Episode 220 Transcript:

0:00:00 Ramona Shaw: Welcome to this episode of The Manager Track podcast. This is a special type of episode and one that I really, really hope you listen to the end and you’re fully present. We’re going to talk about mental health awareness for leaders. This is something that I’m personally not an expert in, but I know how important it is for us all as individuals, and especially for people with people responsibilities in the workplace, that is, leaders to pay attention to what’s going on for our direct reports and even employees, more broadly speaking, in the organization, when it comes to their mental health and well being, there’s still a lot of misconceptions that are in the workplace. There’s still a lot of assumptions that we make when we think about mental health and the attention that that requires from a leadership perspective.

0:00:52 Ramona Shaw: And in this conversation, I’m joined by three experts in this field who know about how to create a culture that supports the mental wellbeing of the employees, as well as what all of us can do in order to build a safe space and have conversations with individuals who might be struggling. During this conversation, I had multiple moments when I thought, yes, I can directly see an example of how this shows up with one of my clients, or yes, I’ve been there, I’ve seen this, and I’ve made that mistake.

0:01:23 Ramona Shaw: And while it may seem like this isn’t a topic that’s going to help you elevate your career or become a stronger leader, or get promoted faster, or be more successful in executing on your projects and achieving results, that in itself could be a misconception. And for sure, what we do know is that this topic matters and will continue to matter more and more in the future. When we look at statistics of how many people were struggling with mental health ten years ago versus today, post pandemic, and what we can anticipate based on data from, based on looking at what’s going on with anxiety and depression in our youth, in teenagers, or even younger, and when they join the workforce and you’ll be in a leadership position, this is a topic that inevitably you’ll have to be educated on and know how to do well in order to build relationships with employees where they want to be there, they want to support the team and do good work, and they feel like you got their back and that matters a tremendous amount. You cannot be successful if your team doesn’t want you to be successful.

0:02:30 Ramona Shaw: You cannot be successful as a leader on your own. There needs to be a team that does great work and is supporting you. And so as you listen to this conversation that you too will write down things that stand out to you and you will walk away with new ideas on how to create the kind of conversations that will help you identify what’s going on with individuals in your team and even how to continuously and proactively create a culture and awareness around mental health and to provide support where that support is needed. So with that said, let’s get ready and dive into the conversation. Here’s the question.

0:03:10 Ramona Shaw: How do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role, build the confidence and competence to lead your team successfully, and establish yourself as a respected and trusted leader across the organization? That’s the question, and this show provides the answers. Welcome to The Manager Track podcast. I’m your host, Ramona Shah, and I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is not seen as a source of stress and dread, but as a source of contribution, connection and fulfillment.

0:03:37 Ramona Shaw: And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leadership who know how to lead so everyone wins and grows. In the show, you learn how to think, communicate, and act as the confident and competent leader you know you can be.

0:03:52 Ramona Shaw: Welcome to this panel. I am very excited to have my guests with me here today, Doctor Quevarra Moten, Graham Nicholls and Clarice Colón, who are joining us for a very important panel and conversation around leading with care mental health awareness for leaders. This is a topic that comes up in conversations with leaders all the time on how to not only manage their own mental health, but also how to provide that support and lead with care when they have employees, people in the organization who need extra support as it relates to their mental health, as well as how to establish a culture that supports and provides a positive environment for people who maybe struggle.

0:04:40 Ramona Shaw: And we’ve all gone through our own ups and downs, and that can sometimes be challenging, especially when environments are stressful, when there’s a strong focus on results. And maybe we’re undergoing a lot of pressure in our work and receive that pressure from senior leadership and executives. So in this conversation, we’re going to talk about not only how leaders can support their team members, we’re also going to take a bit of a step back and look at how organizations can do this. Well. So the HR perspective on this too, we’re going to dive right into the question of how do you see the mental health challenges in the workplace, of how it affects employees and leaders.

0:05:23 Ramona Shaw: And please, as you give us your answer, tell us a little bit about the work that you do in the field of mental health. Kivara, can you kick us off?

