How we are building Mental Health into our developmental tools

I have written before about our LeaderLine Toolkit for leaders. We continue to develop and grow the number of tools to support the leaders we come into contact with through our Coaching and Mentoring programmes. We now have 46.

An aspect of those tools which we are consciously focusing on, and are deeply committed to, is supporting leaders with regard to their mental (and physical) health so that they are best placed to deal with the challenges they face every day.

This is reflected primarily in our section dedicated to Resiliency and Wellbeing. For example, I read an article recently (bear with me) about how today’s CEOs need to train like top sports people. Making space to recharge is one of the recommendations that helps, not just physically, but equally as importantly, mentally. This is one of the many key messages of support and guidance provided in our resiliency and wellbeing tools.

Do you, as a leader, do this regularly – and in what way?

We so often talk about time as a pressure point for leaders. However, one of our latest tools explores how to watch and protect another finite resource – your energy. Understanding your own personal energy capacity and limits helps to ensure that you do not exhaust them to the point of running on empty, leading to burnout, which is a major concern for many leaders – and their teams too.

We have all just emerged from one of the most stressful times of the year as we cram in, not just impossible demands and deadlines, but all the personal expectations we impose upon ourselves.

How many of you ended up exhausted because all this was placed on top of an already regular, hectic work and personal life?

What part of it was really necessary and what could have been avoided, deferred or delegated?

Our self-compassion tool would be useful for that purpose as it looks at the well-known Stress Bridge model, with a template that helps a leader to reflect and work through what they could do to ‘lighten the load’.

This comes with the message - Be kind to yourself - again, something that leaders should practice more as they too often take on more than their fair share of work and responsibility to get the job done.

Do you find yourself doing this?

These are some of the ‘purpose-built’ tools which help leaders to be mindful and responsive to taking care of their mental health. However, there are other tools, such as the In and Out of Control tool in the Personal Growth category, which is designed to help overwhelmed leaders ease the stress by focusing on only what is in their control, rather than spending valuable time and energy on things over which they have no control to change or affect.

Beyond the toolkit…

However, it is not just the Toolkit which reflects our commitment to supporting leaders’ mental wellbeing. Our coaches continue to upskill and train around mental health for the benefit of those they coach.

The results of such development by one of the coaches, with a strong desire to share some of what they had learned, is the compilation of ‘information sheets’ about Stress, Anxiety, Depression and ADHD. They are designed to be a starting place to better understand these conditions, with references to places for those who want to further their learning.

And there is, in fact, more – with the Knowledge Bank available on our website with recommended books, articles, podcasts and videos – that also has a section dedicated to resiliency and wellbeing. Did you see the post on LinkedIn yesterday talking about it? We have updated the Knowledge Bank with over 30 new resources. Click here to see these new resources, selected by our team of expert coaches.

We are proud of what we are continually creating and developing to support the mental health of leaders everywhere in times that are increasingly demanding, ever shifting and changing – as we know it is an imperative not to be ignored.