Leadership Without Losing Your Soul: Master Communication & Management Skills To Boost Productivity, Teamwork & Ease Overwhelm

319 One Leadership Mindset Shift to Stop Burnout, Avoid Overwhelm, and Improve Your Work Life Balance

Sep 4, 2025

Guest

Jess Baker

In this insightful discussion, Jess Baker, a seasoned Chartered Psychologist and leadership coach, sheds light on the 'Super Helper Syndrome' and its hidden costs. She emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries to avoid burnout while empowering teams. Jess provides practical strategies to balance empathy with self-care, helping leaders transform their mindset. Listeners will learn to manage their inner critic and cultivate a healthier work environment, ensuring both personal well-being and team success thrive in unison.

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INSIGHT

When Helping Becomes Self-Harm

Super Helper Syndrome is compulsive helping that harms your wellbeing and causes exhaustion and resentment.
It also invites exploitation and harsh self-criticism when you expect yourself to give endlessly.

INSIGHT

Helping Can Stall Your Team

Over-helping as a leader disempowers your team by preventing growth and learning.
Constantly providing answers blocks others from developing resilience and skills.

ADVICE

Set Clear Timebound Help

Communicate bounded help by stating when and how long you're available and what you'll do in that time.
Model boundaries for your team by declaring norms like not emailing at weekends or not expecting immediate replies.

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Are you the leader everyone turns to for help—yet secretly running on empty? What feels like generosity today can quietly drain your energy and keep your team from growing tomorrow. It’s time for a mindset shift.

If you’ve ever felt torn between being the “go-to helper” and protecting your own energy, this episode is for you. Over-helping might feel like the right thing in the moment, but it can quietly drain your well-being and hold your team back from growing. By exploring the hidden traps of “Super Helper Syndrome,” you’ll learn how to set boundaries without losing your empathy—and discover how to lead with both heart and strategy.

In this conversation with psychologist and leadership coach Jess Baker, you’ll discover:

How to spot the hidden costs of compulsive helping and prevent exhaustion, resentment, and self-criticism.
Practical ways to set healthy boundaries that actually empower your team instead of disempowering them.
Mindset tools you can use to quiet the inner critic and lead with empathy while protecting your own well-being.

Hit play now and learn how to make one powerful shift that frees you from over-helping and helps your team thrive.

Check Out:

[02:00] – What is “Super Helper Syndrome”?
Jess Baker defines the term, explains how over-helping works, and describes the emotional toll it can take on leaders.

[08:26] – The role of boundaries in leadership.
A practical discussion about setting limits, communicating expectations with your team, and modeling healthy boundaries.

[17:15] – The decentering technique.
Jess introduces a simple but powerful mindset tool to manage the inner critic and shift harmful “should” thoughts.

About Jess Baker

Jess is a Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (CPsychol AFBSsS). She began her career in public healthcare and has been practising as a Business Psychologist and leadership coach for twenty years.
Her award-winning book, The Super-Helper Syndrome, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and will shortly come out in Polish.

Leadership Without Using Your Soul podcast offers insightful discussions on leadership and management, focusing on essential communication skills, productivity, teamwork, delegation, and feedback to help leaders navigate various leadership styles, management styles, conflict resolution, time management, and active listening while addressing challenges like overwhelm, burnout, work-life balance, and problem-solving in both online and in-person teams, all aimed at cultivating human-centered leadership qualities that promote growth and success.

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