What are the trends to improve mental health?

Applying Mental health narrative to Organisations

The Harvard Business Review in its article on the report on ‘Athletes are shifting the narrative around mental health work’ pointed out four strategies for leaders seeking to support their employees’ mental health. They are:

1. Check in with your senior leaders.
2. Embrace vulnerability.
3. Monitor and prioritize mental recovery.
4. Foster a support network.

Check-in with your senior leaders.

A person’s objective success in a particular field does not imply mental health success, affirms the article by Harvard Business Review. It further explains that being thrust into the leadership spotlight can increase pressure, scrutiny, feelings of isolation, and pressure to hold everything together for others during challenging times. For example, Sachin Tendulkar stepped away from being the captain of the Indian Cricket Team so that he could focus on his batting and can avoid the enormous pressure that an Indian captain has.

When applying this to the world of management, the report suggests giving access to senior leaders and providing them with a means of expression and routine mental health check-ins.

Another tactic is to have regular, brief check-ins at the start of conferences during which everyone, including senior leaders, expresses how they are feeling. This ritual creates a forum for everyone to have their say, promotes individual and group awareness, and helps bring up early indicators of mental health problems. To ensure that everyone feels comfortable sharing without worrying about criticism, team psychological safety is essential.

Embrace vulnerability.

Sports psychologists have long recognized that intimidating instructors don’t train athletes to perform at their highest levels; instead, they instill a fear of taking chances and making mistakes, which hinders performance and encourages athletes to give up.

Similarly, in the workplace, abusive leadership can cause melancholy, alcoholism, emotional weariness, insomnia, and anxiety.

According to research, the stigma surrounding mental health continues to be a barrier to seeking help and can further drive individuals away from their colleagues and be perceived as less authentic by peers and supervisors.

By setting a positive example and sharing their own vulnerable stories, leaders may normalize dialogues about challenging emotions and mental health. During challenging times, leaders can expressly encourage their colleagues to be honest about their emotions.

The article emphasizes that setting a good example is no simple feat. It means leaders need to develop self-awareness (am I OK?), embrace their own vulnerability (maybe I’m not OK), and strengthen their sense of empathy and awareness of others (are they OK?). Finally, they need to have the courage and commitment to ask for, offer and receive help.

Monitor and prioritize mental recovery.

In sports, it’s well known that minds and bodies need to recover before athletes can perform at optimal levels. Mental health and physical health are two sides of the same coin. Research journals in the field of sports performance, sports psychology, and sports management address how to measure physical and psychological recovery after phases of extreme performance and why it matters.

However, management research and practitioner journals and press spend far less time addressing the need for post-performance and post-stress recovery in the workplace.

There are similarities between physical and mental rehabilitation. But mental illness can be more difficult to recover from. “If your body is broken, and if it’s capable of repairing itself it will. I think the mental side can feel harder because it won’t just happen with time. Although time is helpful, you’ll only recover if you’re doing the right things. You really need to have the right processes in place to be able to get back,” quotes the article.

Organizations are beginning to recognize the value of mental recuperation. Leaders can give advice on how and when to take breaks after times of heavy work and encourage their team members to celebrate the things they do to unwind and recharge.

In the hybrid or virtual world, leaders may also consider online mindfulness or yoga sessions, or give employees specific opportunities to completely disconnect.

To recover from work before they reach the point of exhaustion — and potentially burnout, or worse — all employees need to learn to recognize the stressors that may be consistently draining their own mental (and physical) resources. They should also develop a personal toolkit of boundaries and recovery techniques that work best for them, explains the write-up.

Foster a support network.

‘One of the accelerators of mental health symptoms and disorders is social isolation,’ highlights the report.  

In the realm of sports, having a support group is conventional and frequently viewed as essential. This group has been assembled to offer athletes specialized performance coaching as well as ongoing emotional, physical, and psychological support.

In fact, the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s #StrongerTogether for Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 focused on a people-centric message of Stronger Together, emphasizing the IOC’s message of solidarity and the belief that the world moves forward only when it moves together, and the irresistible power of the Olympic Games to unite people, communities, and societies across the globe.

Many organizations are similarly moving in this direction. For instance, peer-support networks, focused employee resource groups, and employee assistance programs with trained specialists all contribute to the normalization of social support.

The virtuous circle that supportive cultures create can lift the pressure and burden team members may carry. The support Helen got from the whole squad was amazing.