Why Joy Belongs in Our Workplace Conversations
- Kim Meninger
- 12 minutes ago
- 21 min read
In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about burnout, workaholism and the pressure high achievers put on themselves to constantly prove their value. My guest this week is Amy Leneker, leadership consultant, self-described “recovering workaholic” and author of Cheers to Monday.
Amy shares her personal journey through two major experiences with burnout, including the physical and emotional warning signs she missed along the way. We explore the connection between impostor syndrome, people pleasing and overachievement, and why many professionals struggle to separate external expectations from the pressure they place on themselves. Amy also reflects on the painful realization that changing jobs alone doesn’t solve burnout when the underlying patterns follow you wherever you go.
In our conversation, we discuss the importance of self-awareness, support systems and redefining identity beyond work. Amy shares how therapy, coaching and intentional recovery practices helped her reconnect with herself and rethink how she approaches success and leadership. We also talk about the role organizations play in creating healthier cultures and why shared responsibility matters when addressing stress and burnout at work.
Finally, we explore Amy’s research on stress and joy in the workplace, including the three biggest drivers of joy at work: meaning, mattering and momentum. Amy explains why joy is far more than a “nice to have,” how emotionally intelligent leaders still need to look inward and why taking care of ourselves creates a ripple effect for the people around us.
About My Guest
Amy Leneker is an optimistic, joy-seeking, recovering workaholic. She's also a leadership consultant who has helped over 100,000 leaders and teams – including those at Fortune 100 companies – lead with less stress and more joy. Her soul goal? To help one billion people do the same. With over 25 years of leadership experience – including a decade in the C-suite – Amy understands the soul-crushing toll of burnout because she's lived it. Twice. After surviving her own brush with burnout, Amy became determined to help others succeed without sacrificing their joy, their health, or their weekends. A first-generation college student, Amy earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees while working full-time and later raising a family. She has studied leadership at Yale, neuroscience at the NeuroLeadership Institute, and stress resilience at Harvard Medical School.
~
Connect with Amy:
Website: https://www.amyleneker.com/
~
Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:
Join the free Impostor Syndrome Challenge.
Learn more about the Leading Humans discussion group
Join the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals.
Schedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges.
Websites: https://kimmeninger.com
Transcript
Kim Meninger
Okay, welcome Amy. I'm so excited to have you here today, and I would love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
Amy Leneker
Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. I always start by saying I am a recovering workaholic, so I am coming off of two rounds of burnout and have made it to the other side, and so I like to describe myself as a work in progress every day of trying to find a good work-life balance. I run a leadership consulting firm. I just wrote a book, which is really fun, so I spend most of my days helping leaders and teams work well together.
Kim Meninger
Well, thank you, and I would love if you're okay with it, if I dig a little bit more deeply into some of the things that you mentioned around workaholism, and…
Amy Leneker
Yeah.
Kim Meninger
And burnout, and all of the things that go along with that, because I think that that is something that many people listening can relate to, and I wonder, could you tell us a little bit more about the path, and I think sometimes what I hear from people is, in like, they're able to report some of the things that they're feeling or things that are sort of becoming challenging, but they're not connecting it to burnout, they don't actually realize that that's what's going on. So, I'd love to hear more about your burnout journey, but also, how did you know that's what it was?
Amy Leneker
Yes, what you just described was exactly how I would describe it for me too. So, I had been working so hard for so long that I didn't even realize I was burning out. People around me were picking up on it, my friends, my family, people around me were noticing things that I had just taken on as normal, this is just how things are. And unfortunately, what happened for me is I got really sick to where my body started shutting down. I needed to be off work for a period of time, and my hope is that no one else has to go through that. Let's figure out how we can be aware enough so that our bodies don't have to scream at us, they don't have to shut down before we're able to listen and make some changes.
Kim Meninger
That is unfortunately an all too common story that I'm hearing now, too, is if you're not willing to listen, your body's going to do it for you, right? Yes, so are there earlier warning signs that you would encourage people to pay attention to, or I know it's, it looks different in every person, but are there sort of general themes that you would want people to think about?
Amy Leneker
Yes, there were so many, and when I look back now, when I look at a burnout checklist, I just go through it, check, check, check, like they were all there, so things like overwhelming exhaustion, things like stress that never seems to come down. So, ideally, as we move through the day, you'll have a spike of stress, and then it comes back down. Mine didn't. Mine was just a high level of stress throughout the day, I was having headaches, I was having muscle pain, I was also just emotionally exhausted. So, I think at least for me, part of what I missed was that it's not just the physical signs, it's not just the emotional science, it's not just the mental health signs, it's, it's all of that together. It's looking at yourself as this holistic package and saying, am I well, am I, am I okay in this, in this space I'm in right now.
