Mental Health and Supervision.
I strongly support the rapid de-stigmatization of mental health challenges and corresponding openness to therapy.
I was open about my challenges with anxiety and subsequent counseling 15 years ago at a time when this was not a particularly welcome topic in Christian circles especially for a ministry leader. In fact a great joy of mine in leadership is how God has redeemed these challenges by using my willingness to share my experience (with wisdom and discernment) to bring health and healing to others.
In recent years the language of therapy, counseling, anxiety, depression, mental health has become ubiquitous and this is no different in Christian communities. This is especially true, but not limited to Gen Z and Millennials.
I want to be careful to reiterate here that I strongly support the rapid de-stigmatization of mental health challenges and corresponding openness to therapy. All of us are on an ever changing continuum of thriving to not thriving, or of health to unhealth and I am grateful that there is less stigma associated with this reality than there once was.
However, the ubiquitousness creates dilemmas for supervisors especially those supervising in ministry or helping fields.
We should and (most of the time do) care deeply about the people entrusted to our care in leadership. We are also responsible for the job performance of those under our leadership.
We can do both, but it requires wisdom and clarity of our roles.
Cheryl Bachelder (Brilliant leader and former CEO of Popeyes Chicken) says that anytime a leader comes to her with concerns about someone’s job performance she asks that manager two questions;
Have you done everything you can to help them succeed?
Do they have anything going on in their life that could be impacting their performance?
She says that most of the time managers aren’t able to answer the second question so she tells them to go back and find out and come to her with what they discover.
In ministry (and likely other helping professions) we are more often able to answer the second question. In fact we likely know way more than is necessary because out of good intentions we have taken on the role of amateur therapist. However, we are often unable to sufficiently answer the first question.
My wife, Annie, recently returned to Young Life staff after 5 years working in education and her candid observation was that, “You (we) YL people sure spend a lot of time talking about how people are doing.”
Two ditches to avoid:
Caring exclusively about the thriving or health of the individual and playing amateur therapist rather than supervisor. This is not fair to those we lead. Most of us are not therapists and we need to be clear about that with those we lead. Most people would benefit from true professional help. It is unfair for an employee to expect their supervisor to play the role a therapist should be playing. When we play amateur therapist it allows both of us to avoid the role that we are called to play which involves both job performance and the thriving of the individual. If we aren’t careful we spend the entirety of a 90 minute meeting talking about how someone is doing and never get to the things that need to be addressed in order to perform well in their job. If we aren’t careful a person’s struggles can be used too frequently as a free pass to excuse poor performance. Keep in mind the vast majority of people want to perform well in their job and we get to help them to do what they already want to do.
Caring only about job performance to the exclusion of the thriving of the individual. Either because of not caring sufficiently about the whole person or because we are concerned that it is inappropriate to broach the topic of mental and emotional health we stay away entirely. This is problematic because it both doesn’t care for the individual and doesn’t lead to our shared desire for job performance. If we aren’t careful we will treat people as a means to an end and most likely we won’t have unlocked them from the very things that are getting in the way of performing well in their job. I am grateful for the ways that young people in particular have helped us to improve and won’t stand for bosses who use them as a means to an end.
Where a person’s thriving-not thriving score shows up in their job is the coaching sweet spot of a supervisor. This is both caring for the individual and will most likely be the highest return on investment in unlocking the full potential of the employee/teammate.
How to avoid these two ditches
Establish role clarity in order to care well for those entrusted to us and then stay in the right lane. We are attempting to be caring supervisors not therapists.
Invest our best energy in the space where the employee’s thriving-not thriving is showing up in their work
I am hopeful about future that includes healthier workplaces that allow all of us to bring our full selves to work and it will take intentionality to establish healthy expectations for all involved in this changing landscape.
Core Leadership Philosophy
If we attempt to manufacture results from others we get neither results nor a healthier person. If we help people become who they are capable of becoming we likely get both. The most effective work is getting to the core of what can help people live into all of who God is calling them to be- not just how they get better at the roles they are playing (i.e. Dad, Son, professional role, etc). When these things get unlocked it then flows out into every role they play.
Healthy, growing, dynamic people investing their energy in the right things always leads to healthy, growing, dynamic organizations.