Mental Health at Work: Leading with Compassion While Promoting Employee Accountability.
If we’re being really honest, leaders often tell me that they feel they:
Can’t be too “strict”: because employees will think they’re an untrusting heartless micromanager
Can’t be too lenient: because they’re worried they’ll be taken advantage of and/or nothing will get done.
And mixing in trying to navigate mental health conversations and knowing when to be supportive & giving versus when to encourage employees to take action to help themselves?
You wanted being a leader to get more complex…right?
Leading, while showing compassion, and holding people accountable to manage their mental health? Nope, not easy. And if it was, I wouldn’t have a job.
Now, this is a really complex one, and one article could never provide all of the answers or the 'solve' for this issue. But, we need to talk about the fact that finding a balance for this is tough so we can normalize conversations about it and focus on equipping leaders with the skills on how to address it with their teams. So let's dive in.
WHY FINDING THIS BALANCE IS TOUGH
In my work, I meet so many managers who want to support their employees with compassion, but they're worried that they'll be taken advantage of and are often confused about where their responsibility to be compassionate towards those struggles “should” start and end.
Considering each situation individually, as peoples’ motivations and situations are different, is hard but necessary. Not only that, but their emotional intelligence, readiness, and willingness to potentially address their own mental health issues may differ wildly.
Knowing how to assess these situations over time with different people is an evergreen leadership skill that needs to be worked on constantly, something that needs to be talked about more widely, and backed up with training resources on how to do that.
As a manager and someone in a leadership role, you already have a lot of the skills you'll need and continue to need. And while you'll find examples of people taking advantage of compassion, they are in the minority. Most people don't.
For those moments where you find yourself trying to strike a balance between being supportive and reminding people about their individual responsibility to manage their mental health, use resources, ask for help, and try get their work done - let’s talk why that's hard in the first place - and a few ways to approach finding that balance.
6 TIPS FOR LEADERS
Let’s take a look at a few starter tips to help you better decipher the moments of when to be compassionate and versus when to encourage action when it comes to mental health at work conversations with your team members:
1) IT’S OKAY (AND GOOD) TO BE COMPASSIONATE
You can see for yourself what changing your workplace culture about mental health does for an employee. As the interviews I’ve done for my book show, leading with compassion (and fostering a psychologically safe environment) is a game changer when it comes to normalizing mental health at work conversations. I remember when 'L' told me:
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“The culture my manager was able to create was an openness around mental health. Having that role modeling set by him freed me to do the same thing for myself. (1)
Showing compassion at work is essential. Creating an environment where people can safely talk about mental health issues makes them feel better cared for, heard, and socially connected. And when people feel better, they’re generally kinder to each other, and more open to feedback if they trust the source that’s giving it.
When it comes to managing mental health or talking about it at work, showing compassion looks like acknowledging your and your employees' common humanity. It looks like listening to your employees if they decide to disclose their mental health challenges to you and being present and supportive for that conversation, even for a little while.
Emotional intelligence or not, people can generally tell when someone is truly struggling. Honor that, and show compassion when someone needs it.
Even if you end up determining that you’re not the best person to help them and explaining this so you won’t do them a disservice by trying to give them something you aren’t trained (or know how) to give.
2) ACKNOWLEDGE IF FINDING THIS BALANCE IS TOUGH FOR YOU
But, once again, being a leader is tough. It’s not your fault if you’ve found that your ability to be compassionate to team members’ struggles has eroded over time if you’ve been repetitively taken advantage of (yes we can all be adults and admit that this happens) – and you don’t want that to continue. You don’t want to feel like a fool for giving care and slack if someone knows you’ll always give them the ‘easy out’ if they’re going through a tough time.
But just because this has happened doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be compassionate, it means that you need to turn up your powers of observation and look at the scenarios where it’s warranted, and when a more action-oriented approach of encouraging someone to solve their issues would be more helpful for them.
3) SET A REALISTIC (AND REASONABLE) TONE FOR YOUR TEAM
The expectations that everyone has around giving/receiving compassion and when they should or shouldn’t be held responsible to create behavior change is deeply personal and varied among people.
You can be supportive to your team members, but that has to be paired with the expectation that if a team member is coming to you (or even each other) about their struggles, that you can be there for them, but there’s also the expectation that they will take action and use resources to help themselves where possible.
As their boss, it’s NOT your job to sort out their mental health issues for them, act like a parental figure at work, or let the quality of work slide every time something is wrong - especially if they’re not doing anything to help themselves.
Employers and leaders have the legal and ethical responsibility to provide a safe environment in which to work. Duty of care is real and should be honored. At the same time, everyone has a responsibility to self-advocate for their needs, to share when something is up, and to ask for help when needed (2).
Whether you're a leader or an employee, taking personal responsibility for dealing with your challenges, especially around mental health, is part of being an adult (3).
4) PAY ATTENTION TO PATTERNS
Everybody needs a little slack sometimes - that’s life - and we should give each other some grace when we need it.
But, there’s a difference between that versus someone who is constantly asking for grace and doing nothing to change the circumstances that are producing why they’re asking for it in the first place.
If you notice that someone is constantly asking for time off, wanting you to be the shoulder to cry on, but hasn’t taken any steps to use resources to help themselves with their mental health struggles - then there may need to be a conversation about changing that behavior.
5) ADDRESS THE NEED FOR PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
You can give someone all the resources in the world, but that person has to decide to use them.
And if they haven’t used them, think it’s not important, or just expect everyone around them to adjust based on their ups and downs - that person is not taking personal responsibility to manage their mental health. As I frequently say, people don’t choose to have mental health struggles, but they choose how to address them (provided they have access to resources and can afford to use them).
If you’re going to share with this person that you feel a bit taken advantage of as their leader and that you’d like to see a behavior change, remember to share at a high level what you observed, what you noticed, and use general, open-ended questions to inquire about what they have done to address these struggles or what they’re willing to do.
Ask high-level questions - let them do the talking about what’s going on, why they have or haven’t addressed it, and what they’re planning to do differently and why.
Do not use clinical language or criticizing comments in your inquiries:
A. Because that’s wrong and inappropriate
B. It’s illegal
C. That’s the opposite way to encourage someone to do things differently
Additionally, if the situation becomes a bit sticky (i.e. you’ve tried all the right things but the person is resistant or dismissive, you can anonymously inquire with your HR manager on other methods on how to constructively address this behavior change).
6) FIGURE OUT THE NEXT STEPS TOGETHER
So you’ve had the talk… Now what? Deciding on the next course of action is something you and your teammate should do collectively. Remember that point about staying in your zone?
Instead of making a decision for the person talking to you, encourage them to take the lead on deciding how they would like to prioritize managing their mental health differently going forward.
IN THE END
Encouraging accountability while maintaining compassion is important for every workplace. Understanding what taking personal responsibility means and how to encourage it in employees who struggle with their mental health can go a long way toward helping them feel supported and cared about by their employer, while understanding the individual responsibility they have to speak up for, manage, and prioritize taking care of their mental health - even (and especially) at work.
Would you like your staff to understand personal accountability about mental health at work better? Book a session with Melissa for a deep dive.
Sources
1,2,3: Doman, Melissa. Yes, You Can Talk about Mental Health at Work: Here's Why ... and How to Do It Really Well. Welbeck Publishing Group, 2021
