The Leader's Primer on Well-Being

making space for mental health

Between pandemics, wars, elections, relationships, the job market, and the workplace itself, life can be difficult to navigate for a lot of us these days. Our employees are feeling anxiety, stress, and burnout - but too few of the linkedin posts and the leadership articles I read want to address this. In fact, I think far too many leaders avoid talking openly about mental health with their employees - and it’s hurting everyone.

The Data

The Deloitte 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey clearly calls out how much work is a factor in mental healty.

Over a third of those who feel regularly anxious or stressed (36% of Gen Zs and 33% of millennials) say that their job is a key factor in their anxiety or stress, with this showing no improvement on previous years.

More importantly, the Mental Health Deep-Dive section of the report goes on to say this (bold mine).

Despite some progress in the provision of mental health support by employers in recent years, that support continues to be underutilized and stigma is still holding people back from sharing their mental health challenges—possibly contributing to the underutilization of support. Fewer than six in 10 respondents are comfortable speaking openly with their managers about stress; more than a quarter feel that their organization’s culture does not encourage open dialogue about mental health; and fewer than one in five said they felt comfortable disclosing mental health as the reason when taking time off for it.

A survey by Asana (hidden behind registration wall) states that Gen Z workers were reporting feelings of burnout. This report from 2021 shares alarming (to me, at least) statistics on burnout in the workplace. While the data from this study are at least partially due to situations in the pandemic, the general trend is frightening.

Not My Problem

I have talked with leaders who choose to ignore all of this (causing further problems). Worse, I know of some leaders who have been given explicit guidance to not talk about mental health at work. Both of these approaches are harmful to organizations, and ultimately impact delivery and quality.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that leaders tell their employees to go get therapy. That’s probably a no-no in most workplaces. I do, however, think that leaders can do a lot to support mental health in the workplace. Managing mental health and burnout is a leadership challenge worth taking on.

Burnout is a Systems Problem

The Burnout Epidemic by Jennifer Moss emphasizes that burnout is typically caused by factors like excessive workloads, lack of control, insufficient rewards, and a breakdown in community and communication. She critiques organizations that focus on individual solutions like wellness apps or meditation sessions while ignoring the workplace structures that contribute to chronic stress. Her book also offers actionable advice for leaders to address burnout effectively and encourages leaders to focus on workload management, fair recognition, support for mental health, and fostering a sense of purpose and autonomy among employees (not coincidentally, frequent topics here).

Engagement, Productivity, and Mental Health

I’ve written a lot about employee engagement, but maybe haven’t mentioned enough how support and engagement go hand in hand. Gallup surveys have talked about the correlation between engagement and knowing that your leaders care about you as a person.

At my previous company, I was fortunate to be partnered with an amazing HR business partner who frequently encouraged me to share my own mental health journey with my org and remind them of our related benefits. I know this directly helped a few folks in my org who were feeling isolated, but open communications, transparency, and vulnerability helped the entire org feel like they mattered (their words, not mine).

Worth mentioning (again) that Dare to Lead by Brené Brown also underscores the power of open, honest conversations as way to successfully lead healthy teams.

Mindfulness

To be honest, transparency and vulnerability do a lot towards creating a less anxiety and stress filled work environment, and most orgs would benefit from seeing more of these traits in leaders. Emotional Agility by Susan David has a lot of great advice on understanding and managing emotions in a healthy, constructive way that is good for individual as well as leaders.

I often tell my team that behavior comes from motivation, and David’s book describes emotional agility as the skill to approach emotions with openness, curiosity, and compassion, rather than suppressing, ignoring, or becoming overly attached to them. It’s about accepting emotions (yours or others), even uncomfortable ones, as valuable signals and using them to inform, rather than dictate, actions. For me, mindfulness has been extremely valuable throughout my career in understanding and reflecting on how I work and interact with others.

The ROI

Promoting mental health isn’t just the “right thing to do”—it’s smart leadership. Better mental health practices lead to higher engagement, better retention, and a stronger, more resilient workforce.

This article (four years old, from a slightly different time) from HBR on Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People underscores how mental health initiatives are systemic investments that have a direct impact on an organizations bottom line - and this report from McKinsey says that improving employee health and well being can create up to 11.7 Trillion Dollars of economic impact.

I don’t know about you, but that seems like something worth investing in.

-A

Also - don’t forget about the puzzle. All of the clues that I planned are available except one. That clue is 5:1. Other hints available on request.