Kim Meninger
And when you think about what got you to that point, because I think this is where it becomes pretty tricky, whenever I'm talking with somebody who's sort of in the, in the manifestation of burnout symptom stage, is what's coming from within and what's coming from the environment, right? Because I think a lot of, a lot of women, in particular, put a lot of pressure on ourselves, we're high achievers, we're perfectionists, we're all the things right want to make people happy, and so we just keep taking on more and more and more work, and sometimes we lose sight of what's self-imposed versus what is an actual expectation from the environment. Lots of people work in very toxic, very high-pressure environments, and so there's often an interplay there, but I wonder if we can sort of break down like what's, what's from within and what's from without.
Amy Leneker
It was one of the most painful parts of this journey for me was realizing exactly what you just said, in terms of how much of this was my own expectation. Yes, I was in a high-pressure job. Yes, the expectations of that job were high. I took that to another degree. The expectations were based on stories that I had had for as long as I could remember, stories about what it meant to be successful, stories about what did it mean to be a value. In this organization, and it was one of the most painful parts, and it's why I was so drawn to your podcast. Before we hit record, I was telling you, I just.. I love that you, the title of your podcast, just gets to it, because for me, a lot of my burnout story was directly connected to imposter syndrome, this idea of always having to prove and validate and show that I do belong here, I do deserve a seat at this table. When I was the only one questioning that, there was no data that anybody else around me was questioning that. So, yes, there were absolutely forces from the outside, but the most painful ones were when I realized the sort that the stress was also coming from inside.
Kim Meninger
And thank you for sharing that. I think it is, you know, you and I were talking about the importance of saying these things out loud, sharing these stories, kind of pulling back the curtain on it too, so that we know that we're all in this together. I think it's so important to acknowledge this, because we are the only common denominator across our careers, and so sometimes the temptation is to just quit the job and go someplace else, but if the, you know, the call is coming from inside the house, right, like you're taking that with you wherever you go.
Amy Leneker
Oh, yes. Oh my gosh, that is exactly what happened to me because I thought, well, if I leave this high-pressure job, if I leave this situation, that's clearly I'm not doing well, my body's shutting down. If I leave that job, then everything's going to be fine. So I went out and I created my own company, I was going to have my own schedule, I was going to take control of my life, and within a few years the exact same pattern had repeated itself, so that's when it was this aha moment of where is this coming from? Why is this happening? Because if I didn't do that, I'm convinced it would have just repeated my entire life. It would have just been one pattern of burnout, recover, burnout, recover over and over and over again.
Kim Meninger
So what did recovery look like for you? And let's start at the beginning, right? So, obviously, you know, unfortunately, you experienced this physical illness, so I'm sure getting that under control was a big part of it, but, like, what, what is the transition from, like, burnout to recovery, look like?
Amy Leneker
It was a long journey for me, and my big aha moment when I was in my doctor's office for the seventh week in a row, because after I'd had my first panic attack, he put me on medical leave, wanted to see me every week, so I was on my seventh doctor's appointment in a row, and I was filling out the same paperwork I filled out every time, but this time, Kim, there was a second page, and the second page had had only 10 words on it, but it literally changed my life, and the 10 words were, What are your hobbies? What do you do for fun? I could not answer it. I was sitting in that doctor's office. I knew what my husband did for fun. I knew what my kids did for fun. I had no idea. I could not remember, and I'm not trying to sound dramatic. This was just my experience that day. I could not remember in recent memory when I had done something for the sheer sake of doing something fun for me, so it was this aha that I had completely lost myself in this quest to be a good mom and a good wife and a good employee and a good leader. I had completely abandoned who I was, and the good news, though, is that those 10 words are also what helped me find myself, so the healing journey became this really it was long and arduous, but it was also meaningful, because it helped me figure out, well, who am I and who do I want to be in this season of my life. I had spent so much of my life thinking about what I wanted to do, what did I want to do in my career, but I had not spent a lot of time thinking about who do I want to be, who do I, who do I want to be in this season of my life. So that's what the healing journey looked like for me.
Kim Meninger
How did you go about answering that question? Because it is such a big question, and I think it can be hard to get your arms around.
Amy Leneker
I tried everything, so this - if you knew me, this would not surprise you at all. So one day, my doctor said, so here are some things that people have done to help with panic attacks, anxiety, and he listed like 12 of them. Well, I did all 12. I'm like, I, how do I know which of these 12 is going to work, so by the time I checked in with him again, I'm like, all right, I've scheduled acupuncture, I've scheduled equine therapy, I'm going to yoga, like I had done these things, and some of them worked great, others not so much, but for me it was really trial and error, it was surrounding myself with the medical support that I needed. Then also the emotional and social support that I needed to really figure out these questions that I had been avoiding for a long time.