0:05:33 Dr. Quevarra Moten: Yes, sure. Thank you, Ramona. I have been a mental health advocate for years. I was a caregiver for my mother over 14 years. She had paranoid schizophrenia, and I, too, have battled depression. And so I’ve committed my life to be a mental health advocate. I’ve worked in higher education over 18 years now. And so frontline staff with students, staff and faculty. As a leader in higher education and now consulting, I have just made it my life’s mission to be an advocate for mental health wellness.

0:06:12 Dr. Quevarra Moten: And part of that is understanding in the culture of the workplace how easy it is to overlook mental health and mental illness because of different stigmas that we all have been accustomed to. And author Russ Moxley wrote this book called leadership in spirit, and he talks about when your employee comes to work, the whole person comes to work. But still there is this division of, this is personal and this is big business.

0:06:47 Dr. Quevarra Moten: I am in charge as a leader of productivity, and so their mental health is no, has no bearing on me. But if you look at since COVID where it used to be, one in every five Americans dealt with some type of mental illness. Now it’s up to three in five who are dealing with mental illness. And so with those types of statistics, leadership, and leaders everywhere need to be aware of how important it is to train up and gird up and build up different resources and support to help them navigate leading a culture of mental illness.

0:07:27 Ramona Shaw: Beautiful. Yes. I couldn’t agree more. And I know we said we’re going to keep this to 40 minutes and we could talk a long time. So check out the LinkedIn profile from our participants here and our panelists as well to learn more, because I think what you just referred to, we could dive really deep into what that means for leaders and people in the workplace. Thank you, Graham.

0:07:50 Graham Nicholls: Thanks, Ramona. And thank you for inviting me on to this panel. It’s such an important subject, so brief introduction. My name is Graham Nichols. I run a company called the Priority Academy. I suffered my own mental health issues. I was diagnosed with stress, depression and anxiety all at the same time about 25 years ago. That led me into the area of coaching and various other subjects from meditation and mindfulness and cognitive therapy, all of that kind of stuff.

0:08:18 Graham Nicholls: And what I do these days is I help businesses to support the mental and emotional health of their staff. I also train other coaches to do exactly that as well. And I also provide a workplace or a workforce mental health assessment that’s AI driven, data driven, to help businesses to really understand the mental health landscape of their business from the perspective of mental health in the workplace.

0:08:43 Graham Nicholls: I completely agree with everything, Kuvera said. It’s such an important subject and there is a real shift, certainly here in the UK, there’s a real shift going on between from the kind of the reactive stance to the proactive stance. And that’s such an important shift because it’s all been about supporting somebody who’s suffering with their mental health instead of proactively helping them to not suffer with their mental health.

0:09:10 Graham Nicholls: And while that shift is only just starting, it’s, it’s such an important shift to have the culture of a business when it starts from the top down and all the leaders on the way down provide the culture of a mentally healthy workplace. It just helps people. And it doesn’t just help people to have a better work life, it helps them to have a better out of work life. Sometimes when you’re in that place of everything’s bad outside of work, if work can be your solace, you can truly save lives with that.

0:09:40 Graham Nicholls: And I’m really excited to be part of that shift from reactive to proactive.

0:09:46 Ramona Shaw: Beautiful. Thank you. And I’d love to dive into this a little bit more after this initial introduction round here of what that takes for organization to build such culture. Clarice, what is tell us a little bit more about your work as well as your perspective on this.

0:10:03 Clarice Colòn: Sure. Thank you for having me, Ramona. It’s a pleasure to be here with the other panelists. I just want to echo the sentiment that’s been shared by the panelists. I wholeheartedly agree. I’m not a mental health practitioner or mental wellness practitioner by trade. I do consider myself a people practitioner or an HR practitioner. In the people business, my frame is more so around the work environment and the importance of understanding and recognizing, having the awareness and recognizing that.

0:10:34 Clarice Colòn: I agree. People bring their whole selves to work and there really isn’t a separation anymore. Post Covid taught us all that, that we quickly began to learn that we are not just employing workers, we’re employing human beings that come with a unique perspective on how they see life and through what lens and experience they see life. And as an employer, the best thing that I’ve been able to do is really just work with leaders.

