It’s Time to Talk to Your Team About Mental Health

RAMSEY KHABBAZ: Welcome to HBR on Leadership, case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. I’m Ramsey Khabbaz, an editor here at HBR. This month, we’re highlighting four of the best HBR podcast episodes on leadership from 2023, curated by me. The business world is beginning to recognize the importance of mental health. That’s why writer, entrepreneur, and podcast host Morra Aarons-Mele says that the more we understand and talk about our own mental health, the better we are as managers and colleagues. In this episode, you’ll get tips on how to work with and through your anxiety. And if you’re a senior leader or a human resources professional, you’ll learn ways to help your organization make your employees’ mental health a priority. This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in April 2023.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard. The global pandemic did a lot of damage, physically, economically, socially, but at least one positive change that has come out of it is greater awareness of and more public discussion about the importance of mental health. Big-name athletes, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, have pushed the conversation forward by talking about their own struggles, and we’ve seen an explosion of corporate wellness programs, as well as businesses focused on therapy, meditation, or mindfulness. Today’s guest welcomes that progress, but says we still have more work to do, especially when it comes to our professional lives. She wants to see us do a better job of normalizing things like anxiety, and says that leaders in organizations should not only talk more openly about mental ill health, but also acknowledge the ways that people grow and learn from these challenges if they figure out how to manage them correctly. Morra Aarons-Mele is a consultant, podcaster, and the author of the new book, The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower. Hi, Morra.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Hi, Alison.

ALISON BEARD: So, as I said, although there’s a lot more awareness about the prevalence of mental ill health, there’s still stigma around it. Why are you turning that on its head and calling it a superpower?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I think it’s time to reframe anxiety. Depression’s tougher, so let’s just focus on anxiety. Sometimes anxiety is a superpower because anxiety activates us. It can give us tremendous energy. It can give us focus. We all know that feeling of being about to walk onto a stage, or about to give a presentation, or do something we really care about, and we feel anxious. And this is good. This means that we bring a level of energy and purpose to the work. On the other hand, anxiety can be awful. It can be debilitating. It can be painful. It can cause you to lose focus, lose joy, and worry all the time. That’s not a superpower. But when you stop burying, ignoring, or acting out anxiety and take the time to learn from what it’s telling you, it’s data. You become so much stronger and more resilient in many different ways, and I believe that’s when you get the leadership superpower.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, and I think that people can understand this concept of anxious achiever: never thinking you’re good enough, always planning for worst case scenarios… All of these things can turn you into a terrific performer. Because you’re terrified of failing, so you’re going to do everything you can to not. And you are a self-described anxious achiever. How do you start to find the right balance? Embracing that good anxiety, but making sure you don’t let it get to the debilitating side.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: That’s the life’s work. And you know, I interview lots of high achievers who often say that for them, their anxiety is like their oxygen. That for as long as they can remember the sense of, “I have to do more. I have to be the best. I can’t stop now. If I fail, I’m not worth it.” The high stakes they put on themselves, they often credit for a lot of their achievements, as you said. On the other hand, this takes a toll. It takes a toll on their mental health. It takes a toll on their joy, on their relationships, on all the good things, on our physical health. And so, that’s the challenge, is how do you develop a relationship with your anxiety? Such that you can say, “All right, I need you now. Let’s do this. We’re on deadline.” And then, when anxiety shows up in a place that is not helpful, when you flub a number in your presentation and you instantly think, “Oh, that’s it. I’m going to get fired.” You have the muscles built and the skills to say, “Go away right now. Not helpful.”

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, talk a little bit about your own experience in recognizing that you were suffering from anxiety and needed to do something about it. That it was helping you in certain areas, but you needed to tame it in others.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah. I would say that for me, my anxiety disorder has been with me my entire adult life. I first was clinically diagnosed with anxiety at age 19. I was also very depressed at the time. And off and on, since then, it’s been a defining factor of my career and my life. So, I had no choice but to not ignore it. It was in my way. I was in therapy. I took different meds. I tried lots of different jobs. It was only until my 30s that I realized, I had to make peace with my anxiety at some level. I’m wired this way. I wake up every morning and I’m wired for a 12. And that’s who I am, and I like that. But at the same time, when I’m tipping over into dysfunctional category or I’m limiting what I can do because of my anxiety, that’s when I need to look at it. And I need to take care of myself.

