When leaders are silent, mental health suffers

Welcome to Lead With Inclusion! This weekly newsletter is a resource for EVERY professional. Whether you’re a manager ready to be a more inclusive leader, or an employee ready to be a DEI champion in your workplace, inclusive actions lead to inclusive outcomes. Leading with inclusion simply means starting with inclusive actions in everything you do. It means identifying the areas where bias is at work, and shifting mindsets to make change.?

If you’re not sure where to begin, start here.

The correlation between mental health and DEI may surprise you: It has to do with using your voice. (Or, failing to.)

We’re in a cultural space where, no matter how hard we try, what we’re going through outside of work will impact us in the workplace. Corporate leaders continue to try and draw an artificial dividing line—but with both personal lives and global events made increasingly public by the internet, it’s becoming nearly impossible.

How does this relate to diversity and inclusion? And how does that impact our mental health?

When workers have supported the vision and mission of their organizations, but don’t feel support when they experience malaise or heartache due to current events, it causes problems both mentally and functionally.?

Without empathetic reciprocity, employees feel used and disillusioned. Workers can begin to feel hopeless about all that’s happening in the world, and while those happenings aren’t corporate leadership's problem, their silence about those happenings is.

Be an Inclusive Leader:

You may have missed it, but there’s been a battle brewing between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar. And if you're like me, you probably don't care (since there are plenty of more important things happening in the news.)

Drake and Lamar both have millions of followers who have managed to get people talking about content that is, ultimately, so insignificant and inconsequential. Yet these famous people and their fans choose to make their petty feud a hot topic, rather than using their voices to comment on more critical matters—like what’s happening in Gaza. Ultimately, this has been a turnoff for many followers and fans on the fence. Why do we treat these stars as figureheads if all they care about is their own gossip?

In contrast, Macklemore released a protest song recently that I do care about, and it made me think about mental health in the workplace and how that relates to inclusion. When you have a voice and choose not to use it, that can turn off the very people who have helped to elevate you to a position of power. We compare this scenario with corporate powers because employees are what make your company thrive.?

If you have employees that care about your mission, and who are creative and productive, they are going to elevate your business to great heights. But they’ll only feel good about that, and want to keep doing it if you care about what keeps them up at night.

I read this article from the HR network SHRM, which found that nearly half of over 1,400 US employees feel “burned out,” “emotionally drained,” or “used up” from their work. And it’s no wonder that this correlates with global unrest and our mental health epidemic.

Lead with Inclusion:

At Rework Work, we’re attempting to address potent global events by encouraging our teams to have conversations about all of them. We understand that some topics are more difficult to approach than others and that guidance may be needed from leadership, so we are creating and fostering resources to help you along the way.

Here’s a shortlist of advice on how to lead open discussions about meaningful global issues:

• Pay attention to what employees want in your workplace. Usually, they don't want you to blindly support one side or another. Instead, they hope that you’ll recognize that having the tricky conversation has value. They want you to understand what they’re going through, and they'd like some empathy when it comes to dealing with those personal impacts and outcomes.

• Stop speaking (or preaching!) without information. If you are sharing opinions at the workplace, I hope they are as educated and unbiased as possible. Stop, immediately, parroting what you hear others say and do your own critical thinking. Of course, please recognize there are always several perspectives to consider, and context may be missing from something you think you understand. Leading with inclusion means understanding that what we think we “know” may not be the full picture. (200 HR practitioners learned this in my CalSHRM keynote session)?

• Keep learning. Stay open to other opinions and be curious, rather than definitive, in conversations. We also encourage you to use the resources we’re providing at 100Kconversations.com .

As we navigate these challenging times, it's clear that what we say—or don't say—speaks volumes. Leadership isn't just about steering the company toward financial success; it's about cultivating an environment where every employee feels seen, heard, and supported. Ignoring the significant issues that affect our teams doesn't shield them from impact; it only amplifies their effects.

About Stacey Gordon:

Stacey Gordon is Executive Advisor and Founder of Rework Work , where she and her team coach and counsel executive leaders on DEI strategies for the business while offering a no-nonsense approach to unconscious bias education for the broader employee population. As a global keynote speaker, Stacey is a Top Voice on LinkedIn and a popular LinkedIn Learning [IN]structor with nearly two million unique learners enjoying her courses.

Want to hear Stacey live? Consider booking her for your next keynote or workshop.