Leadership Digest: Edition 18

This week’s digest honors Mental Health Awareness Month

Articles of the Week

Leaders: Share Your Own Mental Health Story

The Future of Mental Health at Work is Safety, Community and a Healthy Org Culture

There will never be a one-size-fits-all vision of what a mentally healthy workplace looks like. Achieving this requires a collective re-envisioning of what workplace mental health means to everyone in the organization — leaders and workers alike — tailored to its size, stage, industry, region, individual roles, and more. This starts with understanding your organization, what mental health looks like within it, and ultimately, what your people want. This means measuring mental health and workplace factors, asking about workers’ perspectives on a regular basis, and enacting real, meaningful change tailored to the needs of your people. Further embedding these efforts into your organization’s culture, systems, employee life cycle, and business strategy ensures that well-being is built into the business itself, not simply relegated to an HR wellness program.

Stats of the Week

Globally, an estimated 12 billion working days are lost annually to depression and anxiety.

According to a global study, 69% of employees attributed their mental health to their managers, which is greater than doctors (51%) or therapists (41%), and on par with the employee's spouse or partner (69%). ?

About 82% of employees are at risk of burnout this year—but only half of employers design work with well-being in mind

Quotes of the Week

“Health is one of the keys to being successful in business. Without a healthy body and mind, you’re going to struggle.” – Alexis Ohanian - Co-Founder, Reddit / ?SevenSevenSix Capital

“During times of extreme uncertainty, companies with the strongest cultures and most genuine leaders will separate themselves.” ?– Scott Dorsey, Entrepreneur / VC

Book of the Week

We have highlighted it before, but Andy Dunn’s book Burn Rate is the most accurate and vulnerable depiction of launching and leading a company while battling mental health issues we have ever read.