Co-founder and CEO of the email app Front, Collin worried not just about how her business would weather the crisis and how her 180 employees across three offices would cope — she was preoccupied with her own wellbeing, as she was three months pregnant with her first child.

In an attempt to appear a fearless leader, some CEOs might try to hide their emotions and suffer in silence. Collin had another plan — she made a virtual appointment with her therapist, scheduled a hypnosis session and deleted Twitter from her phone. She also shared everything she was going through with her employees. “As a business leader, if you can be vulnerable in front of your team, even when society or popular opinion might tell you to show resolve, you will build a more trusting, empathetic team, and it will drive better business outcomes too,” she said.

Much has been written about the very real struggles of employees during COVID-19. Getting far less attention has been the equally serious strain company leaders have found themselves under.

A survey by Verizon Media and the mental health nonprofit Made of Millions sheds new light on the emotional impact the pandemic has had on management. Fully 66% of bosses polled said they suffered from burnout over the past year, while 76% felt overwhelmed managing their people. While most (86%) acknowledged that depression and grief have become more pervasive in the workplace overall, nearly one-third (28%) reported suffering from mental health issues themselves. Just 58% of managers described their state of mental wellbeing as “healthy,” and fewer than half of those (49%) who run a small business did.

The upshot: management found itself largely ill-prepared to help workers navigate the global health crisis, as bosses strained to juggle their own wellbeing with ensuring the wellness of their people and keeping business on track during one of the most challenging times in modern history.

“Managers lack the language and the permission to be able to more effectively support their staffs and to ask for help,” said Aaron Harvey, co-founder and executive director of Made of Millions. “There’s a lot of groundwork that needs to be done between managers and employees to better support mental health in the workplace.”

Leaders we reached out to were eager to share their own experiences and their roadmaps for bosses coping with stress, as the pandemic winds down and business returns to some normalcy.

Claire Jones, svp of operations in Canada for the global programmatic ad firm MiQ, advises executives to take regular breaks from looking at a screen — ideally heading outside, where, for example, one can do business calls while taking a walk. She also …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron