Your Boss and Your Mental Health: Is There a Connection?
"According to the Mayo Clinic, the person you report to at work is more important for your health than your family doctor." – A quote from Jeffery Pfeffer's book ‘Dying for a Paycheck’.
Gallup found that the manager or team leader alone accounts for 70% of the variance in team engagement. “The role of the manager is really important in wellbeing,” Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace management and wellbeing at Gallup, told CNBC*.
I was shocked when I first came across this data. How can a professional relationship have so profound impact on our well-being? However, upon reflection, I found it to be true. I thrived both professionally and personally when I worked with supportive and empowering managers and on the contrary, experienced high levels of stress while working with authoritarian and controlling managers.
I suspect, most of you will concur with this observation. There is ample data that shows a significant number of people change jobs due to bad managers.
Path to People's Manager
Unlike becoming a subject matter expert in an area, leading people is one of the hardest roles and most people are not naturally good at it.
We start our career in a particular functional area such as engineering or finance. As we grow in our careers and progress from individual contributors to team leaders, we are entrusted with bigger responsibilities and team management. With ongoing training and practice, we become more polished in the area of our functional expertise, however, many organizations do not provide enough training to prepare employees to become people’s managers. As a result, without structured training and a consistent framework, managers perform their roles as they interpret, based on their own values.
For many managers, having direct reports is a sign of their power and they relish operating with authority and control. To achieve their goals, they become fixated on the operational side that drives their KPIs. For sure, managers are entrusted with greater responsibility and are expected to deliver results, however, many often overlook the human factor. People management is an afterthought for many organizations.
What it Means to Be a People’s Leader
Being in a position of leadership is a privilege, not an entitlement. Sadly, many managers fail to realize how their behaviors and attitudes impact other human beings (their staff).
Leaders have the immense power to influence team dynamics. They can achieve great results either by inspiring and uplifting their team or by pushing, coercing, and intimidating. Of course, the former is a more sustainable approach. How one acts depends on the level of awareness and empathy. Unfortunately, in most organizations, there are no KPIs or oversight of how one manages the team, though there are clear KPIs for business goals. As a result, there is no standardization and each manager operates in his/her own style.
If you are a people manager, you must recognize the unique responsibility of your role. Your knee-jerk reaction to a situation can spoil an employee’s whole day and the impact can also spill over the family life when that person goes home and interacts with their family members. This is beautifully captured in the book “How Will You Measure Your Life?” by Clayton Christensen-
“If done well, management is among the most noble of professions. You are in a position where you have eight or ten hours every day from every person who works for you. You have the opportunity to frame each person’s work so that, at the end of every day, your employees will go home feeling like Diana felt on her good day: living a life filled with motivators.”
How Leaders Can Help?
Innovations are continuing to improve our quality of life; however, the fast-paced, result-driven, and competitive culture is contributing to the mental health crisis globally. People spend a significant amount of their time at workplaces. Business leaders and line managers who have the privilege of leading people must be aware of their influence on people’s mental and emotional well-being. By being intentional, they can create a sustainable growth engine for the organization as well as help their team members grow and thrive in their professional journey.
If you are a team manager, it may be helpful to pause, reflect, and ask yourself, "Am I leading my people, the way I would like to be led?"