0:11:05 Clarice Colòn: Helping leaders understand that there’s a continuum of ways to really address mental health in the workplace. And it starts from sort of the standpoint of it’s not just about being sympathetic to one’s needs or empathetic to one’s needs. Taking that further on and being compassionate and being able to listen and hear and identify what individuals need to feel supported within the environment that they spend most of their waking hours in, and that’s in the workforce. So what can we do as employers to ensure that people feel safe? They have the psychological safety, they have the physical safety. They feel like they can be heard, seen and belong, which ultimately produces the highest levels of engagement, which in turn leads to productivity, which, if you look at it from the outside in, is what drives business forward. So that’s essentially how I look at the frame and the importance of mental health and mental wellness in the workplace.

0:12:03 Ramona Shaw: So I’d like to tag onto that with how do cultures or organizations create a culture where we can actually live this? Because it sounds great when we talk about it, but the reality to create such a culture is still challenging. And what I’m hearing from you, Clarice, here, there clearly is it takes a mindset shift. It takes a different way of looking at the problem and looking at work and the workplace.

0:12:30 Ramona Shaw: Graham, what are some of the things that you specifically try to cultivate in organizations and somewhat tactical or strategical interventions or changes that you’re addressing with your clients?

0:12:43 Graham Nicholls: I think it’s such a wide scoping subjects. At a core level, a business needs to hold close to its values and its core, the idea of producing a mentally healthy workspace, a place where people are effectively trained, and I’m not talking about, I think one of the biggest issues we have with mental health in the workplace is we have things like mental health World Mental Health Day and World Mental Health Week.

0:13:14 Graham Nicholls: And people do cram everything into that one week and do it all ad hoc, and then for the rest of the 51 weeks after that, it’s not mentioned. That process has to be a continuing process, week after week, month after month, different. Whether it’s trainings, whether it’s workshops, whether it’s just safe spaces where people can get together and talk about these things with trained, either trained member of staff or bringing an outsider in this, trained to be able to facilitate that.

0:13:41 Graham Nicholls: But that has got to be embedded in the culture. It’s got to be part of the policies, the procedures, the values that a business holds close. It’s got to be driven from the top down, because that’s the way that any business change happens. If you want a change to happen in a business, no matter what that change is, it’s got to be driven from the top down. And that has to be the same with mental health. It has to be held at the very core of the business.

0:14:05 Ramona Shaw: Clarice what would you add to that?

0:14:08 Clarice Colòn: I agree with Graham. I would also say that in order for a culture of awareness and acceptance and support to be realized, it has to be intentional. And by intentional, that may mean devising a coaching culture or leadership culture that is founded on the cornerstone of active listening skills. Empathy. What is empathy? What is compassion? How can you as a leader, learn to listen and to be curious about what an individual is sharing or feeling or hearing?

0:14:45 Clarice Colòn: I think it starts with creating sort of the embodiment of leadership principles and leadership behaviors that then our leaders are held to and continually trained. And to Graham’s point, not everyone really is trained or born a leader. Sometimes they have to be upskilled in a way that allows them to understand how to inspire and how to get results through other people, versus being a solid individual contributor who we decide to put in a leadership role is critically important to the success of our companies and to the culture that we’re trying to establish.

0:15:24 Ramona Shaw: Kiwara, what would you say is relevant in the context of this, from an employee’s or a leader’s perspective, an individual and how they can address it or create change.

0:15:38 Dr. Quevarra Moten: For me, it was in addition to what has already been said, vulnerability. I recognize me as a leader, being able to be free, to be vulnerable with my team, because initially I thought me leading, I couldn’t let them know I was stressed out. I couldn’t let them know I was overwhelmed. But the second I stepped off the pedestal, and some of us need to be intentional about stepping off the pedestal. The second I stepped off the pedestal and I allowed myself to be vulnerable was the second I created a different type of connection with my team.

