Women are still being told to “put their big girl pants on” and push through burnout. The real problem may be the workplace systems failing them, writes Claire Gibbs, Compensation Law Special Counsel at Attwood Marshall Lawyers.
I have lost count of how many women tell me they are “just burned out.”
They say it quietly. Almost apologetically, as though the problem was all on them.
I see it across construction, health, education and corporate workplaces. Different industries, but the same pattern: women standing in the middle of the storm, expected to enforce standards, absorb resistance, escalate risk and somehow stay untouched by all of it.
They are the ones asked to give the feedback no one wants to hear. To address conflict no one else wants to touch. To pick up the slack when the workplace is understaffed. To carry pressure from above and distress from below. To speak up when a line is crossed, then keep smiling when the consequences come back at them.
When burnout is actually injury
Burnout rarely arrives in one dramatic moment. It creeps in as more work, more complexity, less support, and gaslighting instead of solutions.
Research from BoldHR B-Suite Benchmarks has found one in three Australian middle managers identifies burnout as their greatest challenge, while many report feeling frustrated or invisible in their roles.
Burnout shows up as exhaustion disguised as professionalism, anxiety reframed as dedication, and distress dismissed as part of the job.
The phrase “put your big girl pants on and deal with it” is so ingrained in leadership culture that it has become unofficial policy. At this point, those big girl pants should probably be tax-deductible.
What many people do not realise until much later is that sustained psychological harm caused by workplace conditions may not simply be burnout. In some cases, it may be a workplace injury.
That does not mean every difficult workplace experience becomes a claim. Leadership is hard. But it should not require a person to absorb foreseeable harm until their health gives way.
The loneliest place in the workplace
Middle managers often occupy one of the loneliest positions in the workplace.
They are close enough to the harm to see it, senior enough to be expected to fix it, but not empowered with sufficient authority to address its cause.
They are expected to hold the team together and still somehow be calm, compassionate and commercially effective.
Layer gender on top and the pressure intensifies.
Many women lead in male-dominated environments, supervising people who resist being managed by a woman.
When they address behaviour others have tolerated for too long – undermining, dismissiveness, sexist remarks, refusal to comply – they can find themselves blamed when the person being held accountable pushes back.
The focus shifts from the behaviour to the person managing it.
“That is leadership.”
“You need thicker skin.”
“If you cannot handle this, you are not cut out for it.”
So, women stop speaking up. Because the message becomes clear: If you raise it, you become the problem.
What then gets framed as a leadership capability issue is often a failure of organisational courage.
The risk no one wants to name
One of the workplace dynamics that can contribute to psychological harm is bullying up.
It happens when a manager is targeted from below, often after they have been required to address performance, behaviour or conduct.
A manager does the right thing. They follow the process carefully and compassionately. And then comes the counterpunch – an allegation that they are the one doing the bullying.
To be very clear, genuine complaints must always be taken seriously. All employees must be able to raise concerns safely. That is non-negotiable.
But equally, systems must recognise when complaints are used to avoid accountability.
I have sat with enough managers going through this to know what it does to a person.
While the manager is bound by strict duties of confidentiality, the other person may be telling anyone who will listen that they are being unfairly targeted. Teams are white-anted. Reputations quietly erode.
The manager cannot correct the misinformation circulating through their team or explain the basis for decisions they made in good faith. They are expected to keep leading and keep performing, while the process runs its course and the damage accumulates – through resistance, escalation, cliques forming, and complaints that deflect the focus onto the manager.
Yet middle managers are often left out of psychosocial risk assessments altogether. The risk to them is treated as part of the job rather than as a foreseeable hazard arising from the mishandling of conflict, complaints, and performance management.
Ignoring bullying up just transfers harm to someone else.
What looks like a wellbeing problem is, in legal terms, a safety failure
Workplaces have become much more comfortable talking about wellbeing. Many offer meditation sessions, resilience training, employee assistance programs, mental health awareness cupcakes in the staffroom.
Those things help. But they are not a substitute for safe systems.
When somebody thinks ‘workplace safety ’, they may think about wet floors, faulty wiring or dangerous machinery. What about psychological risks?
Modern workplace health and safety law in Australia recognises that psychosocial hazards are workplace hazards. Workplaces are expected to identify and manage them.
Those hazards can include excessive workload, poor organisational change, bullying and harassment, lack of role clarity, poor support, conflict, exclusion, retaliation and leaders being placed in impossible positions without authority or backing.
Telling someone to resilience their way out of an unsafe system does not discharge an employer’s duty.
Not optional. Overdue.
Middle managers can no longer be the blind spot of workplace safety. They are among the most exposed in any workplace and must be expressly included in psychosocial risk assessments.
Employers also need clear policies for vexatious, retaliatory or unfounded complaints. Not to silence genuine complaints, but to protect managers from bullying up and to make it clear that knowingly false or malicious allegations can cause serious harm and carry consequences.
Women should not be required to carry harm, stay silent or endure psychological injury to prove they are cut out for leadership.
When organisations fail to identify and manage the psychosocial risks facing middle managers, they are creating unsafe systems.
Leadership should demand courage. Not casualties.
What good support looks like
As a lawyer and a leader, I have also seen organisations get this right.
The difference is rarely a grand gesture; it is in visible and consistent support.
Organisations that get it right have leaders who show up early to the issue, set clear expectations, and genuinely support both the employee and the manager.
If a complaint arises, it is investigated fairly, but the manager is not left isolated while the organisation quietly waits to see who survives the fallout.
Good support is not blind loyalty. It is not about dismissing complaints or protecting poor management.
Good support is about visible backing, fair process and a clear message that the person asked to manage the hard thing will not be left to carry it alone.
Psychological safety cannot depend on individual resilience or quiet endurance. It must be embedded in systems, reflected in risk frameworks, and reinforced through policy, training and visible leadership action.
Claire Gibbs is a Special Counsel in Compensation Law at Attwood Marshall Lawyers, based on the Gold Coast. She acts for clients whose lives have been disrupted by workplace injuries and motor vehicle accidents.