99 | The Pandemic Pushed Mental Health Out of the Workplace Shadows | Niamh Fitzpatrick

Building Better Cultures

If we didn’t already know it, the pandemic laid bare the fact that, as humans, we inevitably bring our whole selves to our jobs - including a range of emotions. This episode of Building Better Cultures focuses on mental health, which has taken center stage in the workplace and softened the separation between personal and professional.

Our guest, Niamh Fitzpatrick, a psychologist who works with business and sportspeople alike The pandemic deprived us of the ability to congregate among our favourite tribes (sports, entertainment, extended family, volunteer activities) but it also delivered a critical pause — a chance to get honest with ourselves and assess our priorities.

Our workplaces can be a source of the safety and acceptance on which humans thrive, particularly when leaders (themselves humans in need of support) foster cultures of openness and psychological safety.

This episode offers advice about how to recognize and respond to workers in distress; the role of communication and empathy in fostering healthy, productive workplace cultures; and how to bring out the best in teams by seeing, accepting and supporting the very real impacts of mental health.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Humans are tribal by nature and we seek out professional, social and familial groups with which to identify, share values and protection as well as create accountability.
• Why the pandemic has deeply impacted mental health:
• Daily tribal connections (sports, entertainment, social networks and other diversions/rituals) were suddenly completely shut down.
• Covid19 produced heightened emotions and vulnerability in people across the spectrum.
• The pause induced by lockdown afforded people a chance to notice feelings.

• Because we are humans first, we bring mental health challenges with us into the workplace; or we pay the price for suppressing them.
• Teams do not perform to their highest capacity when mental health is being denied or ignored. Successful leaders encourage their teams to express feelings within the workplace context.
• Executives, too, are humans impacted psychologically by the same stresses with which they are helping employees cope.
• Leaders who want to be alert and astute about mental health impacts should:
• Tune in and determine their employees’ psychological baseline (even if only via Zoom): Are individual workers typically late, harried, prepared, unprepared or overwhelmed? Dial-up managerial skills and take note of the status quo.
• Watch for any changes in effect and then follow up with questions and concerns.

• Four pillars to protect leaders from burnout:
• (1) Sleep/rest
• (2) fresh air/movement
• (3) nutrition/hydration and
• (4) connection.
• Effective leaders give workers permission to process their emotions.
• Niamh’s Top Takeaway: An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour. The sooner authentic mental health challenges are validated, the sooner we can process emotions and take steps to move on.

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNESLearn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT NIAMH FITZPATRICKNiamh Fitzpatrick is a psychologist who works in the area of peak performance in sport and business, helping sportspeople and business leaders with performing under pressure, confidence in business, resilience in the face of setbacks, team cohesion and corporate wellness. She also works with people around loss and grief and wrote ‘Tell Me the Truth About Loss,' following the tragic death of her sister, Daire Fitzpatrick, an Irish Coastguard pilot in 2017.

Website: http://www.niamhfitzpatrickpsychology.ie Twitter: @NFitzPsychology

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