0:16:25 Dr. Quevarra Moten: I had a team of 48 people. There was no way possible for me to know what was going on in everyone’s life. But if I developed an attitude of I am not just a leader, I’m a partner, I’m a coach, and I need them to see the human side of me. Sometimes our employees or our team members, they function in these old stigmas. Whether it’s a male stigma, men don’t ask for help. So I got to make sure that I know, or those gender stigmas, any of those gender stigmas, also add to this big block that keeps us from getting everything it is that we need to support ourselves.

0:17:17 Dr. Quevarra Moten: I want you to look at the screen. We all are sitting in chairs. I’m sitting in a chair that I was confident was going to support me. I’m sitting in a chair that I knew would be comfortable through this conversation. I’m sitting in a chair that I believed would not only support me and provide the comfort, but it would give me the right height so I could be seen in the camera. We have to approach leadership the same way.

0:17:49 Dr. Quevarra Moten: What does the chair of my support from my staff and my team look like? What are those pillars? And am I giving them what they need to be able to sit and be productive and to have mental wellness? And sometimes it’s being that, having that vulnerable side and being able to say, hey, I feel the stress. I know this deadline is pressing us, but what can we do as a team to support each other? Because it’s really stressful for us right now and not live in an illusion that stress is not there or anxiety isn’t there, or fear of losing your job with all the different layoffs isn’t there.

0:18:33 Dr. Quevarra Moten: But being vulnerable and being real with your team and you develop a real partnership, it shows I’m human and I can be vulnerable and you can, too. And that is the only way people can be authentic with us as leaders and tell us what’s really going on. We have to unlock that door of vulnerability and partnership, and they can know that I’m present and you can have a seat, because this seat is not only going to support you, but I’m going to pull my chair up next to you, and we’re going to make sure you’re surrounded by support so we can continue to be productive.

0:19:11 Ramona Shaw: I love that you call out the importance of recognizing what’s going on versus pretending everything is fine if you don’t talk about it? Sometimes people are really in tune, right. And they will pick it up. Sometimes they have personal experiences that will help them with this, or they’re just more inclined to do so, and then others struggle with this. So for people who are not sure how well the team is doing, what are some of the indicators or things that leaders can pay attention to that will let them know this is a time to be vulnerable. This is a time to open the door or to partner and to be there for a person or to shift gear and maybe instead of trying to pressure them to, you know, take a step back and have a different kind of conversation.

0:19:57 Ramona Shaw: Clarice, let’s start with you.

0:19:59 Clarice Colòn: Sure. I think that’s a great question, Ramona. I think there’s a multiple. There’s multiple channels to solicit sort of sentiment amongst your team member base. One of the ways that I feel companies leaders, teams can be more proactive would be, first and foremost ensuring that you have an environment that’s based on trust that welcomes authenticity and vulnerability. And that’s done through setting expectations and onboarding and hiring and setting those, those expectations on ways of working and culture.

0:20:34 Clarice Colòn: But then to ensure that those expectations are being met and that those conditions are being realized on the ground, there are pulse surveys that can be initiated where you’re just quickly pulse checking a few specific questions around culture, around involvement, around trust, around do you feel that your leader is available to you, is able to offer feedback and guidance, etcetera. Engagement surveys, employee net promoter scores are all things that are excellent tools to gauge team member sentiment. But you never want to conduct a survey without communicating the results of the survey, being transparent, and then responding to those surveys accordingly.

0:21:21 Clarice Colòn: And the last thing I’ll say, and I want to piggyback on what Graham was mentioning earlier around the shift to being more proactive versus reactive. And that is as companies, what are we doing? To one, acknowledge that there is a mental health crisis in the world and in our country, and it’s not a bad thing. People come with unique perspectives and unique identities of who they are, but allowing for, one, that safe space to the right culture and leadership behaviors. And three, there was this sort of baseline expectation around employee assistance programs that tended to be useful in a reactive sense. There are other programs around mental health and mental wellness that go deeper and beyond just the need for assistance when a crisis arises.