Kim Meninger
Well, it's funny too, because there's the high achiever in you getting all…
Amy Leneker
Yes, right, exactly. It's like, well, no wonder, like, yes, of course, I'm scheduled for equine therapy on Wednesday at three, like, yes, of course.
Kim Meninger
You know what else that your story is reminding me of too is just how many resources there are out there, and how important it is to not try to do this alone.
Amy Leneker
Exactly, exactly. And I think it's what I tell women all the time, that you may have the most well-intentioned family, you may have the most well-intentioned friends that love you to your core, but that doesn't mean they're mental health professionals, that doesn't mean they've gone to school and are certified to provide support when you need it, and so that was really freeing for me was to be able to actually surround myself with people who knew what was happening and could help me navigate through what at some moments felt unnavigatable, if that's even a word.
Kim Meninger
And so, as you were coming out on the other side of it, what felt different for you? Did you didn't, because you're still working right, like, did you fundamentally change the way you think about your work, or how you approached it? Like, what? What's different?
Amy Leneker
I had to fundamentally change everything about it. So, the biggest piece for me was changing my identity, that this isn't who I am, this is what I do. So, what I do for a living is not, it's not the core of who I am, it's a piece of who I am, but it's not everything about who I am, and so now, and it's not that I get it right every time I run a business, like there are times where I absolutely over commit or over schedule, but I'm able to catch it a lot faster now, I can say, okay, Leneker, you're doing that thing again. It's time to, it's time to pull it back. And I've started doing what feels like simple things, but they've been huge game changers for me. So, if I need to travel for work, I block the day after. Just those small things of knowing myself well enough of what I need to recharge, of what I need to reset has been an absolute transformation for me.
Kim Meninger
I should.. I just recently took a red-eye home from LA to Boston. [Yes.] I got flew in 5:30. I don't, I don't sleep on planes, and I just worked a full day…
Amy Leneker
Of course you did. Why wouldn't you? Of course.
Kim Meninger
Oh man, I really shouldn't block the day after.
Amy Leneker
Yes, in our family we call it the Leneker Day. So, ever since the kids were little, whenever we would travel, we would build in a buffer day before they had to go back to school, or before my husband, I had to go back to work. And it's funny because our daughter went on a trip last year, and she didn't get that day in between, and she was like, does nobody else know about the Leneker day? I think you just answered your own question, right?
Kim Meninger
So I want to talk about your book too.
Amy Leneker
Yes, thank you.
Kim Meninger
How does that fit into everything that we're talking about?
Amy Leneker
It's all of it. So, the book was my journey, but it was also my hope that that no one else has to go through what I went through. There isn't a reason to get to the point where your body starts shutting down, and there are things we can do in organizations to prevent it, and if people are starting to get there, there are things we can do to help them recover. So, my hope is that my story isn't the story of so many other people, that it starts to become something unusual and different, because we figured out a new way of working.
Kim Meninger
And do you, because you brought up organizations too, and I think obviously they have a big role to play. What do you recommend, and I'm trying to think about how to ask this question, because I think there's actually multiple parts to it. So feel free to jump in wherever you'd like, but there's the there's the part that the organization plays proactively to establish a better environment, but then there's also, like, we were talking about, what do I, as an individual, say to my manager, like, how do I kind of advocate for myself in the context of what we're talking about?
Amy Leneker
Exactly. So it's really a Venn diagram, you've got here's what I'm responsible for, here's what the organization is responsible for, and the real work is what happens in the middle and what I was finding is that there are so many books written for leaders and so many books written for CEOs that nobody else is reading and so it doesn't work, we have to have a shared language across the organization, so what I did in Cheers to Monday is every time there's an action. To take it breaks it down, whether you are a frontline contributor, whether you're a team member, or whether you're a leader. The idea is, let's all read the same book, let's all have the same playbook, because what worries me, Kim, and I see this all the time when I'm brought into organizations, is you've got employees who blame leadership, you've got leadership blaming employees, and now it's harder to talk about burnout, because now we've got shame and blame and judgment. We've created the exact environment that makes it impossible for people to tell their truth, so we've got to stop the blaming, and it's about let's come together and figure out this solution together.
Kim Meninger
That's so important. I often think about the fact that many of us are trying to solve this problem in our own little world, right, in a vacuum, whereas I mean it's pretty, pretty clear that this is a universal struggle. So let's use collectively, because everybody's affected by it.
