As the world seems to be devolving into chaos, I find myself increasingly distanced from everyday trials and tribulations. I begin to feel as if I am seeing myself and those around me in a constant state of frenzy.
People range from those who are entirely overwhelmed to those who are compartmentalizing, and everything in between. We use work to distract ourselves, to try to connect to a sense of purpose, or create a sense of control in our lives where there feels like there is none.
And as we do so, our days go on. Our work continues. We do what we can to support our teams. But it feels like we’re all in a collective state of anxiety and overwhelm. There is a sinking feeling in my heart that none of us are doing okay and we’re not talking about it.
Being both a leader of my team and having my own leaders, it is intriguing to witness how we all manage and how that affects our teams.
We recognize that good leaders are those who ensure their team members are successful at their jobs. Along the same lines, great employees are those that acknowledge that they have a part to play in ensuring their leaders are successful and seek to do so.
As the world of work has evolved, we now understand that the best leaders are those that prioritize not just enabling employees to do their work successfully, but also nurturing employee well-being. Research shows that doing so is critical for engagement and resilience. It has become clear that it is not entirely possible to separate one’s work life from one’s life, and thus being able to support team members holistically results in significantly better outcomes.
But I think the discussion we have yet to have, and need to have, is that employees can also contribute to cultivating the well-being of their leaders.
As an individual contributor, I was incredibly lucky to have leaders who looked out for my well-being. It was invaluable both for my career and my personal growth.
But I know that we are asking more and more of our leaders. Being a leader is becoming harder than ever before. With everything that is going on right now, I can see the weight piling on.
It’s natural to want to do everything possible to support our teams. I’m guilty of it too, I know I make sacrifices to allow my team do their best work. But if we are to take a step back and be honest with ourselves, is that really what we all need right now? Or is it just that we all need to pause and take a breath?
Higher up in organizations, there are fewer people who are accountable for you, and they are stretched more thinly. With all leaders becoming increasingly overworked, the question then becomes, who’s looking out for them? As I look at my own leaders, I feel a pang of sadness.
If we truly recognize that for us to thrive, we must be supported in the entirety of our well-being, then we need to support each other and share the load, no matter where in the organization we are.
Taking it a level further, we talk about how important it is to have constructive dissent in organizations. Yet often these conversations devolve into unhealthy criticism of leaders. If I am not practiced with supporting the entire well-being of my leaders, I can’t easily access the empathy that is so critical during these times.
Psychotherapist Alfred Adler believed that every relationship should be horizontal, or that everyone should be treated as an equal. In corporations we’ve constructed these artificial hierarchies that hamper us from looking out for the well-being of others, just because they lead us. But failing to support each other in our entire humanity tears at the fabric of our culture and pulls us further apart.
We must acknowledge that as a social species our well-being is inextricably tied to those around us. If one of us is struggling, it ripples out and affects us all. And sometimes we don’t even notice it until someone else says so.
Maybe it’s time we turn to our leaders and say:
“Are you okay?” and “I’ve got your back too.”