0:22:12 Clarice Colòn: That’s more around life scenarios. I’m having trouble with childcare. I just lost a significant other. I’m in a transitional period in my life where I faced a divorce or I went through bankruptcy. Those are the types of benefits and programs that are very, very attractive and useful for our team members to have that external party or that professional or that guide or mentor to help get them through those inevitable life circumstances that sometimes they need help with. So those are just some thoughts and ideas on how to address these concerns as they arise in the workplace.

0:22:50 Clarice Colòn: Great.

0:22:50 Ramona Shaw: Kiawara. What you add as indicators so people will need to pay attention to something.

0:22:57 Dr. Quevarra Moten: Might be going on, I think not only being withdrawn, but sometimes being the answer for everything. I think a lot of times as leaders, when we see everyone that, especially our team members, that can answer and support anything, we assume that they are okay. And a lot of times as leaders, I know as a leader, that was my mistake. My mistake was assuming that because they appeared to be okay, I assumed everything was fine and I was an office leader.

0:23:41 Dr. Quevarra Moten: So I was in the office. But once I started getting out of the office and plugging myself into my team I understood that the very people who I thought had everything together were the very people who needed support and needed help. Compassion, empathy. And I use that with myself as an example. I was in student affairs at a college for years, and I was the person who was at the forefront of everything, the loudest, the one with the biggest smile, the one that could help anyone with any project and anything.

0:24:28 Dr. Quevarra Moten: But I was the one who was cracking the second I left work. And so that was a reality check for me, that if it was me, that everyone assumed that everything was fine, was the one that was actually cracking. How many assumptions as a leader am I functioning on? Am I leading on assumptions, or am I leading in truth? And sometimes leading in truth is letting go of your assumptions and really having conversations or check ins and making sure, you know, I see you’re smiling.

0:25:08 Dr. Quevarra Moten: Is there any way that I can support you, you know, and having that vulnerable, creating a safe space for them in an individual, private setting? Because when you create that private setting, it also gives them the flexibility to say, to just breathe. You know, can we just breathe? Can we all just take a moment and just breathe? Anyone need help breathing? You’re not asking them if they need help with anything else.

0:25:37 Dr. Quevarra Moten: You’re just asking them, do you need help just breathing today? And so sometimes starting with something a little bit more simple where they’re not talking about, oh, my gosh, this is what’s happening. Everything is happening. But sometimes talking about breathing with your team allows you and creates the space for you to lead into those difficult conversations. And then making sure. One thing that I did is I made sure every director that was under my leadership had the training to have those guided conversations.

0:26:10 Dr. Quevarra Moten: There are a lot of programs and a lot of tools that are out there. But, like, I’ve heard some of my panelists who said, we are more reactive than proactive. And so giving people the tools that they need so that they’re able to adapt their leadership style to navigate these difficult conversations. But it starts with us to actually have the conversations and not function on our assumptions.

0:26:37 Graham Nicholls: Yeah.

0:26:37 Ramona Shaw: Emphasizing this, I think for leaders, this comes up so often with assuming just because they do their work or they show up in a certain way that everything is fine, and so they don’t need to create that extra space or even assuming that if they needed help, they would come to you and ask for help. All that is, you know, these are our own beliefs about how it works, but it’s not really the reality of them.

0:27:01 Ramona Shaw: Graham, I’m sure you deal with this a lot. What would you say are additional things for leaders to pay attention to in order to address this effectively or address it efficiently? Maybe even?

0:27:13 Graham Nicholls: Yeah, it’s such a difficult subject because I could sit here like my fellow panelists and list off a whole bunch of things like being withdrawn or becoming slightly antisocial or productivity dropping or something like that. But the truth is, Quivera hit the nail on the head that it’s not necessarily just that person. And just because somebody is a little bit withdrawn for a couple of days, it doesn’t mean they’re suffering with their mental health. It just might mean they’re having a couple of off days.