ALISON BEARD: And you are not a trained psychologist, but I’d love to ask you, how does someone make the decision that they can handle this on their own or they really do need professional help?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah. I’ll say right now, my bias is that therapy is a life skill and I wish everyone had access to it. I think that anything that leads you to greater self-awareness is such a gift. And we know that from leadership study, that self-aware leaders are the kind of people we want to work for. And so, when you examine your mental health, you gain tremendous self-awareness. But we can’t always access that. I think the key – And anxiety exists along a spectrum, all of mental health does. At one level, you might have anxiety that is debilitating. That is, I can’t leave my bed. I’m having panic attacks. I can’t even go to work because I’m so anxious, I can’t function. You definitely need professional help and a lot of support. At the other end, you have very little anxiety. Maybe you’re just lying on the couch watching Netflix. Or maybe you have that good anxiety, that activating anxiety. I think a lot of us right now are in the middle. We have moderate anxiety that we walk around with. We notice it’s getting in our way a lot, and it’s also pushing us forward. And we’re trying to figure out, what is my relationship with this going to be? And where I see the need to understand this from a corporate level, from a business level, is that so many people act out their anxieties mindlessly at work. And we take it out on each other, and it’s contagious. And that’s why it’s imperative that we start talking about anxiety in the context of work, because we bring our whole selves to work. And sometimes that whole self is really anxious, and sometimes it’s a jerk.

ALISON BEARD: So as someone who wants to do better myself at work or lead a team, how do I diagnose that anxiety is becoming a problem, needs to be talked about more, needs to be better harnessed?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I think for yourself as a leader, becoming really tuned in and open to when you get anxious, what it feels like in your body and in your brain, and the specific situations that might trigger you is hugely valuable. Anxiety is normal. We all feel it. It’s part of leadership. It’s part of taking risks and doing new things. And I think the key is being a little bit willing to sit in the discomfort and say, “This is making me really anxious.” Why am I avoiding calling this person back? Why do I get nauseous when I see this person’s name pop up in my email inbox? We’ve all had that experience. And sometimes we might slam the laptop and say, “That’s it. I’m going out. I’m ignoring this.” Sometimes we might get perfectionistic, and we might spend an hour crafting a response to this person because we’re so anxious about it. The magic is in being able to say, “Wow, this is making me really anxious.” I’m reacting in this certain way, am I reacting in a way that helps me, that’s adaptive for me? We can’t control who’s going to make us anxious. We can’t control life’s stressors. Every morning when I look at the news, when I hear of layoffs, when I see what’s happening with the banks and the climate, I am beset with a sense of anticipatory anxiety of, “Oh my God, I have no control. Everything is so uncertain.” We can’t control that. What we can do is say, “This is making me anxious.” And instead of slamming that inbox shut, or grabbing a Snickers, or reaching for the vodka, or going and running 10 miles, or calling my assistant and screaming at my assistant… I’m going to take a beat and choose how I respond.

ALISON BEARD: So, what is a more adaptive response? What’s a better way to respond to that feeling of dread?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: The better way is what works for you. It’s all personal, and we’re all human, and our brain is actually trying to help us. When we reach for that Snickers bar, our brain senses that we’re anxious, we’re uncomfortable… And it has learned over time that if she eats something sweet, she feels better. So, let’s go reach for that Snickers bar, and then she’ll feel better and I’ll have done my job. And that’s great. We all need some Snickers sometimes. But if that becomes your pattern, instead of actually dealing with what’s making you anxious, that can be not adaptive. And so, I think the question is to ask, am I eating this Snickers consciously? Is this a reflexive reaction that I’ve been doing for years? A lot of us, we launch into perfectionism because that’s what we’ve been doing for years when we feel anxious.

ALISON BEARD: And it’s rewarded us.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: It’s rewarded us, so it’s a cycle. We learn that when we perform, we’re good. And we want to be good… And so, the next time we’re anxious that we’re not going to be good, what do we do? We over-perform. And so, that’s the question, is breaking that reflexive reaction and saying, “What would be actually good for me right now?” And also good for my team?

