The paradox of purpose: Why burnout is rising in mission-driven work

“When purpose becomes pressure, even the most passionate workers can burn out.”

Across aged care, home care, and health services, the mission is clear: to care for people.  It’s a deeply human, meaningful pursuit – but it’s also becoming a silent catalyst for burnout. 

As staff across the sector dig deep to support others, many are losing their ability to sustain themselves. In a cruel twist, the same purpose that fuels the workforce is now becoming its pressure point.

Purpose fatigue: when meaning isn’t enough

Mission-driven workers – from nurses to lifestyle teams to home care case managers – often enter the sector with a strong sense of purpose. But they’re also the most vulnerable to burnout. 

According to a 2024 WHO-backed study on global healthcare worker wellbeing, emotional exhaustion has risen more steeply among workers in “caring professions” than in any other sector, particularly post-COVID.

Burnout is now more than just a buzzword. It’s a workforce crisis. And for aged care leaders, this paradox is dangerously misunderstood.

Dr. Christina Maslach, a renowned psychologist and creator of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, says:

“The biggest mistake we make is thinking burnout is just about working too hard. It’s about working in the wrong conditions – and for mission-driven people, that disconnect hurts more.”

In care settings, this disconnect often shows up as:

• High emotional labour with little time to recover
• Moral injury when workers can’t deliver the level of care they believe is right
• Workload and staffing pressures that clash with personal values
• Compassion fatigue that sets in slowly, then all at once

The issue isn’t a lack of purpose – it’s that the system demands more than people can sustainably give, especially in under-resourced environments.

The data is in: burnout isn’t a personal problem – it’s structural

A 2023 Harvard Business Review article reinforced that burnout is not about individual resilience but workplace design. In aged care, where leadership is stretched thin and staffing ratios remain under pressure, the settings are ripe for emotional depletion.

In Australia, a 2023 study by the Australian College of Nursing found that 61% of aged care nurses reported moderate to high burnout, citing “unrelenting emotional labour” as a core driver.

And while traditional healthcare burnout often focuses on clinicians, new research is drawing attention to non-clinical roles in aged care – lifestyle staff, hospitality workers, even admin teams – who are increasingly exposed to trauma, grief, and moral distress without the professional guardrails.

The leadership challenge: caring for the carers

Leaders in aged care and health often preach purpose, but what’s missing is a sustainable model for living that purpose without sacrificing wellbeing.

Global ageing and care leadership expert, Dr. Alexandre Kalache, has warned:

“The care workforce is ageing and exhausted. If we don’t reimagine how we support their wellbeing, we’ll lose not just people – we’ll lose the soul of care.”

The implication for leadership is clear:

• Purpose cannot be the only retention strategy
• Resilience training won’t fix systemic overload
• “Doing more with less” is not a long-term solution — it’s a slow erosion

Instead, leaders must build what Stanford professor Monica Worline calls “resilience architecture” – cultures where empathy is operationalised, not just encouraged.

This includes:

• Investing in psychological safety and regular wellbeing check-ins
• Giving teams autonomy and voice, not just direction
• Re-thinking rosters, breaks, and emotional debriefing as a strategic priority
• Acknowledging grief and loss as part of the job — and making space for it
  A new blueprint for purpose-led leadership

To lead in today’s care economy is to accept complexity: to hold both the deep privilege of working with people at their most vulnerable — and the emotional price that comes with it.

As burnout rises even in the most meaningful roles, the challenge for executives and emerging leaders isn’t to inspire purpose, but to protect it.

Because if purpose burns too brightly, it eventually burns out the people carrying it.