11 Psychological Skills Leaders Need to Know

This Thursday I will be doing a talk on Optimizing Team Mental Health for Leaders. So mental health has been on my mind.

We all know that rates of mental health issues are still incredibly high. This matters to business because, without mental health teams do not have a solid foundation.

If your organization does not support employee mental health, you will inevitably face a crisis in the future.

Let's be honest, most organizations do not support employee mental health. This survey, conducted by Blind, asked employees the following question:

Do you believe your employer supports your mental health?

Personally, I think this is a massive opportunity for growth for leaders. This is a solvable problem. Psychology has been solving this with well-researched protocols.

In my talk, I will speak about what leaders can do to improve the mental health of their teams. But in my experience, this is missing an important step.

First, a great leader needs to make sure their own mental health is optimal. This is the foundation for effective leadership and, without it, no amount of executive presence and communication skills training will work.

A leader that has not done the work to optimize their own mind will project onto team members. They will allow their insecurities to control them and threaten the psychological safety of their team.

They will make poor decisions driven by overcompensation mechanisms and they will engage in overthinking due to anxiety.

I see on a regular basis how incredibly intelligent and capable leaders fall prey to their own psychology and allow self-sabotaging thoughts to derail them from their goals.

This is why I am starting to implement an updated coaching protocol for my clients which incorporates psychology education.

How do we expect people to lead without understanding their own minds and the minds of others?

It continues to shock me how little psychological knowledge is present in the education system. Not because this is my background, but because in my experience, this is the most important thing to learn.

Through trial and error, I have found these theories and concepts to be critical in shaping effective leadership:

1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
2. Locus of Control
3. Self Determination Theory
4. Behaviors as a result of poor impulse control
5. Broaden and Build Theory
6. Fear and worry as psychological avoidance
7. Psychological time
8. Normalizing negative emotions and meta emotions
9. Motivational triad
10. Narrative Coaching
11. Self Compassion Theory

In the past psychological knowledge would be considered a soft skill, something of a luxury. These are no longer luxuries but necessities for thriving and productive organizations. The sooner you learn them the sooner you will become a leader that is able to lead the most successful teams.

The only thing that really stands in your way is time. Learning these theories typically takes years in a psychology graduate program. This is why so many leaders are hiring coaches. Coaches with a background in psychology are able to teach this one-on-one in a time-efficient manner that optimizes learning.

To be honest, I didn't understand how effective this was until I started implementing more teaching into my practice. As well as hiring my own coaches. Now I only wish I had done it sooner.

So, here is my advice for you this week: learn as much psychology as you can in the shortest amount of time possible. It is something that can never be taken from you and will have the most profound impact on your life.

After investing so much into a psychology education I can tell you, there is nothing that is more important. Your mind is how you experience the world, and most of you want to be able to influence this experience as much as you can. Once you have learned these psychological skills the only thing you will regret is not doing it sooner.

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