During the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 disease, around half of US workers admitted to experiencing mental health issues. Leaders are certainly not immune to this experience amidst the challenges of running a business. However, the reality is that without a healthy and psychologically sound leader, an enterprise cannot thrive. Take some time to focus on the emotional wellness of your team.
Many people have experienced both ups and downs with emotional health and have learned to manage it better. Two critical practices used are transparency and ownership. It’s natural to focus on the good in life. However, ignoring the bad can allow stress and anxiety to build beneath the surface. Encourage your employees to express frustrations and stressful situations. Excessive negativity isn’t helpful either, but if you promote an environment where people are afraid to be anything less than positive, you might end up with employees harboring resentment.
Being Transparent
Keep your employees in the loop about developments in the company that might affect them. Pandemic effects have led many companies to downsize and change processes, and employees don’t want to learn about these things at the last minute. Your team is often more intuitive than you think–if the management is stressed, they’ll pick up on it. Rather than letting speculation and anxiety build, communicate with them. Even if you don’t have answers or details, just acknowledging that things are stressful and uncertain will help them feel heard.
Taking Ownership
The second key to keeping good mental health is taking responsibility for what goes wrong. When things go wrong, leaders are those who take ownership. As a leader, you have to own up to your mistakes and learn from them. It motivates leaders to hire people with integrity and create companies that excel by attracting and keeping talented individuals.
As a leader, inevitably, you will make decisions that don’t play out as expected. Whether you snap at an employee or make a catastrophic business decision, you must own up to your mistakes and apologize to the people affected. You set the tone of your team, so if you aren’t being honest and taking responsibility for your actions, your team probably won’t either.
These two steps will help you foster a healthy emotional environment in your workplace.