Corporate Mental Health Starts with You
By Heidi Sadecky, MA,PCC – Executive Coach & Director, Townsend Leadership Program
Have you ever walked into the office feeling good, productive, and ready to tackle the day ahead of you, then your boss walks through the office in a sour mood and exuding stress, and it crushes your positive attitude? This is a fairly common occurrence in most offices, and it’s a testament to how much a leader affects the mental and emotional environment in an office setting.
Workplace stress is higher now than it has ever been, so it’s more important than ever to work towards improving organizational mental health. My experience as an executive leadership coach based in Pittsburgh, PA has helped me to see how many leaders and employees alike struggle with mental health. To begin facing these issues, it’s most effective to start by looking at your own behavior as a corporate leader. When you start modeling positive mental health behaviors, you’ll notice a cascading domino effect of healthy practices move throughout your organization.
Here are three practices you put in place to improve your corporate mental health through wise executive leadership.
Break down the negative stigma around mental health. Even though it may seem like a buzzword today, there is still a barrier to being open about mental health in the workplace. Many people believe that talking about their struggles might hinder them from getting promoted or make them seem less valuable. The best leaders aren’t afraid to be vulnerable about their struggles, and in turn, those leaders can model solutions for the rest of their team.
Make authentic connections with your employees. Sporadic and formal check-ins won’t cut it, especially when working remotely more often than not. It’s worthwhile to set up regular and meaningful connections with your team. When you have these check-ins, focus on truly listening with an empathetic ear. It’s OK to take off your manager hat for a while and not immediately try to solve everyone’s problems. More often than not, what your team needs most isn’t an immediate solution but a leader who is open, sincere, and willing to share their struggles.
Model healthy boundary setting. We all face difficulties keeping our work at work and destressing at home. If you find it difficult to separate your work from the office, the chances are high that your employees face the same challenges. When you’re able to unwind well at home and prepare for the next day’s work properly, both your mental health and your job performance improve! It’s worthwhile to set the standard from the top-down as a leader, establishing clear boundaries between the office and your home life.
Improving corporate mental health is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, and it will also go a long way to increasing productivity, reducing burnout, improving morale, and creating a pattern of success in the workplace. With something so important, it’s best to get things right the first time. If you’re serious about creating a positive corporate culture, bringing on a coach is a great way to start. I’ve spent years working as an executive leadership coach in Pittsburgh, PA to help leaders find the pain points in their workload and lighten the stressors of leadership. An experienced and trained coach will work with you and your entire team to establish a lasting pattern of mental health and corporate success.
Heidi Sadecky is a highly-trained executive coach with over 30 years of combined corporate and coaching experience. She helps her clients operate at a higher level, overcome workplace challenges and achieve measurable results.
She is an in-demand facilitator of the only Townsend Leadership Program, a unique and highly effective group coaching program located in the North East United States.
In-person, virtual and hybrid leadership groups are now forming.