Perspective: Boosting team morale from a manager with high-functioning anxiety

If you're new to my articles, Hi. My name is Marga, and I'm the Recruitment Manager for a delegation company called Athena. I manage a team that consists of a supervisor and six recruiters. Our team is in charge of screening and selection of Executive Assistants that empower the fiercely ambitious. Our job requires social interaction every single day. Also, to add, if you buy into the MBTI hype, I'd like to note that everyone in my team including myself is introverted. What does that mean for us? It means that we have a social battery that gets drained and needs to be recharged before we can function socially again.

As their manager, I consider it a privilege to be the driving force of team morale within our ecosystem. It starts with one simple thing: understanding each of my members' social battery percentages and the duration wherein it takes to recharge. I make sure to block a slot in my calendar for regular touchpoints wherein I can check up on my team on how they are generally and if I can be of help or just be a listening ear.

That said, team morale as a whole is tricky. Team morale for a completely remote team is even trickier. When everyone is sequestered in their own workstations, may it be in their houses, by the beach, or anywhere really in the world at the moment, it's hard to literally tap them on the shoulder to ask them if everything's fine. So, how do I do it?

Aside from my regular one-on-one touchpoints, we also have weekly huddles. In these huddles, we discuss our strategies, our wins, and our learnings for the week. In these huddles, I ensure that each and every voice in my team gets heard. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, so where one is weak, another can compensate. It also helps when I encourage them to reach out to their own teammates whom they don't regularly interact with on a daily basis so we can strengthen the connections within the team. I also make it a point to encourage them to pursue their own passion projects outside of work.

It's also important to note that I'm serious when needed but most of my huddles are done informally. I don't normally mind if my members are eating, drinking, or smoking while we do huddles. What's important to me is if they're participating and contributing to our common goals. What's important is that these huddles remain as a safe space for them to be their authentic selves without the fear of having to censor their words.

One might think that as a manager who's bogged down with clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder, that it would be hard to manage a group of people. However, I'd like to challenge that line of thinking by saying it even gives me an advantage. All my recruiters are aware of my current mental state at all times, and in a way, it humanizes me in a way that few managers often fail to achieve.

When you yourself are a champion of mental health, it opens opportunities for your team to share their own current mental health. And in turn, it helps build connections that could never be broken even by time. It helps me understand what they need from me and in turn, helps me convey what I need from them.

As I write this, I'm currently letting my team do their thing as I prepare to frolic at the beach in an hour or so. Why? Because we just managed to close the biggest training classes that we've ever hired for. In November! Hiring for Q4 has always been notorious in its difficulty because people usually don't leave their jobs during this time, but my team was able to pull it off. "How?" you ask. Because team morale is high. It helps that I reward them for their achievements too. Rewards equal endorphins, and as Elle Woods would say, "endorphins make people happy."

So I'll close this with a shameless plug that I will be hiring recruiters for Q1 of 2022. So if you want a manager like me, feel free to reach out to me directly. Let's have a discussion if an opportunity to work with a kickass team like mine is the right one for you.