UW Green Bay leadership survey: Women feeling burned out by stress | Oshkosh Northwestern

GREEN BAY – Leading a nonprofit organization is no easy feat. A worldwide pandemic that altered how we live and work only added to the challenge.

Robyn Davis, president and CEO of Brown County United Way, loves her job and says her team was flexible during the uncertainty of the pandemic, especially in spring 2020. Still, the stress took a toll.

That stress came from “trying to navigate not only your own experiences but being sensitive to the experiences of other staff,” Davis said. “Not just experiencing the pandemic itself but how to create space for those you’re leading? That can certainly be taxing, to say the least.”

She’s not alone. A study from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s new Institute for Women’s Leadership found that roughly half of the women surveyed in various leadership positions in northeast Wisconsin feel burned out.

Mental health, caretaking top list of challenges women face

Lora Warner, director of the university’s Center for Public Affairs, is the principal investigator for the Women’s Career Development Snapshot Report, which compiled the survey results. The three most significant challenges for women as employees in northeast Wisconsin were related to mental well-being, she found.

“It didn’t surprise me, but it certainly stood out,” she said. “Women are under a huge amount of stress.”

Source: UW Green Bay leadership survey: Women feeling burned out by stress