Burnt Out to Lit Up

Introduction

I remember when I loved my job, enjoyed going to work, and delighted in helping people through tough, strange, and rewarding experiences. But leading people while on the brink of burnout? Well that’s a whole other story.

On Monday, July 10, 2023, I was wrapping up emails before going to bed and came across an update from our communications team addressed to me, our co-CEOs, and legal counsel. It referred to the cash compensation of senior executives over the past year, disclosed in our Chapter 11 bankruptcy submission. We were warned of the onslaught of inevitable negative responses.

The email said, “People are talking.”

I didn’t dwell on it. Our bankruptcy process had been tumultuous, with information leaking from every conceivable source, accurate or not. This was, I figured, just another chapter in our messy story.

As I was transitioning from my role as Chief People Officer at Vice during its headline-grabbing bankruptcy process, my days were consumed with helping our team secure severance payments for laid-off employees—an issue that the bankruptcy courts had blocked for months. Facing the emotional toll and uncertainty this process had on employees was grueling for everyone, myself included. Vice’s public image took a backseat in my mind, and I was primarily concerned with the way these choices were impacting the employees I’d supported for three years.

However, following that email, a colleague told us that one of our journalists had turned to then-named-Twitter ...