She was talking generally about burnout in leadership, but it translates to all levels. And it feels like it's becoming more prevalent now as tech accelerates again with AI and agentic workflows.
Dominika talked about the four dimensions of burnout as:
At that point, it becomes very hard to keep saying that burnout is just a lack of resilience. This is why so many traditional well-being interventions fail. Mindfulness classes, coaching, wellness perks. They can help individuals, but they do not redesign the environment people return to every day.
I relate to a lot of the points Dominika made there. And I highly recommend you go and watch the talk now that it's been published on the LeadDev website.
But this is one of the reasons why serenity is such an important factor in the PETALS framework.
When I introduced the PETALS concept as a team exercise, I was talking from the voice of experience.
I'd been in roles which were burning me out. I'd been in management and contributor roles that were forcing me to the edge. And it's the reason why that factor is so important in this framework.
Most other frameworks don't even ask about how you're feeling from a serenity, stress, or well-being perspective. Most of them focus on the outcomes and the business metrics.
But the reason why PETALS lands so well is that we're asking people how they're feeling about things.
Burnout is just one angle when we talk about well-being and serenity. But it's an important one.
I really encourage you to go and watch Dominika's talk. It's about 20 minutes long and was quite eye-opening from a leadership perspective and from the perspective of any team member you work with.
It gives you a way to think about how burnout could be affecting your team, and where you could potentially change things for the better.
And also remember to keep those health checks happening regularly.
Use the Serenity score as a guide to have that conversation.
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