ALISON BEARD: And so, we’ve talked about self-awareness, but what about being aware that this is happening to people you work with, people you manage? How do you get inside their heads and try to help them?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’ll never forget, I had a guest on my podcast, Steve Cuss, who’s a pastor. And he said, “Mansplaining is anxiety.” I was like, “Tell me how.” And he said, “A lot of men feel they need to be the smartest person in the room, and they get very anxious when they feel that being challenged. And so, what do they do? They mansplain.” And so, my point here is that, it’s always helpful for leaders to start with that self-awareness. How am I acting out my own anxiety? Because it is contagious. So, it could be really helpful. And again, this takes a lot of practice and awareness to say, “What is my anxiety doing to other people?” I knew, for years, that I had a problem with my team. When I would get anxious about whether a client was happy or not, I would get all up in my team’s inboxes. How’s it coming? Can I see a draft? Are we going to make that deadline? Micromanaging, classic anxiety reaction. That was not serving my team. I think the next piece is having productive conversations in a team. There’s a third piece. And this is about understanding and acknowledging the system that you work in. Mental health is very intersectional. Those of us who work in organizations, work in organizations that probably have long-held biases, inequality, racism, patriarchy, you name it. And when you are perhaps an “other” in the organization, or you’re an only, or you don’t have much status, you face anxiety, for real. And when you work in an organization where customer service is the number one value, and that means that you’re not allowed to go to the bathroom and take breaks, you’re probably anxious. And so, our organizations and the systems we work in have a big piece of it too. And so, the leader who really wants to tackle this looks at their own actions… They help their team have helpful conversations, and they also take account of the system and culture in which they work and how that affects people’s mental health, because it really does.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. So, let’s talk more about those conversations. If I’m someone who is struggling with anxiety and I want to talk to my manager, how do I do that? And then, we’ll do the flip and talk about how a manager should talk to their team.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah, and there’s definitely no one-size-fits-all. I think that this is… In the field of workplace mental health, all of this is evolving so quickly. Managers have had to skill-up so quickly in this area, and it’s very challenging. But if you’re an employee and you are really struggling with anxiety or your mental health in general, such that it is impacting your ability to deliver great work… Pick a time, one-on-one, and you can talk to your manager. And you can say, “I’m struggling. I’ve been having a hard time.” You don’t need to give them the details. A lot of us, myself included, feel like we need to over-explain.

ALISON BEARD: I’m very good at that.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: No, you don’t understand. I feel this way, and then I went to my psychiatrist, and it’s this… You don’t need to do that. I’m struggling. I’m having a hard time. I think I need to adjust my schedule, get more time on a deadline, take a couple days off… If you don’t feel like your manager is someone safe, you can go to HR. That’s their job. Or you can… If you have a trusted ally who can help you, you can do that. I think the conversation gets scary for managers when they think that they’re going to be in a staff meeting and everyone is just going to start talking about their anxiety in the meeting. And it’s going to feel out of control, and there’s no boundaries. And oh my gosh, I feel like this is group therapy, but I’m not a therapist. Nobody wants that. So, I think really doing it in the appropriate setting and from a framework of, “This is what I need,” without giving away too many details is powerful.

ALISON BEARD: Let’s talk about managers, who, as you said, have had to become therapists over the past couple of years. I think there’s a greater realization that that’s part of your job, is to care about the emotional lives of your employees, but it can feel overwhelming. So, how have you seen people figure out a way to have these conversations with their team members but then not be doing what you said, you know, in psychoanalysis for every one-on-one meeting.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah, a manager should not be their team’s therapist. That’s not appropriate. It’s not what they’re trained for. That’s not the job. And so, one of the things that I like is that, at the team level, I am seeing more training for this stuff, literal conversation training. Because a lot of this stuff is about powerful communication, and that’s what’s awesome about it. Because when you have better communication, you have better teamwork. You have more psychological safety. You have all the good things. So, I think that companies are being proactive and trying to give managers tools. That said, it’s really a difficult conversation, and it takes practice. I think what managers may not be being given is time to actually fit this in. But I think that what all the literature says is that modeling mentally healthy practices is the first step. And so, so much of this, like psychological safety, happens at the team level. So, a manager comes in and they’re like, “Oh, man. I didn’t sleep so well last night.” What they’re really saying is they’re being vulnerable. They’re opening the door to a conversation about how other people are feeling and signaling that it’s okay. We can share now. That’s a simple way to do it. A lot of managers now are putting their therapy appointments on their schedules. That’s a bold move. But if you’re not ready to do that, you could put your workout on your schedule, showing that you take time. And so, there are lots of ways that don’t scream therapy and psychoanalysis for managers to show that they value mental health and they value mentally healthy practices.

