Minding your team’s mental health

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, a cause very close to my heart.

Regular readers will know that I’ve struggled in the past, and I was devastate to learn that our region, the North East, has the highest rate of suicide in the country.

Figures like this are why I firmly believe that mental health is everyone’s business; as business leaders, we shouldn’t assume it’s someone else problem.

A good leader looks after his or her people and a good leader, I would hope, notices when people’s behaviour changes.

Think about it; we spend most of our lives at work and, in many ways, form close bonds with our colleagues, meaning they’re well placed to notice when something doesn’t seem quite right.

I recently talked to Catherine Devereux, from the Headlight Project, about her work to raise awareness of mental health, after her husband, Russ, took his own life in 2018.

The Headlight Project aims to create some good out of this tragedy, working with employers, schools and communities to empower people to spot the signs that someone is headed for crisis point.

I asked her what leaders can do to try and help make their workplace better for people’s mental health.

She told me: “We all spend a lot of time at work, so colleagues and business leaders are often the people you have most contact with during the week. To make a working environment safe, particularly in terms of promoting better mental health, you need to create a culture where you are able to have that communication with your employees and make that time for them.

“Alternatively, you can facilitate your team having the time and space to get together and talk, so that those early signs can be noticed.”

And what are the signs to look out for? Well, everyone is different, and reacts differently to stress, but here, too, Catherine says colleagues are often in a better position to notice changes.

She said: “If someone is feeling under pressure, or having intrusive thoughts, they may not vocalise that at home they’re trying to protect their family. With this in mind, workplaces are often another good environment where you may well notice that somebody’s behaviour is slightly different: they’re withdrawn, they’re tired, they’re not eating, or they have a higher level of absence.”

At the Headlight Project, Catherine and the team’s aim is to empower people to have those difficult conversations surrounding mental health, even being so blunt as to ask someone if they’re having suicidal thoughts.

I know from my own experience that struggling with your mental health can feel like failure, and it’s not something you’ll be shouting from the rooftops.

But I also know that if someone had honestly, bluntly asked how I was feeling, and if I was having thoughts of taking my own life, it would have been very hard to pretend to be fine. And maybe I would have got help sooner, before I hit rock bottom.

That’s why I’m so proud to be supporting the work of the Headlight Project, using my skills and experience to help the team achieve their goals more quickly and safely than they otherwise might have.

Suicide is the biggest killer of young men, a stark reminder that the Headlight Project has a very important job to do.

We all need it to be successful.