking ethos where success is thought to come from hours in rather than good ideas or smart working.

Do you think imposter syndrome can be a tangible cost to small businesses and, by extension, to the economy?

It would be impossible to measure, but common sense suggests this is undoubtedly the case. Imposter syndrome makes it harder for people to stand back objectively. People who have it can be at the mercy of their own thoughts and self-doubt can become a learnt behaviour. This can actually limit entrepreneurs’ appetite for risk-taking, the sort of nimble decision-making that previously made them successful. Instead bosses become afraid of failure, which if you look at it another way, is actually a fear of being more successful. If we think of all the SMEs held back by negative thoughts, it stands to reason that such thinking is stilting growth.

How can imposter syndrome be tackled; is it as easy as simply telling people not to be so 'glass half empty'?

By virtue of what imposter syndrome is, it isn’t the easiest thing to confront. It’s not a mental health issue per se, but if left unchecked, it can lead to stress, anxiety, burnout and things that create mental wellbeing problems. The goal is to delink success from excessive hard work. Leaders need to understand that feeling fresh and going to work because they want to, rather than feeling compelled to, will be a greater contributor to innovation. To do this they do need to stand back, look at their successes and realise dispassionately how it came to be, and that it wasn’t by chance. Tackling imposter syndrome is also about catching yourself and knowing when it’s happening and quickly looking at the “I”, in other words how I solved a problem, rather than it being solved by others or by circumstance. It’s about not instantly jumping to the negative. The good news is that just as negative thinking is a learnt behaviour, seeing the bright side can also be a learnt trait.

Do the uncertain times we’re in make imposter syndrome more likely?

We’re definitely living through a period of disruption. But what it’s vital SMEs don’t do is take their foot off the gas. They actually need to make the conscious decision to push on through during these more uncertain times, otherwise there will be the tendency for them to feel like circumstances around them, and not their own actions, are what has impacted their success, which could then feed into imposter syndrome. When SME bosses are instead looking for opportunities, it’s easier to attribute success they enjoy to their own efforts.

The mental health and performance toll unleashed by remorseless out-of-hours work emails and calls is only now beginning to be fully understood by the business community at large.

Yet for startups, micro-businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) looking for both scale and investment, the non-stop pressure to succeed, and associated possibility of burnout, are still seen as a price worth paying.

While opinions differ on whether work-related mental ill health is the responsibility of employers or legislators, in France the mounting cost of stress has already prompted government intervention.

“Entrepreneurs have a tremendous amount of glamour and mystique attached to them, particularly in France,” says David Chermont, chief executive and founder of advisory firm Inbound Capital, a member of the French Chamber of Great Britain.

“Unfortunately, this has led to the belief that unless you are taking your work emails to bed with you each night and even on holiday, you are somehow not performing to the max.”

France’s 2017 introduction of “right to disconnect” legislation to curb work communications outside business hours has already, he believes, had a significant impact on the national psyche, even if there are those who choose to ignore it.

If you decide to work while you’re on the beach with your family, even if the law says you shouldn’t and your boss discourages you, it remains your dirty little secret

“It’s all a bit black and white at the moment, with some people refusing to even open texts or emails once their contractual hours are over for the day, even if there’s an emergency to deal with,” he says.

“But it all comes down to personal choice and if you as an individual decide you want to work while you’re on the beach with your family, even if the law says you shouldn’t and your boss discourages you, it remains your dirty little secret.”

With France still the only country to opt for a legal remedy, the spotlight is increasingly falling on Germany, where firms such as Volkswagen have themselves taken responsibility for curbing excessive contact.

Disconnect to perform better

Jean-Michel Chalayer, co-founder and chief executive of on-demand premium beauty service LeSalon, says: “The right to disconnect is a major talking point among SMEs on both sides of the Channel and business leaders are more realistic than ever about the need to regularly disconnect from our devices to perform better.

“The desire to work smarter has in part been fuelled by employees themselves and the tacit understanding that we all do better if we have genuine downtime is an important facet of the entire flexible working movement.”

