Humane Leadership and Mental Well-Being

September is Suicide Prevention Month. Many of us within the AEC industry work in roles that are bid or deadline driven, high profile, and high stress. There is also an unsettling statistic that construction workers struggle with mental health concerns more than the average. In the U.S., male construction workers have a 65% higher suicide rate than all other male workers (CDC, 2022). Mental well-being is an often ignored or stigmatized element of health and safety, but in reality it is key to our overall health, affecting how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices day-to-day. 

Warning: this blog includes mentions of suicide – please take care in reading. The Suicide Crisis Helpline (text or call 9-8-8) is a safe space to talk, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. 

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I want to talk to you about suicide, specifically, how work stress can leave a person to believe that suicide is an option, or perhaps the only option. Humane leadership can change that perspective. The paradox is that if you exercise humane leadership and save a life, you may never know. And that is a good thing.  

First, a story. After hours, days, weeks, and months in the relentless pursuit of nearly impossible goals in his career, my beautiful husband chose to end his life. He was an engineer managing very large, multi-million-dollar projects for a global company. I found him in our garage in the middle of the night hanging from the rafters. The shock and broken reality that followed became a catalyst for me to seek any way I could to prevent this from happening to any other family. 

Even then, I knew that his decision was an emotional response to his fear of failure and the future. The ruthless, mentally crippling pursuit of corporate achievement was allowed to flourish because of the positive results it brought the company. Whether out of ignorance or willfully, my husband's workplace culture made it possible for him to literally work himself to death. 
 
In Japan, there is a term for death by overwork: Karoshi. Even today, 40 years after the term became a legal description, estimates say that up to 10,000 people die each year simply because they work too hard. While preventative measures have been taken in Japan and within its larger corporations, the phenomenon rages on. Why? Culture. There is still a culture where working outrageous hours under highly stressful circumstances is seen as honorable. 

You might be thinking that the North American culture doesn’t mirror that. You would be wrong. The World Health Organization (WHO) cites studies that say this is a global phenomenon. Some studies indicate that 750,000 people worldwide may be dying due to overwork annually (Institute for the Future of Education, 2021). 

The word you should focus on is ‘culture’. Countries, ethnic groups, geographic regions, religious groups, and other identifiable groups have cultures that dictate behaviours. The company you work for also has a culture, and it also dictates behaviours, and these are likely not written down in a handbook. 

Many companies believe the vision or mission statement for the company summarizes their culture, but that is simply not true. Those idealistic statements summarize the stretch goal an organization has for their future: 

“We will create a company where safety is our first priority.” 

“Our people are our greatest asset, and we value them beyond all other assets.” 

“We will become the number one company to work for in our industry because we attract the best people, and we keep them safe.” 

You get the idea. While these statements always describe a wonderful, humane place to work, they do not always describe the actual culture of the workplace. Much of company culture is implicit and intangible and that is why it can be dangerous to the mental health of employees. Here are some examples, 

“My boss works on the weekend to catch up on his email and review documents. If I don’t work this weekend, he might think I’m lazy.” 

“The deadline can’t be moved. The team must do everything possible to achieve it, even if it means sacrificing family time. You can make it up to your family with extra earnings, or time later.” 

“If I let other people do my job while I’m on vacation, I might lose some of my power or credibility. I don’t trust them to make the same decisions I would make. So, I’ll check email and give direction while I’m away.” 

Change within a company comes from one of two methods. The first – and the easiest – is mandatory change, like those from IT or HR where you cannot continue your work if you do not make the change.  

Culture change is the second type of change. It can be challenging to ‘implement’ or quantify, even though its impact is as important as, or possibly more important than, mandatory change. 

Culture is what keeps people safe – not policy, process, or technology. Leaders are change advocates who can lead by example to create or change the workplace culture. 

The vision or mission statement examples I mentioned above are not policy or process statements, they are ‘The way we work around here’ statements. You can see how each of them affects how a worker  reasonably judges whether a workload is unrealistic. 

If these conditions are an exception, they are manageable, but the cumulative effect of this type of culture is what can make working conditions unsafe. They each imply that more work or better work is always expected, no matter what has already been done. They also imply the decision doesn’t lie with the worker. The leader’s implicit example has created a culture of overwork. 

Humane leadership requires close examination of the implicit culture that exists within the company. It requires leaders to be brave enough to recognize and rectify the example they are setting or allowing others to set. Humane leaders identify what can be done to change the mentally unsafe culture and, as Ghandi would say, embody the change they want to see. 

It takes courage and empathy. We spend more than 30% of our time at work. Don’t we deserve empathy from one another, particularly from our leaders? 

It is immensely difficult to make meaningful culture change. Here are some tips that might help, and they are particularly important for leaders.  

1. Encourage real rest for burned-out employees. Ensure allotted time away is used. Make it clear that even email is not expected during this recovery time, and then stick to it! Check in on your employee and don’t bring any work topics into the conversation. 

2. Educate everyone thoroughly and often about all the resources available. This includes your HR Benefits, but also local organizations, hotlines, crises centres, and mental health clinics. Leaders are likely not equipped to handle trauma, but they can get more knowledge about what is available. Include spouses in this information whenever possible. 

3. Model good behaviour. Take breaks, non-work lunches, and vacation allotment, and make it clear that you expect your team to do the same. If you or a team member truly are a single point of failure/success, actively plan to change that and thus you can model how to do this as well! 

4. Get to know your team and manage them thoughtfully. Take the time to get to know your team. Be aware of planning a big deadline around their major life events – for example when their child is starting grade one, graduating, or getting married. When their spouse is having surgery and they may need concession for work hours/location. Is a deadline really worth losing an employee? 

5. Find ways for your team to self-reflect on their mental health state. You cannot alleviate all suffering in yourself or your workers, but understand what you can do and do what you can. Get help with the rest. Be kind yourself as you do this. 

There are tangible benefits to a humane leadership culture: 

• Studies show that a more humane culture increases the collective capacity for a company to thrive. 

• People are less likely to leave their jobs and more likely to collaborate with one another to generate creative solutions. 

• Compassionate leaders are seen as more competent. 

• Humane leadership creates a humane workforce, and this helps companies retain employees, allowing them to build deeper, more enduring expertise. This strengthens your reputation and attracts the best people. 

Be brave enough to be the leader who can change culture or be the employee who demands the change.