0:27:40 Graham Nicholls: You suddenly go and approach them with it and it doesn’t come across quite so well. So it is a really tough discussion. It’s really important that leaders know specifically and are trained specifically what to look for, but also how to ask the right questions at the right time, and then how to listen to the answers properly, because we’re all very good at asking a question, and then while they’re answering, formulating something else in our heads that we’re going to and not leaving that space to just listen to understand what we’re saying.

0:28:10 Graham Nicholls: When we teach leaders the important communication skills of asking appropriate questions and then leaving that safe space and actually listening to understand, that’s when you notice things that are not quite right. You notice the different, slightly different language patterns, you notice the different. The way people are holding themselves slightly differently. When you teach that to leaders and they filter that out through their teams, it’s more that the teams can say, Steve over there or Sally over there, they’re not quite right.

0:28:40 Graham Nicholls: What can I do to help them? Instead of just the leader being responsible for it? If the whole team are responsible for it, if the whole workforce are responsible for it, then you have a real culture in supporting and helping each other, and that’s driven by the leaders and supported by the teams. I think that’s really, really key to where businesses really need to get forward to, to help themselves, because we all know that a mentally healthy workforce is going to be more productive, more efficient, produce high quality materials or goods or whatever they’re doing, and that’s just going to boost the business’s overall success.

0:29:18 Ramona Shaw: Speaking of for the entire workforce noticing or colleagues noticing what’s going on in an environment where a lot of people work remote or hybrid, or sometimes they are in office, but in different offices, what are some of the challenges that make this particularly difficult for a dispersed team? And I know, Kira, you were mentioning earlier how since the pandemic, this has worsened, probably for multiple reasons, but one might be because we start to feel more lonely when we’re working from home, remote, or even in high settings, or because also things are harder to pick up.

0:29:58 Ramona Shaw: What are things that we should know about, specifically, the situation in hybrid and remote environments? Graham, do you want to start with Kyvara? Go ahead. And then, Graham? Yeah.

0:30:09 Dr. Quevarra Moten: It’s important to know that we all have become comfortable being isolated. And because we’ve become comfortable being isolated, it’s like a normal. Like, a lot of people don’t even recognize that they’re isolating themselves because we were isolated for so long. So one of the challenges is, I know I took a job during the pandemic, and I was a leader, so I had a whole team. I never met them face to face, but virtually.

0:30:41 Dr. Quevarra Moten: And one of the hardest part was bringing that cohesiveness of a team and creating a team environment in individual environments. How do you create a team environment in individual environments? And is that possible? Well, and is it possible without having 50 meetings a day? And so it was redefining how we develop a culture of hybrid and work environments. And is it possible to develop a culture in a hybrid work environment? My answer would be yes.

0:31:17 Dr. Quevarra Moten: Is it a lot more work than if you were in person? Yes, but it takes intentionality. Not only the leader, but the organization as a whole. How do we, as an organization or as a leader, value that cohesiveness in our culture? And do we want to invest in creating it? And so we did a lot of different things to invest in creating a culture of care and a culture of team in a hybrid and remote work environment.

0:31:55 Dr. Quevarra Moten: But it allowed us to bring everyone in without them feeling like they were isolated. And that was just one of the ways that we did it.

0:32:06 Ramona Shaw: Great. Thank you. Karam, what would you add?

0:32:09 Graham Nicholls: I think it’s really important to follow on from, particularly the COVID discussion, because I think when Covid started and the world shut down, so many people went, yeah, I get to work from home. Yeah, wonderful. And then very quickly started to realize that that is not quite as amazing as they thought it was going to be. Within nine to twelve months, there were already studies coming out showing that 30% of people were feeling more stressed, more anxious, because they were lonely, because they felt detached from their colleagues, from their friends that they were so used to seeing every single day. And it’s not the same when you’re doing it like we are on with the screen today.

0:32:50 Graham Nicholls: It’s just not the same as that human contact face to face interaction. I had experience of this even before COVID I worked with a couple of businesses where they had people who were out on the road, whether they were traveling in cars or vans and just doing it alone. And they were struggling to create a really good environment for those people who their only contact every day would be to call into the office, to phone in while they were driving or when they’d stopped for lunch or whatever.

