Mental Health Awareness into Mental Health Action

As Jamie highlighted in Season 2, Episode 6 of the Show Up! Podcast, reported cases of mental health challenges are drastically on the increase. I’m sure there are huge number of cases that go unreported, and I find myself wondering why is that and what more could done by leaders?

The first place my thinking goes to is psychological safety.

Human’s often dislike showing vulnerability in the first instance. I know I sometimes hide behind the façade of pride, choosing to share the absolute truth of what’s going on for me with only a handful of carefully selected people. These are people who have shown me listening without judgment, have been available in the time when I need them, and have offered different ways of thinking or avenues through exercises that help alleviate the burden of shame that regularly walks hand-in-hand with that vulnerability.

Sounds simple enough to create psychological safety as a leader, right?

Well, what if we add into the mix the outcomes and deadlines you as a leader are responsible for achieving. A tough conundrum of conflict can start to appear for you; do you give your team the space they need and miss the approaching deadlines you have in front of us? Do you double down on the work-products in hand, inviting the team to put their personal feelings in a moment to one side and ‘do it for the team’? Or do you start to feel the effects of your own mental health challenge appearing as you shoulder greater burden for those around you, without compassion to the compromises you’re making?

It's true that mental health is a factor of today’s working world that has to be brought into how a leader leads their team. The long-experienced generations working in today’s workplace are having to learn to adapt their approach in order to accommodate their organisational talent, but the responsibility for managing with and through mental health lies firmly in the hands of leaders like you – today’s golden age of leadership.

So when it comes to being an effective leader for someone experiencing a mental health challenge, what can you do to increase psychological safety for your team?

Here’s a few ideas for you to think about:

· In setting out your values and ways of working as a leader, which you should do in your first days of leading a new team, carefully consider how you intend to create a space that allows your team to thrive. This might mean reading through the company handbook to understand how as a company they approach mental health challenges. Connect with your HR Business Partner so you have third party support available should you need it (this will give you the confidence you are supported). You want to be in a position of confidence for you to share how you would like the team to work together, and how you are going to curate the space for them to thrive. When is your door open to them? How would you like the team to positively leverage conflict? What does it mean to you (and them) to be a team? How would they like to be treated when they are not at their best? What does it mean when you invite them to ‘go the extra mile’, and how will you blatantly or subtly reward that extra effort and compromise?

· Specifically, how can you support people in elevating themselves out of the story that’s emerging which has led to the mental health challenge that they are experiencing and reporting? Perception on the size of the mental health burden someone is feeling usually differ between the person feeling it, and a person observing it. Can you be compassionate within being complicit. Can you hold yourself out of their Drama Triangle (see image below), and in doing so invite them to do the same to find a more balanced perspective and a line of thought from which to live from.

· Have the humility and awareness that the solution might not have to come from you, but be facilitated by you. It’s one thing to be there for someone in a time of crisis, and that might be highly rewarding for you if you are there when they need it. However, if you carelessly pursue that, who is your action ultimately serving? A more powerful action could be giving the permission for someone to take the time they need with a trusted ear to move through what they’re feeling, and the appreciation they feel may be enhanced because you kept the focus on them and their needs, and helped to make that happen.

What’s clear to me is that leaders have to have in their tool box of leadership capability the awareness that mental health is a present factor that needs to be catered for in the way a team works. Exemplary leaders are moving beyond mental health awareness into a space of mental health action – creating an environment that compassionately works with mental health AND achieves the outcomes intended to the standard desired and in the timeframe required.

How might you step up in the way you lead?

Graham