If you’ve spent any amount of time leading in an academic library, you already know: This work will stretch you, inspire you, break your heart, and—on the worst days—make you wonder why you ever signed up for it. And that is perfectly OK to say out loud. Most leadership literature still treats exhaustion as a personal failing. But leadership itself can be emotionally draining.1 When you layer on the realities of higher education today— shrinking budgets, workforce reductions, political tension, intensified scrutiny toward diversity, equity, and