0:33:20 Graham Nicholls: And it became about ensuring that at least once a week they had some sort of face to face contact with somebody else, whether that was they all went into the office, or if that wasn’t possible, they would figure out routes where each driver or each salesperson or whatever, it would, would meet up at a certain point. So even if it was just the two of them meeting and sitting down, having a cup of coffee, that created that individual connection that allowed them just to offload a little bit. And it’s not about offloading with talking, it’s just about their mental health. It’s just about talking to another human being that understands what you’re going through and having a cup of coffee and putting the world to rights, if you like.

0:33:59 Graham Nicholls: It’s just giving that connection, because this, while the advent of technology is phenomenal, we can reach people around the world. You know, we’re all in different parts of the world on here. We can reach people, but the truth is that as human beings, we need that physical connection. We need to be able to reach out and shake somebody’s hand, or just be in a space with somebody that we, we know is a safe space, and we can have a coffee and a chat with.

0:34:26 Graham Nicholls: And that’s the key to being able to really work with a remote team, is to be able to also create those junctions where even if it’s just two people meeting and crossing paths and having a coffee, that’s the key to enabling that team to still work effectively and support their own mental health.

0:34:45 Ramona Shaw: And you’re calling out again that proactive approach, right. This is not reactive to someone not doing well, but this is how do we form and follow culture that proactively creates the environment?

0:34:56 Graham Nicholls: Absolutely.

0:34:58 Ramona Shaw: Clarice, what would you add from your perspective, from an HR perspective here to the conversation?

0:35:04 Clarice Colòn: I echo again, Graham and Korvara. I do think that I’m going to piggyback on your coffee chat. Graham. And that is, intentionality is key. With dispersed teams, we have the technology. It’s just a matter of carving out the time, because what dispersed team members lose is that spontaneous connection, the spontaneous water cooler chat, or just having that exposure and FaceTime with senior executives or with individuals that they may see as a mentor.

0:35:37 Clarice Colòn: So things that can be done that have worked really successful in a virtual environment is creating a virtual water cooler. Creating an environment where maybe you have coffee chat or fireside chat with an individual that, you know, whose role is highly admired or someone who has lots of information they may share, even as a leader. Just making time for the quick birthday celebration, anniversary, or just bringing the team together for a chat, a quick even. It could be 510 minutes. A virtual water cooler, just to acknowledge the uniqueness and the identities of the individuals on the team and to celebrate something.

0:36:14 Clarice Colòn: Oftentimes you lose out on that if you’re just attending a virtual session for the purpose of a meeting that’s on a. On a regular time cadence, just, you know, making the time out and being intentional about creating those virtual environments, but balancing that with the possibility of causing burnout, too. Because now that we have all of these different productivity tools and all of these different channels, and that might. I won’t segue into the topic on burnout, but having to monitor all those channels can be a little bit overwhelming. But to be intentional and strategic about the how and the when to create that spontaneous connection or spontaneous innovation is important.

0:36:57 Ramona Shaw: All right, as we’re wrapping up, and I know, and I said this in the beginning, we could go on for a while here at the conversation, but I would love to ask you, Clarice, and stay with you for a minute, what is something that you think is really important as we talk about leading with care and mental health awareness for leaders that we have not yet talked.

0:37:17 Clarice Colòn: About, I think that communication. We haven’t talked effective communication, active listening, and just being curious. We’re in a highly polarized environment right now that sometimes can attribute to some of the mental health concerns that people may be having. But leaders are leaders for everyone. And just having the natural curiosity to understand someone’s perspective, their worldviews, without judgment or without lack of listening, I think is important. It’s important that we are listening and hearing and learning how to lead through highly polarizing times like we are in today. And to remember that it’s important that we find the things that unify us and that keep us together in furtherance of our culture, our core beliefs and values, and what we’re here to do, whether it’s a company providing a product or service or what have you. I think it’s about remembering that you’re there to lead everyone and finding ways to unify, listen, be curious and understand are important things for leaders to do and understand.

