Eric Sagal on Why Listening May Be the Most Underrated Leadership Skill in Today’s Burnout-Prone Corporate Culture
Workplace conversations about leadership often center on strategy, productivity, and performance. Yet another skill is shaping how professionals navigate pressure and complexity. According to Deloitte’s World Mental Health Day insights on workplace well‑being, 47% of Gen Z and 41% of millennials rate their mental health as fair or poor, highlighting how common workplace strain and emotional pressure have become among younger and mid-career professionals.
Eric Sagal, CEO and Founder of Emberwell Coaching, believes many leaders underestimate one of the simplest responses to that challenge. “A lot of people think they are listening, but they are really just waiting for their turn to talk,” he explains. In his view, genuine listening can create space for reflection, clarity, and stronger decision-making, especially in environments where pressure and expectations are high.
Sagal draws that perspective from more than fifteen years of working inside the corporate world, where he held both leadership and non-leadership roles across organizations of different sizes. During that time, he says, the pressure to deliver results often blurred the line between commitment and exhaustion. He recalls how his professional drive once pushed him into an unsustainable rhythm. “There was a point where I realized I was giving almost all of my time and energy to work and very little to anything else,” he says. “I loved what I did, but I had to step back and ask why my balance was so far off.”
That moment eventually influenced the creation of Emberwell Coaching, a practice focused on one-on-one coaching that helps professionals navigate career questions, personal growth, and early signs of burnout. Rather than providing prescriptive answers, Sagal explains his approach as guiding reflection through attentive listening. According to him, many professionals already carry the insights they need, but rarely have an environment where they can speak openly enough to reach those conclusions themselves.
“When people have the space to talk honestly, and someone is fully present with them, they often start to connect the dots on their own,” Sagal says. “My role is not to tell them what to do. My role is to help them hear themselves more clearly.”
That philosophy contrasts with traditional assumptions about leadership development, which often emphasize frameworks or productivity tactics. From Sagal’s perspective, the missing ingredient is frequently the ability to pause and fully absorb what another person is experiencing. He notes that in many workplaces, conversations move quickly from problem to solution, leaving little room for reflection. In coaching sessions, he intentionally slows that pace. “When you stop thinking about your next response and really focus on the person in front of you, the conversation changes completely,” he says.
Burnout has become a central theme in those discussions. According to a report, 66% of American employees are experiencing some level of job burnout, an all-time high that reflects the growing pressure professionals feel across modern workplaces. Sagal notes that many people do not recognize the early signals until exhaustion becomes unavoidable. In his view, proactive reflection can help individuals notice those patterns earlier.
“You often don’t realize you are burned out until you are already deep in it,” he says. “Sometimes the first clue is something simple, like feeling a sense of dread on Sunday night before the workweek begins.”
Sagal believes those moments of discomfort are often dismissed rather than explored. Through coaching conversations, he encourages clients to examine those reactions and ask deeper questions about their priorities, boundaries, and sense of purpose. His experience suggests that many professionals in their late twenties and early thirties find themselves in a particularly uncertain phase. They are no longer new to their careers, yet they may still be evaluating whether the path they chose truly aligns with their goals.
At that stage, he notes, it can feel especially confusing in an era shaped by social media comparisons and constant messaging about hustle and productivity. Some professionals feel pressure to push harder in hopes of future rewards, while others question whether balance should be prioritized earlier in life. Sagal views listening as a way to help individuals navigate that tension.
“In coaching conversations, people often start talking about work and end up uncovering something much deeper about how they want their life to look,” he says.
Through Emberwell Coaching, Sagal continues to work with professionals across career stages, although many clients fall into that mid-career reflection period. From his perspective, the goal is not simply to address burnout after it appears, but to help people recognize its signals earlier and respond thoughtfully.
“When someone slows down long enough to really hear themselves, it can shift how they approach their work, their relationships, and their boundaries,” Sagal says. “Sometimes the most powerful thing a leader or coach can do is simply listen well enough for the other person to discover what they already know.”