Mr Chalayer believes that while France is a nation “which loves rigid laws around employee protection”, draconian legislation would be less appropriate for what he terms “the less formal Anglo-Saxon business model”.

For the UK, he believes that attitude and culture change around excessive working will, as with Germany, be ushered in by enlightened business leaders at the forefront of contemporary working life, rather than one-step-removed legislators.

“It’s clear that in France the right to disconnect has fuelled a sense of entitlement which can cause significant problems for a smaller firm that needs the entire team to pull together if a crisis hits outside normal working hours,” he says.

While Mr Chermont believes that a new, more holistic approach to employee wellbeing is already long overdue, it is the war for talent which could finally push it to a tipping point.

The possibility of valued staff voting with their feet if bosses place intolerable burdens on them is a very real fear among SME employers, he says, particularly given the investment in employee wellbeing currently being demonstrated by the tech giants.

For Mr Chalayer, there are now “encouraging signs in both the UK and France that the traditional workaholic business culture is changing day by day”.

For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) looking to scale their business to the next level, the belief that a smorgasbord of quick-fix perks or gimmicks alone will keep an otherwise disenchanted team onside is seductive.

Yet despite the feel-good helter skelters, so-called “womb rooms” and indoor tree houses pioneered by the tech sector, seasoned human resources managers argue that tackling rising dissatisfaction and attrition rates requires far more thought around wellbeing as a whole.

“Of course everyone loves a freebie, but having worked with over 500 UK companies, I can confirm that a free apple a day certainly doesn’t stop people from heading off to a competitor,” says Dean Hunter, founder and chief executive of the HR consultancy Hunter Adams.

Mr Hunter believes that while “inexpensive gimmicks” such as free mindfulness or head massages will doubtless raise a smile among disenchanted staff, their impact on what he calls the “long-term cost of disengagement” will be negligible.

What matters most to employees is that they “have an understanding of what management stands for and can see that business leaders actually live out their values”, he says. If an SME appears to exist for no reason other than to turn a profit, staff will “become cynical and disengaged, no matter how much free fruit is available”, Mr Hunter warns.

So if perks and goodies don’t build loyalty and commitment, what does? Most agree on a structural level, it’s the rooting out of toxic working cultures, characterised by antediluvian command-and-control structures and incompetent or bullying managers, that should be at the top of the priority list.

To Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, long-term career development and regular, comprehensive appraisal are equally vital, particularly among millennial staff members.

Productivity and profit

The inexorable shift away from presenteeism and micro-management towards smarter, more flexible and autonomous working is already fostering healthier, more responsive business cultures inside many SMEs, he believes. Along with more progressive people management policies, greater productivity and profit are being reported by many organisations.

If being allowed to get on with the job without unnecessary interference appears to be one vital piece in the job satisfaction puzzle, fair treatment is surely another, says Mr Hunter.

“In my view, fairness is high on most employees’ agenda,” he believes and, for all business leaders, is an important value to get right.

“Many entrepreneurs are guilty of being inconsistent in their treatment of their staff due to their desire to have little or no structure or process, but this approach does not support the scaling of a business,” he says.

“When it leads to resentment and disengagement, productivity is inevitably dented and ultimately bottom-line profitability can only suffer.

“Leaders must see the direct link between engagement, growth and profitability if they are to achieve what they set out to do in their business plans.”

Leaders must see the direct link between engagement, growth and profitability if they are to achieve what they set out to do in their business plans

If being paid a fair rate is non-negotiable for any business looking to build loyalty and commitment, the satisfaction employees feel at a job well done comes down to far more than hard cash.

Job satisfaction is inextricably linked to the knowledge work has meaning beyond meeting the bills, and that employers value staff members’ contribution and care about their personal wellbeing and happiness.

Throwing cash at the problem of low motivation cannot be sustainable if an organisation fails to tackle mounting stress or bad line management, and may even trigger accusations of waste and poor judgment at the top, Mr Hunter concludes.