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You have the title, the salary and the team, and you are lying awake working out how to get out. Nobody at work is having that conversation out loud.
Kimia Penton has it for a living. She runs a global PMO inside a Fortune 10 company; she is President of the PMI Dallas Chapter, and she would take a six-month paid sabbatical over a promotion tomorrow. She is also an organisational psychologist, which is why her account of burnout doesn't match what you have heard. She says she would happily spend a week in a music studio, packing her lunch so she does not have to stop, and leave refreshed. The hours are not the problem. The problem is being in a role where you have no agency, no trust in your leader, and nothing you recognise as yourself.
Listen, and you will come away with three things. One, the two moves to make now so stepping down is even an option later: never let your day job be your only identity or network, and never grow your expenses to match every raise. Two, the test Kimia applies before joining any team, which has nothing to do with the title or the money. Three, what emotional regulation looks like in a meeting that is going badly, from someone who has had to raise her voice five times in twenty years and can tell you why each one counted.
If you have a promotion conversation coming, have this one first.
1. Long hours do not cause burnout on their own. Losing agency, working for a leader you do not trust and doing work you no longer recognise yourself in is what does the damage.
2. Wellness apps and on-site gyms are one more thing on the list. Kimia has given up on her company's app. Culture is the retention strategy, and culture is set by the team leader, not the mission statement.
3. Before you can step down, two things have to be true: your job is not your only identity or network, and your expenses have not grown to match your last raise.
4. Build the next thing in parallel while you still have the job. Kimia teaches a university course on Friday nights now because she wants to teach more later.
5. Robert Walters found that 52% of Gen Z professionals in the UK do not want a middle management role, and 69% call it high stress and low reward. The responsibility went up, the autonomy and the pay did not.
6. Staying calm in a conflict takes more discipline than escalating. If you are known as reactionary, people stop taking you seriously unless you are reacting.
7. Asking your direct manager for performance feedback is overrated career advice. Their word does not have to define you.
8. Your job title is not your identity.
Kimia Penton, website: https://kimiapenton.com/
Kimia Penton, music: https://kimiapmusic.com/
Kimia Penton, book (Power, on Purpose): https://www.amazon.com/Power-Purpose-Authenticity-Becomes-Leadership/dp/B0GH5Y4RM8
Kimia Penton, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimiapenton/
Kimia Penton on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2x1RG5Y0QitBt9mqrEaOFQ
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