ALISON BEARD: So, you mentioned organizational systems. What can HR, or even the C-suite do, to ensure a more mentally healthy workforce?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: HR is where the rubber meets the road, in terms of making sure there are benefits in place, making sure that people are aware of systems. So many companies, for years, have had employee assistance programs, but the utilization rate on them is so low. How can we actually get people using this? And I think that’s something that’s really changed. And certainly, the innovation of corporate subscriptions to things like Talkspace, and Lyra Health, and services that are at the enterprise level is really good. So, HR should be responsible, in a larger organization, for making sure that mentally healthy benefits are in place and that employees know about them. The other thing, and I’ve talked to a lot of HR leaders about this very topic. The other thing that HR can be really helpful for, and it can be challenging because in a lot of organizations, there’s not a lot of trust in HR. But when it comes to mental health, HR exists for a manager to facilitate a safe transition of an employee over to HR. And so, if you’re a manager and you have a team member who is in crisis, who people are saying, “This person’s not okay,” or who comes to you and says, “I’m not okay.” It’s okay for you as the manager to call your HR partner. They’re meant to come step in and facilitate. So, I love that.

ALISON BEARD: So how should a manager make a decision about whether it’s time to hand off to HR?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I think that if it’s a problem the manager can’t solve or that feels needs more urgent attention than they are able to give, that’s when HR can play a really valuable role. When I interviewed Daisy Auger-Domínguez, she said something really great, which is, you don’t want the employee to feel like you’re just wiping your hands of them, especially if they’re struggling. And so, you could say, “Can I walk you to HR? Can we set up a meeting together?” Whatever you feel is appropriate, so that the employee knows that you as the manager aren’t just trying to get rid of them, but that you really want to facilitate them getting help.

ALISON BEARD: And that you also want a professional to advise on what the appropriate response is to this particular need.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Absolutely. And then, at the C-suite, and this is where my total passion lies, is where we start talking. And we break the stigma and the stereotypes. I still have a really hard time, after all these years I’ve been doing The Anxious Achiever, getting people in charge of publicly traded companies or people with big jobs to come on my show and say, “I have an anxiety disorder. I’ve been depressed.” Why? It’s conflated with weakness. They’re worried the stock’s going to tank or the board won’t be confident in them. Nothing is really going to change about workplace mental health until that story changes.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. But you have seen, as I mentioned in the intro, some really high-profile athletes take time off. You’ve seen John Fetterman, the US Senator from Pennsylvania, right after being elected, post suffering a stroke, check himself in to Walter Reed for treatment for depression. So why do you think that it’s been so hard for the stigma to fall away in business when it’s clearly falling away in these other fields?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I had an executive on my podcast just recently, Jimmy Horowitz, who’s the Vice Chairman of Business Affairs at NBCUniversal. Big job. Big job. 47 billion market cap… He does all the deals. And Jimmy suffered from clinical depression in silence at work for almost a year. And he said to me, “The creatives are allowed to talk about mental health.” The artists. “They’re creative, but I’m a business guy. I’m in charge of our balance sheet. If I say that I’m depressed, will people trust me?” And then one day, he realized I can’t hide this anymore. I have to tell people. And he told people, and it was fine. And so again, it’s about breaking long-held stereotypes of what a leader is that has to change. And so, I really encourage people who have status within an organization, who have influence, who have power, to tell their stories. And they don’t have to say, again, “I checked into a hospital.” But they can say, “It’s a really difficult time right now. The market’s all over the place. Layoffs are happening. We don’t know what’s going on.” Uncertainty is the number one cause of anxiety for many people. Address uncertainty and how it’s impacting you.