0:38:35 Ramona Shaw: Thank you for adding that. Graham, the same question to you. What is something that we have not yet talked about, but is relevant on this topic?

0:38:43 Graham Nicholls: I think we need to start moving towards taking the scariness out of mental health and telling people the truth about mental health, training them on the truth about mental health. But it doesn’t have to be this big, scary topic that nobody knows anything about. The truth is, we know more about our mental health now than we ever have done in our history. We know how to work with it. We know how to help people through their mental health challenges and come out the other side.

0:39:14 Graham Nicholls: We’ve had our challenges, and the panelists here have been very open about their own challenges, and they’ve come out the other side, myself included. And when we get to the point of taking the scariness out of it and allowing people to stop listening to the stuff they hear in the media and the social media and actually get the facts about mental health, removing all the myths, then we can get to a point where people in the workplace can start to understand what’s going on for themselves and start to help themselves.

0:39:48 Graham Nicholls: Certainly when I was suffering, all I wanted to do was help myself. And I think there’s a large proportion of people, and I know Eaps got mentioned during the chat there. Eaps don’t have a lot of take up. It’s a very small take when you look at the percentages. And I think the reason behind that is because there is still the stigma attached to going to see a counselor or a therapist or whatever, but also because people generally just want to help themselves.

0:40:15 Graham Nicholls: They do want to go, I want to feel better, but I don’t know how to do it. So when we take that scariness out of it and give them the facts and give them the tools and the strategies that will truly, truly help them, then we start to make a real shift change in the mental health, not just of the workplace, but of the world. And I think that the moment we start to do that and take that scariness and the fear out of it, that’s when we can really, truly help more and more people.

0:40:44 Ramona Shaw: You’re building a really beautiful bridge to what Kiwara was saying earlier with the vulnerability, because one way to do this, to take the stigma out of it, is to share our own experience or to share our openness, even, and bringing, creating that space where people feel comfortable and safe to share.

0:41:02 Graham Nicholls: Yeah, absolutely.

0:41:04 Ramona Shaw: So, Kiwara, last question here for you two. What is something Bevan talked about.

0:41:09 Dr. Quevarra Moten: I want every leader that can hear my voice to hear this clearly. Take off your superhero cape. Just because you’re deemed as a leader does not mean you have superpowers. What that means is you have to learn about the resources that are available near and around you. And if you develop a whole listing of resources and tools that are near and available to you and your team, you’re equipping yourself with the superpower because you don’t have it.

0:41:49 Dr. Quevarra Moten: But I think sometime as leaders, we walk around as if we have, I have the superpower. I can figure it out. They, they put me in charge, so I’m supposed to know that is not true. Take off the cape. Learn what resources you have. All kinds of resources that have come out since COVID like grow and where you can get therapy virtually. And there’s just so many different resources in your immediate area that you need to equip yourself.

0:42:20 Dr. Quevarra Moten: So you’re equipping yourself with the superpowers by knowing what resources are available to you and your team. But take off the cape and don’t put it back on.

0:42:31 Ramona Shaw: Beautiful, and a wonderful way to end this panel. Thank you to all three of you for joining this conversation today. And I do hope that we can continue to share and connect and that this is also a way for people to think about the listeners here in the audience, to think about their approach and level of awareness for themselves and what’s going on on the team. I appreciate all the resources and ideas that you shared. Definitely my mind is spinning with a number of different things that I want to share with the leaders that I work with and incorporate myself, too.

0:43:06 Ramona Shaw: Thank you for being on. Thank you for sharing your time with us. Hugely appreciate it.

0:43:11 Dr. Quevarra Moten: Thank you.

0:43:11 Graham Nicholls: Thank you, Ramona.0:43:12 Ramona Shaw: If you enjoyed this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader people love to work with. This includes my best selling book, the Confident, incompetent new manager, which you can find on Amazon or@ramonashaw.com book and a free training on how to successfully lead as a new manager. You can check it out@ramonashaw.com masterclass these resources and a couple more you’ll find in the show notes down below.