Business leaders, especially in high-stress, high-test industries, are under immense pressure. In recent years, organizations have navigated complex issues from civil unrest to the pandemic and, inexplicably, worker shortages juxtaposed with devastating mass layoffs. Every day, leaders face important work decisions, competing responsibilities, growing workloads, and workplace conflict. They also have additional responsibilities, challenges, and stressors outside of the workplace. Combined, these factors have greatly increased pressure and expectations, which are slowly eroding mental wellness.
Human resource and people management professionals play an important role in helping leaders maintain a healthy balance. But it can be difficult to know when and how to help.
Recognize the Problem
According to a report by the O.C. Tanner Institute, leaders are 43% more likely to say work is interfering with their ability to be happy in other areas of their lives. In the same report, 70% of employees reported that their managers are possibly or definitely stressed. And a recent report by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence found that almost 70% of leaders at the C-suite level are considering walking away from their respective companies in search of employers offering better well-being support.
As HR leaders, it’s important to recognize the barriers to holistic wellness and proactively connect leaders with resources before problems become unwieldy. Given their high achievement and high performance, it is sometimes easy to forget that business leaders are human, like everyone else—and that means they aren’t immune to burnout or behavioral health issues. To remain emotionally healthy and effective, it’s essential that they manage themselves, first and foremost. Elite athletes inherently understand this, but all too often business leaders run themselves into the ground and only stop for self-care once forced to do so when serious problems arise. Naturally, a top priority in times of crisis is sustaining performance, but that can come at a cost if not done reasonably. Therefore, it’s essential that leaders in these critical and challenging roles are provided with learning and tools to cultivate the personal wellbeing required to help them remain prepared, focused, and optimized over the long haul.
Leaders, like many employees, may feel like there is a stigma surrounding mental wellness, which can make them reluctant to seek help or talk about challenges they face. Leaders are looked to for advice and guidance, important decision-making, and conflict resolution, and as a result, may feel that admitting a problem could be perceived as a weakness or harmful to their reputation. Finally, with demanding schedules, leaders simply may not prioritize attending to their personal mental wellness.
To overcome these barriers, HR teams should assess potential or actual needs, proactively communicate with leaders regarding resources such as employee assistance programs (EAPs) and evaluate specialized support services designed for leaders that can address clinical needs beyond traditional leadership coaching.
Deploy the Right Support
As the O.C. Tanner Institute notes, leaders are employees too, but they often experience different mental wellness needs than employees with less demanding roles. This increase in stress and burnout is leading to more serious behavioral and clinical issues. For example, in 2023, just within the high-tech sector, nearly half of leaders report using controlled substances every day or nearly every day, states a Censuswide survey.
Finding and deploying resources that go beyond basic mental health, and are tailored to leaders’ unique needs, is no easy task. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, making smart and informed decisions will lead HR teams to the right resources for their leadership. Three key steps can support the decision process:
- Identify gaps and review existing resources, like EAPs. To begin, consider the resources you already have in place. A natural place to start is the EAP, which offers helpful short-term services for all employees. EAPs are often a good resource for leaders looking for occasional non-clinical support.
Yet, if leaders require immediate and ongoing support from a clinical counselor, there is opportunity to augment–not replace–your EAP program. To do this, look for an outside partner that specifically offers clinical leader mental wellness counseling. Ask your EAP who they recommend or ask your peers. This additional resource matches leaders with experts who can design a support plan to meet their specific mental wellness needs and goals while maintaining the sensitivity and confidentiality required.
2. Choose well-rounded mental wellness support and measure results. In today’s overtaxed workplaces, convenience and accessibility are critical. With demanding schedules, leaders need support they can access quickly and conveniently.
Once you have a partner in place for clinical support, work with them to ensure they deliver well-rounded support. This means creating availability for leaders to connect on their preferred channels, at many hours of the day. It means working together to review anonymized data to help launch new programs addressing emerging needs of leaders, and it means effectively capturing and sharing program results and efficacy. Measurable results will allow HR teams to evaluate the efforts and ensure your partner is delivering on leader needs, aligning with company culture, and deploying seamlessly.
3. Create and foster a mental wellness-friendly culture. In most organizations, HR serves as a catalyst for cultural shifts. But leaders also must lead by example. Executive leaders have an opportunity to promote ongoing mental health conversations and amplify available resources to leaders across the organization. Empowering leaders to normalize seeking mental health support among their peers, and within the broader organization, can foster greater engagement and create a culture that elevates mental wellbeing.
Measure Program Efficacy
HR professionals implementing leadership resources typically ask: “How do I know if it’s working?” And they are right to ask.
Traditionally, general all-employee wellness programs have been difficult to measure beyond call volume to an EAP. But leader mental wellness counseling is rooted in clinical wellness and will typically engage a third-party provider to anonymously survey users to understand and measure outcomes and satisfaction.
In addition, functional improvements can—and should—be measured through industry-standard metrics and tools. This level of reporting with aggregated data built from real examples (without compromising confidentiality) allows HR to gain insights into behavioral trends and adjust resources accordingly.
Any team is affected by the functioning of its leader, whether in Little League Baseball or the major leagues. A leader struggling with their own mental wellness can color how their teams are performing. Often, leaders will not self-disclose when they are struggling, for fear of a negative impact on their career or out of concern that they will “model” weakness when they should show “strength.” To complicate matters, sometimes there is simply a lack of self-awareness that they are truly struggling. By contrast, a leader who is functioning well emotionally and psychologically will transfer this wellbeing to their team. So, while it is important to measure leader satisfaction, engagement, and functional change, it is just as important to measure how their teams are doing, as that often can reflect how the leader is managing their own stress levels and demands.
Benefits of Supporting Leader Mental Wellbeing
When provided with clinical mental wellness counseling, leaders gain the tools they need to be better people—both inside and outside of the workplace. They’re better able to navigate organizational disruption, manage conflict, and process work-related stress to become more resilient leaders. Importantly, they are also better prepared to lead through improved decision making, more effective communication, and enhanced emotional intelligence.
Doing right by employees is also doing right by the organization. Better mental wellness is reflected in enhanced leader engagement and retention to deliver positive business outcomes. When leaders are healthier, they can proactively support the mental wellbeing of their teams, creating a positive cascading effect on organizational culture.
But none of this is possible without HR teams leading the way. We’ve already made great strides in creating workplace resources for behavioral health, online coaching, and on-demand therapy for employees. Now we must take the next step: we can’t leave leaders behind or gloss over their unique mental wellness needs. It’s time to build a new workplace environment where everyone is included and given the opportunity to seek support.
George L. Vergolias, PsyD, CTM, chief clinical officer at R3 Continuum, oversees and leads R3’s Clinical Risk, Threat of Violence and Workplace Violence programs, and has directly assessed or managed more than 1,000 cases related to threat of violence or self-harm, sexual assault, stalking, and communicated threats. He brings over 20 years of experience as a forensic psychologist and certified threat manager to bear in an effort to help leaders, organizations, employees and communities heal, optimize and ultimately thrive before, during, and after disrupti