Amy Leneker
Exactly, and the part that I think is so fun is that joy is part of the solution, and how often do we talk about joy at work? In my experience, not much. I just completed a national research study called The State of Stress and Joy at Work, and what I found, 79% of working Americans said I need joy in order to do my best work. That's a lot. Almost 80% of people, and 75% of working Americans said that when I feel joy, it helps me deal with my work stress. So we're spending all of this time and money and energy looking at stress and burnout, and we're missing one of the most important levers, which is joy, and it's right there in front of us. We just aren't having those conversations.
Kim Meninger
What's what is the conversation around joy? Because I think that there's a way in which there, there's kind of an obviousness to the human need for joy, but also a way in which we sometimes feel like it's a luxury or that it's an unrealistic expectation, and it feels self-indulgent sometimes, right? [Yes.] So what should we be thinking about?
Amy Leneker
And we absolutely have to question that narrative, because it isn't the data shows it's not, it's not something that's fluffy or just a nice to have, it's actually a performance driver. So, what you can do, what I hope everyone does on their teams, is you can start with what I found are the leading causes of joy, and then you bring that to your team and say, let's talk about it. Here are we experiencing these? Are we having these? So, the top three drivers of joy. The first one is when you've got meaning in your work, there's some meaning, there's some purpose in what you do. The second driver was mattering, when you matter to the people around you at work, and not just because of what you do, so it's not that I care about Kim because she's a really great podcast host, it's I care about Kim because of who she is, I care about her as a human, so that was the second driver. I thought I would see those first two in the data, I did not think I would see the third one. So the third driver of joy was momentum, this idea that I can look back and say, wow, things are different because of what I've done. I can look forward and see that there's progress that I'm making. So, when you've got meaning, mattering and momentum, those are the three drivers, the perfect recipe for joy at work.
Kim Meninger
I love that. I think that is such a great combination, and it is also very human, is right. It's like there's, you can't separate the humanity from these three themes. It's not about, like, [yes,] things I crossed off my to-do list, right?
Amy Leneker
Exactly. And you can't force it. You can't force joy. We've all been to those weird work events where it's kind of forced fun, and everyone feels awkward and strange, and you can't force joy. That's the most wonderful thing about it, but you can create the conditions for it, and then it's there. And once it's there, it's this lever that helps you in so many ways at work and outside of work.
Kim Meninger
Are organizations open to this, you know, because they're obviously feeling stretched in their own right, and when we say organizations, we mean people, but the people who make the decisions about how to lead culture and sort of organizational change open to a conversation around joy, when a lot of it feels like they're all they're thinking about is the bottom line and all of that stuff.
Amy Leneker
Yeah, I feel that many are and some still aren't, and the problem with that is even if. Say the bottom line is your driver. Let's say that is your number one priority. You cannot underestimate the power of joy to help you with your bottom line. So, here's a great example. You'll love this, and I'm not sure. Are we connected on LinkedIn? Because if so, you might have already seen this story.
Kim Meninger
No, I don't know if we are, but I'm definitely going to make sure we are.
Amy Leneker
Okay, we need to connect on LinkedIn, so I just shared the story on LinkedIn. I was meeting with the CEO. Their team had suggested the CEO meet with me about exploring if I could do some work in their organization. So they're telling me a little bit about them, I'm telling them a little bit about me, and at some point they say, you know, Amy, I'm just not that into joy, and I started laughing, and I said, "Have you seen my book? Do you know what I do for a living? And we were on Zoom, so I literally pointed to this life-size cover of my book in the background, and I was able to say, "I respect that, and I get it. You may not be that into joy, but here's what I can tell you from brand new data: 79% of your organization likely is, and that number jumps to 89% for executives. So, this CEO that I was on the call with, who wasn't that into joy, the most recent data that I have shows that 89% of their team says I need joy in order to do my best work, they didn't end up hiring me for the gig, but we have to understand this is a big deal. Folks are looking for it, and folks need it. They say I need it in order to do my job.
Kim Meninger
It's such an important point. There is a way in which I think we separate out the quantitative from the qualitative, and there is clearly a qualitative driver of quantitative success, right? And so it's funny to think of saying, like, I'm not into joy, but yeah, it's all very short-sided, right, because it's like, if you want to get the best out of your people, if what you care about is your bottom line, you're not going to get there if you're not prioritizing the human experience, and I think that it's, it frustrates me that we're still having this conversation in 2026 but I feel like it's more important than ever, with the rise of AI and a lot of the decisions that will be made over the coming years. You know, just really treating people like expendable resources, kind of help.
