Why does the mental health conversation rarely make it to the C-suite? Burnout and other mental health challenges are real issues at the senior leader and executive level but no one seems to be talking about it. Sandra Boyd urges organizations to remove the stigma and start focusing on mental health initiatives for senior leadership & executives.
Mental health doesn’t discriminate. Leaders are no less susceptible to emotional wellness challenges, in fact, they are more prone than their employee counterparts.
While support for mental health in the workplace has become much more commonplace now, there remains a gap between the extent that leaders tap into support versus employees.
This anecdote of a client demonstrates what many leaders experience:
An SVP at a company well known for its support of mental health, explained she had been suffering from panic attacks for over two years and despite the company’s public stance in support of mental health, there had never been a discussion about mental health at their senior leadership level.
She knew that many leaders felt burned out and were in a state of perpetual exhaustion. One day she had a very personal conversation with a peer of 10 years and found out he was suffering from anxiety and depression as well.
Finding an ally gave them confidence to approach the CEO to ask for leaders to be included in their upcoming mental health initiative. The CEO reacted in a manner that was both shocking and telling “if employees feel we are breaking down at a leadership level they will not have faith in us or our decisions”.
With that, the conversation ended, and they dared not push the subject further.
During the early period of the pandemic, the mental health of managers was lower than non-managers, and since then, the rates have remained on par, and both have experienced a decline over the past quarter of 2023. According to a 2023 study by Headspace, almost half of employees reported feeling a sense of dread at work at least once a week, which increased to up to 60% for executives and CEOs.
Bring back the breakdown
An article in the 2021 edition of the Atlantic proclaimed, “Bring back the nervous breakdown”, when it used to be common and okay to admit the world had simply become too much and a time-out entailed. John D. Rockefeller Jr., Jane Addams, and Max Weber all had acknowledged breakdowns, and re-emerged to do their best work. But society now doesn’t respect rest. Many leaders feel they don’t have a right to complain, given they knowingly stepped into higher pressure roles that come with high demands and expectations.
The rates of leadership burnout are extremely hard to identify because few executives publicly acknowledge burnout. As Deloitte expressed in their workplace burnout study, burnout has become a dirty word. But some research has shown that executives are twice as likely to experience depression as compared to normal occurrence rates (J. Barnard, Narcissism, Over-Optimism, Fear, Anger, and Depression: The Interior Lives of Corporate Leaders, 2008).
The consequences of neglecting mental health of executives can be severe—decreased productivity, impaired decision-making abilities, and strained relationships with colleagues and employees.
How of offer support
Supporting your leaders is the same as supporting your employees with an additional element of removing the stigma of asking for help. Ideally, you may want to:
- identify other senior leaders who can serve as role models and share their stories of using mental health benefits and support
- advocate the use of executive coaches, who are not therapists but serve as advisors that senior leaders can speak to without violating confidentiality
- raise self-awareness so they are better able to acknowledge their own tendencies and pro-actively identify when they are heading into “brownout”
- train them to do things differently, and build in time for the important things they need in their lives, such as sleep and exercise
These actions not only support your leaders, they also have a positive ripple effect to the entire organization, other leaders and employees. Leading by example is one of the best ways to support a culture of mental wellness.
Our Contributors
Sandra Boyd is a Managing Director of the Organizational & Talent Development practice at B. Riley Farber. Her experience lies in partnering with individuals and organizations to anticipate and understand their needs and to develop innovative solutions for building leadership teams, employee engagement & performance, executive coaching, and career transition & outplacement. Sandra can be reached at [email protected] or at 647.968.6706