ALISON BEARD:So I have two follow-ups on that. One is, it’s obviously harder when you’re from a minority group in an organization.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yes.

ALISON BEARD: To be vulnerable in that way. So, what advice do you give to people in those categories about sharing their own stories?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I think it’s a really personal choice. I think that if you feel that sharing your story, even if there’s a price to pay, is what you want to do, if it’s within your value system… I think that’s great. I also think you don’t have to. I think that there are a lot of ERG groups, employee resource groups, and safe spaces, increasingly at companies where people can come together. And I think that if you feel comfortable sharing your story with your manager, that’s great too. But I think that – I just spoke with this Stanford sociologist, Marianne Cooper, about this. She looks at status within organizations and how that affects equity, and promotion, and leadership, and all this stuff. She said to me, “Our society’s unfair, and corporations are biased. And if you are from a group that traditionally has less status, or for whatever reason you are holding less status, it’s not your job to disclose unless you want to.”

ALISON BEARD: You talked about layoffs, market, dynamics… So when the anxiety is coming from the building, so to speak… The organization itself is causing the anxiety, how should managers deal with that?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I just had this great visual of the whole organization, like the building wincing with all the anxiety. I think this is a time for real leadership. It’s an opportunity to say, “These are really tough times.” I have a great example in my book of a leader at Avalara during the pandemic when it first started and everyone was wondering, am I going to lose my job? Am I ever coming back to work? All the questions… So much uncertainty, so much anxiety. And she had a staff meeting for her team. And she said, “Look, I cannot tell you what’s happening six months from now. I don’t have a crystal ball. I’m anxious too, but I’ve got this half hour with you. We’re going to put it all on the table. I’m going to take it away, and I’m going to make a plan.” We can only control what we can. A lot of anxious leaders try to control everything. And in a lot of ways, that’s human nature. But the powerful leadership lesson of right now is, how can I control what I can, show that I’m vulnerable too, but have that competency that makes people trust me?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, it is a really difficult time. And I think of everyone’s responses to the pandemic, and to some degree, it was very much an anxious achiever response in that we all really threw ourselves into work because we didn’t quite know what else to do with ourselves. But you can only sustain that for a certain amount of time. So for organizations who are dealing with crisis, upon crisis, upon crisis. What are you seeing the best managers and leaders do to make people feel better and protect people’s mental health?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: One of my guests said, “We’re not just burnt out. We’re burnt crispy.”

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, exactly.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: And I think for a lot of sectors, it just never let up. And I think we’ve also come to the place where we realize that inbox zero is not the cure. And so, I think companies need to take a step back and refocus expectations. So much of anxiety is driven by expectations. Either the expectations we feel are placed on us because that’s how we were raised. The expectations other people put on us… And when we modulate expectations, people can breathe a little bit. And so, I think it really comes down to setting boundaries, setting clear goals, defining what success is, so people really know what success is and aren’t anxiously overworking to try to get there, and reigning things in a little bit.

ALISON BEARD: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. I hope that we’ve helped some other anxious achievers out there.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Thank you so much.

ALISON BEARD: That’s Morra Aarons-Mele, a podcast host, consultant, and author of the new book The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower. And we have more episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career. Find them at hbr.org/podcasts or search HBR, and Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Mary Dooe. We get technical help from Rob Eckhardt. Our audio product manager is Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates is our audio production assistant. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I’m Alison Beard.

RAMSEY KHABBAZ: That was writer, entrepreneur, and podcast host Morra Aarons-Mele in conversation with Alison Beard on the HBR IdeaCast. Aarons-Mele is the author of the book The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower, and she hosts a podcast with the same name. Next Wednesday, Hannah Bates will be back with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review. We’re a production of Harvard Business Review – if you want more articles, case studies, books, and videos like this, find it all at HBR dot org. This episode was produced by Mary Dooe, Anne Saini, and Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. And I’m your guest host, Ramsey Khabbaz. Special thanks to Rob Eckhardt, Maureen Hoch, Adi Ignatius, Karen Player, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. Happy new year!