I can hear some of you silently screaming at me as you read my Sunday newsletter, "Are you kidding me? Find a sponsor, build relationships, draw boundaries. Where is the time to do all that? I can barely take a loo break during the day."
You might be caught in the Extra Milers Trap without an escape route.
In today's edition we will explore 'The Extra Milers Trap', one that highly competent people fall into. Once in the trap, it is only a matter of time before they burn out or quit their jobs.
"She always goes the extra mile."
"She deserves the star of the quarter award for going above and beyond to take the project to the finish line."
"He pulled all the stops to make sure that we could ship that product on time. He went beyond the call of duty."
These employees are a manager's dream. They are highly competent, capable, helpful and the most proactive contributors. They are Extra Milers.
These helpful employees frequently contribute beyond their formal job scope. Their mantra is, "I'll do whatever is needed to get the job done."
They fall into two main categories:
- Helping-focused: This is the most common type of Extra Miler. They take on additional responsibilities apart from their core work. They work across teams to bridge functional, technical and communication gaps so that the business outcomes can be achieved.
- Voice-focused: This is a rarer type of Extra Miler. They use their unique perspective, position and influence to speak up, challenge the status quo, and propose constructive changes.
Because they are both highly capable and uniquely approachable, they are sought out more frequently than their peers.
The virtuous cycle that turns vicious
The Extra Milers Trap begins as a virtuous cycle. An employee's desire to help others enhances their reputation and performance, signalling to the team and the organisation that they are a 'star performer'. This success then triggers a process called escalating citizenship.
As their reputation grows, Extra Milers are drawn into an increasing number of projects and roles of growing importance. Most often, they are given high-stakes assignments where they have to start from scratch, rescue a failing project or turn around a dysfunctional team.
Colleagues begin to bypass informational resources (such as wikis, reports, emails, or AI tools) and default to asking for the Extra Miler's personal resources (time and energy) instead of investing in their own.
This virtuous cycle turns vicious. The sheer volume of requests prevents them from completing their own core work during business hours, leading to late-night work sessions after 10 pm in the living room when they can finally have some peace and quiet.
The Helping-focused Extra Milers are more vulnerable to this trap. Research across 300 organisations shows that collaborative work is extremely lopsided. Typically, 20% to 35% of high-value collaboration comes from only 3% to 5% of employees, the Extra Milers. These individuals are often invisible to leadership as most of this work is invisible.
These Extra Milers are the most vulnerable to burnout, as these behaviours make them indispensable to a large number of people, and it becomes challenging to draw boundaries and to enforce them. When they reach the tipping point, they quit.
Which trap are you in?
If you are a Helping-focused Extra Miler, you are at risk of repeated burnout.
If you are a Voice-focused Extra Miler, you are vulnerable to a different kind of burnout, that of social friction and relational backlash. Voice-focused Extra Milers trade in their personal reputation and status to speak up and challenge the status quo. This leads to repeated conflicts and high-stakes relational interactions, which can become a source of mental exhaustion.
If you are both a Helping-focused and Voice-focused Extra Miler, you are quite likely to be someone who is very competent, vocal and trusted to do things, but is given feedback that they are too 'direct' and that they should learn to tone it down.
In the next edition, we will see how to walk out of this trap. Meanwhile, ask yourself:
- How much of what you do is your core work, and how much is work that enables it?
- How much do you speak up for yourself versus for others?
- What is the trap you are in? What have been the consequences of being an Extra Miler?
Frequently asked questions
What is the Extra Milers Trap?
The Extra Milers Trap is a pattern where highly competent employees who consistently go above and beyond their formal job scope become overloaded with requests and responsibilities. What starts as a virtuous cycle of helpfulness and recognition turns vicious as escalating citizenship pulls them into more and more work, preventing them from completing their own core tasks and eventually leading to burnout or resignation.
What is the difference between Helping-focused and Voice-focused Extra Milers?
Helping-focused Extra Milers take on additional responsibilities beyond their core work, bridging functional, technical and communication gaps across teams. Voice-focused Extra Milers use their perspective, position and influence to speak up, challenge the status quo, and propose constructive changes. Both types face burnout, but through different mechanisms: Helping-focused Extra Milers burn out from sheer volume of work, while Voice-focused Extra Milers burn out from social friction and relational backlash.
Why are Extra Milers invisible to leadership?
Research across 300 organisations shows that 20% to 35% of high-value collaborative work comes from only 3% to 5% of employees. Most of this collaborative work is invisible because it happens informally: bridging gaps, rescuing projects, answering colleagues' questions, and enabling others to succeed. Leadership typically sees the outcomes but not who made them possible, making Extra Milers the most underrecognised contributors in the organisation.