Every good leader has been a bad boss at some point.
The truth is, we’re all a mixture of good and bad qualities and leadership often falls upon us by accident.
Managers - be they good leaders, or bad bosses - have a profound impact on their teams.
So what makes a bad boss, and what makes a good leader?
How can bad bosses become good leaders?
Experiencing happiness at work isn’t a matter of stumbling upon the profession that is ‘perfect’ for us and then riding that wave of joy into retirement.
Rather, like wellbeing, happiness is made up of a bunch of different components that can be experienced in many different jobs and workplaces.
So what are the key factors that we can apply to different jobs to have a better chance at finding happiness at work?
Workplaces can be the drivers of positive mental health outcomes.
We live in a world where a huge number of people suffer from mental ill health and access to help is poor. As employers, why not go a step further from just ‘not making things worse’ to actually making things better?
Creating social-connectedness at work is one opportunity for leaders to impact their people positively. Loneliness experienced at home can seep into the workplace and leaders have the power to not only prevent work-based loneliness, but combat loneliness overall.
Workplaces can be the engines that drive a socially connected world.
How can leaders create an environment that fosters social connection?
Whether it’s a restructure, a new senior hire, cost-cutting measures or a change in direction, organisations know change is a normal part of maintaining a successful business.
And yet organisations mess it up, creating disgruntled employees who fight them every step of the way - even when the new ideas are good and have the potential to help everyone.
Why is organisational change so hard?
And how can leaders do it well?
Circuit breakers are a simple solution to a potentially deadly and costly problem. When a circuit trips, we simply open the fuse box, flick a switch, and providing there is no deeper fault going on, we reset the system.
Now, imagine if we could do this with our brains. How much potential damage to our mental and physical health could we prevent if we had an automated switch that simply cut off the power to our unhelpful thought patterns before they escalated to breaking point?
Mental Health - we all have it, and yet it can be difficult to talk about, especially at work.
October 10th 2023 is World Mental Health day and the theme this year is ‘Mental Health is a universal human right.’
How do you actually bring up the topic? Or, if someone else lets you know they’re struggling, how should you reply?
In our last blog we covered how to identify burnout risks, and how to protect yourself at the recruitment stage by spotting which organisations or job roles might pose a high risk to individuals.
In this blog, we will cover some of the steps that individuals can take to lower their burnout risk and protect their mental health at work when they find themselves in a job role or organisation that may present a higher risk.
Perhaps the best thing an individual can do to avoid burn-out is to work for an organisation that has a robust Psychosocial Risk Management plan in place to support positive workplace mental health outcomes and protect their workers from chronic stress.
But how can you choose the right job? And what other practical steps can individuals take to protect themselves from burnout and feel good at work?
This is the first in a three-part blog series about change in which we will cover: The Psychology of Change, a Practical Guide to Change, and How to Manage Change (in both yourself and others) while minimising negative mental health outcomes and optimising positive ones.
Change is a constant throughout our lives, and change can impact our mental, physical and emotional health in a myriad of ways.
it can be helpful to separate all of the cultural and mental clutter that surrounds goal-setting and behaviour change and figuring out how best to do it, when and how you want to and are able to, and not because an internet personality who exudes the scent of bran flakes while they do burpees at 5am makes you feel like you would somehow be a better person if you could force yourself into the same habits.
Worrying can impact our mental health at work significantly, and has been the subject of sage advice for centuries.
Inspirational quotes about improving your mental health by simply ‘not worrying’ are easy to find, but much more difficult to put into practise.
Can you control worrying by simply choosing not to worry? And if so, how?
In this blog we will explain in simple terms what worry is, how you can control worrying, and how you can work and live your life despite having things to worry about.
Burnout: a state of mental and physical exhaustion, characterised by feelings of cynicism, depletion and distance from our work.
AI: the simulation of human intelligence by machines, and used for everything from data analysis to customer service and even creating art and writing romance novels.
Can Artificial Intelligence help us to beat burnout, and regain our sense of humanity at work?
Developing strategies to increase opportunities for social connection is a major research concern that is impacting public health policy globally at multiple levels; from the design of community living spaces to employment regulations, public health campaigns and how we harness technology.
What can individuals do to ensure they are getting the social connection they need for mental and physical wellbeing?
Firstly, establish how much social connection you need.
Canada - that bastion of forward thinking - is currently working on developing public health guidelines for social connection to improve population mental health, and control mental and physical health risks. Bit like your five a day, but in chit-chats rather than fruit and veg.
Does that mean Friday night pizza parties are back on the work perks list, or should even form part of your Psychosocial Risk Management plan?. (TLDR: no. For more nuance, read on).
