Stop Praising (and Being) the Martyr
The Hidden Cost of “Powering Through”
Since I spent the first half of this week recovering from a severe bug, I had a lot of time to think about how terrible corporate culture is at handling sickness.
We have all seen it. The employee who logs into the 9:00 AM Zoom call looking pale, coughing through their updates, and proudly declaring, “I’m feeling awful, but I’m powering through.”
Historically, bad managers have praised this behavior. They call it “dedication.” They call it “hustle.”
Strategic Realism calls it a liability.
The Cost of Presenteeism
We talk a lot about absenteeism (people not showing up), but we rarely talk about presenteeism: when an employee is physically (or virtually) at work, but functioning at 40% capacity because they are sick, exhausted, or burned out.
When someone tries to work through a fever or a bad virus, they aren’t being productive.
They are making bad decisions.
They are snapping at clients and coworkers.
They are making data entry errors that will take two healthy people three hours to fix next week.
If they are in a physical office, they are also turning your workplace into a petri dish, guaranteeing that three more people will be out next week.
“Powering through” doesn’t prove dedication; it just proves your culture rewards suffering over results.
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