Leaders: the keys to healthy teams

Introduction

When becoming leaders, we all face an indirect pressure of being good at it the second that title gets updated on our pages. This is nearly impossible, unless you are a prodigy defying the rules of learning and development.

In comparison to building a product, the structure of work coming with this new role shifts to other points we have to tick, such as but not limited to:

• understanding the skills and needs of the people we are now looking after;

• solidifying our group dynamics knowledge, and pinpointing what makes your team work well together;

• dwelling into how the socio-economic backgrounds of our team dictate their preferred leadership style, and their respective expectations from ourselves;

• perfecting our evaluation mechanisms, so as to offer correct and applicable feedback to the ones around us.

The above list goes on, but its current form already paints the idea I’m trying to portray today. None of these skills come from knowing how to deliver good products. They come from knowing how to be a good leader.

A Forbes article caught my attention a few months ago, mentioning that “According to 69% of people, their managers had the greatest impact on their mental health, on par with the impact of their partner. And this was more than the impact of their doctor (51%) or therapist (41%).”

We spend the majority of the week at work (about 80% of our weeks on average), so it is imperative that our mission as leaders is to make the environment as healthy as possible for our employees. Our skills in listening, delegating, and managing have become just as important for our teams as their salary.

The economic state that the world is in has put great pressures on businesses, at the expense of people. Being a leader through the last years has become increasingly harder, especially for individuals not coming from a people-oriented background.

Throughout the last newsletter editions we have modelled different ideas on how to be a leader that responds to the needs of the people they are looking after. Being able to shape an environment which is not detrimental to anyone’s mental health should be self explanatory for any leader.

However unfortunately, it is not the case. Many leaders still rely on the traditional values of what it means to hold power (when in reality they do not), and aggressively damage everyone around them for the sake of protecting the superficial image of their abilities.

While I have been led by some damaging leaders, I have been lucky enough to not experience cases as deep as some of my peers. In Eastern European cultures, it is much more common for leaders to use techniques that directly impact someone’s mental health: making people feel small, screaming, denigrating, and dismissing ideas to name just a few. If you have been exposed to such a working space, I am here to assure you that you were never the problem, they were.

Objectives

Subject

Although work in itself supports psychological well-being, the workplace, in fact, poses many risks to our mental health: we may be doing work beyond our capacity or skills, with too few resources or simply not enough time to do what is expected of us. We may be experiencing workplace bullying or be working in a flat-out toxic environment.

If the build-up of stress manifests itself in physical ways, we know how to seek help. Few of us have trouble asking to go home with a migraine. But when it comes to talking about burnout, depression, or anxiety, we are hesitant to discuss the topic with our friends, let alone with those in charge of our careers. This leaves us alone with our struggles and delays or prevents us from wanting or feeling able to seek help.

The aforementioned Forbes study shines a light on the size of the issue: “according to the study, 43% of employees report they are exhausted, and 78% say stress negatively impacts their work performance. Other aspects of life are also affected as 71% say stress at work negatively impinges on their home life, 64% say it detracts from their wellbeing and 62% say it degrades their relationship.”

The earlier you can detect a potential problem, the easier and more effective a proposed solution will be. Here are some signs indicating that someone in your team might experience mental health deterioration.

Framework

Being a leader is a responsibility.

When choosing to pursue a leadership position, you have to be aware of the impact you make on people’s lives by simply holding the role. Your maturity and approach to your responsibilities impact more than product success. There are certain workplace dynamics that make leaders so critical when discussing mental health in workplaces, as explained below:

How to build a space prioritising everyone’s mental health

1. Show vulnerability

Breaking the stigma requires leaders to stop pretending that they have it together all the time. By being courageous enough to open up about your own problems, confusions, and difficulties, you are making it safer for others to feel safe to share their stories.

2. Drive with a mission

The question rooting all of our actions is always “Why am I doing this?”. Irrelevant of their expertise and proficiency in doing something, people will not deliver without being aligned with a purpose and a vision that fuels their work.

As a leader, you can help by inspiring purpose and giving them a clear sense of what success means for their job, and how it connects to the work of their colleagues and customers.

3. Connect people

You can also positively impact on people’s wellbeing by eliminating the wall between yourself and the people reporting to you. Establish an environment where you are available within your limits. When leaders are more present and accessible, it contributes to trust, positive culture and people’s sense of their importance in the organisation.

Connection is critical to wellbeing and happiness, whether people are introverts or extroverts. Help team members set up mentoring relationships, and organise your projects and activities so that team building and socialising between all members of your team are nurtured.

4. Treat people like adults

A study by Attlassian found that offering people flexibility has a direct impact on their wellbeing alongside powerful business effects too, such as retention and innovation.

Actively audit your own actions to identify whether you are micromanaging. Instead, empower individuals to make as many choices as you possibly can: become a guide, rather than a dictator. Offer people opportunities to lead projects, and to choose their style and space for work, as long as it matches your team’s culture and ground rules.

Final thoughts

The best leaders take care of their own mental health, and they pay attention to their team members as well. It’s no small thing to have so much impact on people.

Leaders can make big impacts by tuning in, listening and demonstrating empathy and compassion. The stakes are high, but the chances of success are also high, when leaders are intentional about doing their best.

Mental health should not be treated as a second grade task. Rather, see it as the centre of our around which we can sketch how everything else fits.

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Quality content

Today’s quality content comes from Kurzesagt. For the ones that have never experienced their wonderful animated videos, the channel’s focus is based on discussing different themes, with the promise to always offer the watcher curious and powerful bits of information to ponder on.

I have been personally mesmerised by their story telling, designs, and ideas ever since discovering the channel. One of the most impactful themes from their videos has been realising that change is a direction, not a destination.

In light of the newsletter’s theme today, I leave you with a very warming video on how to change your life, one step at a time. I hope it will touch you as much as it did me.

That’s it for today! Thank you for being here! Have a great week ahead!

Razzmatazz without the matazz.