Imagine you’re a company director or business leader and, out of the blue and out of character, a member of your team goes on a destructive rampage, damaging valuable company property in the process.
Would you respond with empathy or anger?
What would be your main concern? The individual member of your team or the damage caused and cost incurred?
And if you’re an evolved leader who can muster empathy and concern for the individual, can you say that for every leader in your organisation? Or everyone you’ve worked with in the past?
Jon Whitfield can’t. When he was 27 years old, working for a courier company, Whitfield drove his boss’s van through a brick wall under the influence of alcohol and medication. His boss was understandably furious, regularly visiting and calling the hospital to harangue Whitfield and urging the police to press charges.
This wasn’t a simple case of driving under the influence. At the time of the crash, Whitfield wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and the police later established that there were no skid marks on the road at the scene, suggesting that he made no attempt to brake and avoid a collision.
The hospital ward where his boss visited him was the psychiatric unit, where he spent eight weeks. A few years earlier, Whitfield had been diagnosed as as having bipolar disorder, or manic depression, and a year later he had attempted to take his own life through a massive overdose. Mental health challenges run in his family; his mother suffered from depression for which she was hospitalized, while his father was an alcoholic.
Whitfield’s boss at the courier company didn’t know about his personal or family background. He just knew that one of his couriers had been drinking, taken drugs, and then careered off the road and through a wall in one of his new vans.
“I can understand how my boss reacted”, Whitfield reflects, “He didn’t understand why I did what I did. Rationally you wouldn’t drive someone else’s vehicle into a brick wall. He didn’t get it; people don’t understand your mental health because it’s your mental health.
“If I can’t rationalise it, how can I expect other people to?”
Whitfield sympathises with his former boss. There was more damage to the van than to Whitfield, physically at least. And being out of control in a particularly manic episode is not easy for others to understand. But, on reflection, he does think his former boss could have been more understanding, at least after the initial shock.
We speak more openly about mental health challenges and understand them better in today’s society than we did more than a quarter century ago, when Whitfield had his accident. The openness makes it increasingly important for leaders and colleagues to stop and consider that, when they have an emotional response to another’s actions, something more than meets they eye might be gong on with the person.
There are a few simple steps leaders can take when, and even before, a colleague or team member acts out of character or does something counterproductive or even destructive:
- Before jumping to conclusions and accusations, stop and seek to better understand first. Ask people to explain what happened and why, giving them the opportunity to speak.
- Ensure that they feel comfortable speaking without fear of being judged.
- Make sure that support is available, even before issues arise. Ensure that you have a strong mentoring programme in place, so that staff members have ongoing availability to open up confidentially, and encourage peer mastermind groups and action learning sets.
- Make sure you know whether your organisation has support for people with mental health challenges and how to effectively access that support.
- Keep an eye on the levels of stress your reports and colleagues are under and be aware of signs of strain before things become too overwhelming for them. Work with them to see what support they need to achieve their objectives without breaking down.
- Encourage well-being. Enable people to go outside and get fresh air and exercise and to eat healthily.
- