I’ve talked previously about why organisational culture is so important to really see a positive shift in Mental Health at work.
What do I mean by that?
Research defines culture as “gained knowledge, explanations, values, beliefs, communication and behaviours”. The same research concludes that the reason why some organisations succeed, and other fail – is culture. In other words, organisations focussing solely on strategy will not be as successful as those who adapt their culture in response to industry and economic changes. I was given an alarming statistic that leaders know around 4% of the issues happening at any point in time, meaning 96% of issues are known to and being resolved by employees, yet leadership have the strongest influence on the direction of the business. Even more alarming is that less than 1% of leaders consult employees when making major changes. If this is true and I can believe it to be honest, why aren’t employees involved in the decision making process and evolution of an organisation?
When it comes to mental health, values of honesty, empathy and unconditional positive regard for others are key. It’s not enough to talk about these values, leadership need to genuinely believe them and act in a way that demonstrates the belief; the communication element.
Honesty in the context of leadership in the workplace is about integrity and openness more than just truth telling. I worked for large organisations that in public and to the masses talked a great talk but behind closed doors did the opposite. I must be honest(!) that was the turning point for me, the point when I wondered how long I could stay working in corporate organisations. I’ve had more conversations that I can count with others who have experienced similar across many different industries, so it’s not isolated. I don’t think a raft of quotes, research and evidence is necessary to prove that employees who trust and believe in their leadership will firstly hang around, and secondly are far more likely to be productive.
Empathy is the ability to step into someone else’s shoes to see their world through their eyes. Active listening is a key skill, alongside the ability to understand others, to see things from their perspective and to acknowledge their views. When an employee feels listened to and understood, they are far more likely to be bought into the goals of the organisation even if they don’t necessarily agree with them. Empathy is not the same as sympathy, which is a feeling of commiseration.
Unconditional positive regard is the ability to be non-judgemental. We all have unconscious bias; experiences from our lives that give us our belief system. We judge people on TV, walking down the street, the server in a shop all unconsciously. We set conditions of worth, which means we set our own personal standards and judge people, places, material items against those standards. i.e. it/you/they are worthy if…. (the condition). Becoming fully aware of these judgements and criticisms, acknowledging them and replacing them with compassion and acceptance will shed a huge amount of weight, baggage, head noise whatever you want to call it.
So, if these are the core values of a culture which will support Mental Fitness and Wellbeing, then what type of culture doesn’t? Obviously, the opposite of honesty, empathy and unconditional positive regard apply here but what else?
In our leadership model, those who are really engaged, take the time and actively participate in the Mental Fitness strategy. Conversely those who are resistant deny any existence of mental health issues, they see the problem as someone else’s. Employee participation is therefore negligible because there is no belief that anything will change.
At the farthest end of the scale, there are some leaders who refuse to see the importance of Mental Fitness intervention. They actively disrupt employee attempts to implement anything as they see other tasks as much more important. Here, there is real risk of negative attitudes escalating into greater sickness absence and ultimately customer dissatisfaction.
We work with leadership to help them establish and implement a vision for Mental Fitness at work. The process challenges beliefs, current working methods and behaviours but with that comes a long term and permanent way of working that will protect your employees and your business.
Thanks for reading,
Kirsty
Reference: Kotter, J.P. and Heskett, J.L. (1992) Corporate Culture and Performance. Free Press, New York.