Amy Leneker
I love what you said about qualitative and quantitative, because I think it is something that it is shocking, we still have to talk about this in 2026 but language matters, and the way that we call the human skills soft skills. These are the soft skills of work, when in reality those are the skills that determine whether or not work works. So we are overcoming this old narrative around what those skills mean and how they show up, and I think what you mentioned around AI, I think it's going to get only more and more important.
Kim Meninger
Yes, I really, we really do need like an updated PR campaign for quote-unquote soft skills, because really, right, it's like when you think about even some of what you have here around mattering in particular, but the ways which we relate to each other in the workplace is such a function of people's emotional intelligence, communications, all of the things that we call soft today, those are actually the hard meaning difficult.
Amy Leneker
Yes.
Kim Meninger
Right?
Amy Leneker
Yes, and I thought it was so interesting. At least for me, on my journey, I was able to discover just how emotionally intelligent I was at work for others, and yet I lacked a lot of self-awareness. I was able to pick up on what was happening in meetings, I was very in tune to that, but in terms of understanding why I was doing what I was doing, I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I didn't understand to what degree people pleasing was a contributor to my burnout. I didn't understand to what degree people pleasing was actually preventing me from feeling joy. So, I always want to say to people that, yes, you may be absolutely emotionally literate, you might be the most emotionally intelligent member of your team, that also doesn't mean we don't need to look inside, that we don't need to pause and say what else can I learn about myself here.
Kim Meninger
That is such an important point, and I wonder if you have thoughts too on how do we in an age where there's so much noise and very little time build the self-awareness muscle, like, how do you think about weaving that into our regular routine, as opposed to it being some like event that we schedule, where we go through exercises, and you know, like, what, what do you do?
Amy Leneker
I have found that the very most successful leaders have coaches, therapists, and usually both. That is my secret sauce. I think that every leader needs a coach, and if you can't afford a coach, then have a mentor or a peer or someone who's advising you. And I think that most of us.. I can't.. I'm not a mental health professional, I can't speak for everyone, but most leaders I work with really benefit from having a therapist where they can talk through the emotional side and why am I doing what I'm doing, because what we don't want to do is work that out at the workplace, that's not our workplace's job for us to work out our emotional needs, we've got to figure out how to do that on our own and show up in a way that's, that's well and it actually ripples out for the good for the people around us.
Kim Meninger
I'm so glad you said that. I often joke about this, the fact that we should all have to go through therapy before we go into workplaces around our baggage around and each other without realizing it, and so you're absolutely right. Just, and it goes back to what we were talking about, of not feeling like you have to do this alone.
Amy Leneker
That's right.
Kim Meninger
Bring the resources that help you work through a lot. Life is hard. We're never…
Amy Leneker
Exactly.
Kim Meninger
Time, and it's, it's not as you said before, shameful at all to be, you know, to feel the chaos and...
Amy Leneker
Exactly.
Kim Meninger
Want help working through it and…
Amy Leneker
Yeah, I think it's the opposite. I think it's one of the bravest things that we can do.
Kim Meninger
You're absolutely right I think it's actually a leadership skill and, and sign of leadership to recognize where your ability to do something on your own ends, and where you need, to help each other.
Amy Leneker
Yes, exactly, exactly.
Kim Meninger
Yeah.
Amy Leneker
There's a quote I love by Anne Lamont. My kids make fun of me, because almost every life scenario I equate to an Anne Lamont quote, but she has one where she says that lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save, they just stand there shining, and she wasn't writing about leadership, but I think it's a beautiful metaphor for leadership. What she's saying is your job isn't to run across your 1,000 person organization and fix everything, but if you can be well, if you can be at a place where your stress is low, your joy is high, your mental health is good, your physical health, then just by doing that, you're creating a ripple effect across the organization. So I go back to that often. I think that she's so spot on.
Kim Meninger
I love that so much, and that really does reinforce, too, the importance of taking care of yourself, because if you use the lighthouse analogy, if the lights aren't on at the lighthouse.
Amy Leneker
Exactly. Literally and figuratively. Yes, exactly.
Kim Meninger
Oh gosh, Amy, I could talk to you all day.
Amy Leneker
Oh my gosh, I think the same thing.
Kim Meninger
But I would love for people listening who want more of you and want to check out your book and your work. Where can they find you?
Amy Leneker
Oh, thank you. Amyleneker dot com is the best way, and you can pick up Cheers to Monday wherever books are sold.
Kim Meninger
Thank you. I'm going to make sure that we put the links into the show notes. And thank you so much for being here. This was really fun, too.
Amy Leneker
Thanks, Kim. I appreciate you.
