Your team member is facing emotional challenges at work. How can you offer support without crossing the line?

Nothing is better than listen actively for a person facing emotional challenges. If you pay attention and do active listening, person get comfortable and feel that he / she is not alone. In this scenario, when the whole world is crazy to be successful and materialistic, an active listening become the boon during emotional challenges. This is one of the initial steps towards showing the Empathy also.

Sometimes all it takes to get better is being listened to , understood and not being judged. It is important to avoid wanting to fix anything for the person, active listening and empathy goes a long way by remaining professional and respecting any boundaries.

The work for situations like these needs to happen long before this type of thing comes to the surface. The pre-work is taking the time to co-create a psychologically safe team space where the members of the team are able to slowly build up trust and get to the point where they are able to confide in you and you are able to confide in them. I always say that most people won’t feel comfortable talking with you about their mental health if you haven’t taken steps long in advance to get to know them, their significant other, their kids, their pets, and what they do with their spare time. If this work is done, then there will be not much more than the stigma of mental health getting in the way of you supporting a team member.

Encouraging self-care can also mean asking the person to go for lunch together or taking a long walk and just having an open ear for them. Social bonding is a kind of self-care. Although it might be less preferred by introverts, trying to offer authentic connection can go a long way to helping the person refocus on what’s important for them.

If you want to provide the best guidance about balance it always should begin by asking questions, not providing solutions. Most people have a strong sense of what they need and it just needs to be brought to the surface by asking powerful questions. When a person discovers the solution on their own, with a little guidance, then it is more likely to be the right one and one that they will stick with.

If you have built a relationship where someone is taking the time to confide in you then they may have also done the same with other team members. After the person has explained their circumstances to you then ask them how they would like you to handle communication to the other team members. Don’t make assumptions they want it to be private, it is up to them to decide how this is handled moving forward. And make sure that you continue to ask about how to handle communication to the team after every conversation you have. Some people like full transparency to avoid ‘gossip’ and others prefer confidentiality. Let the person decide what they want.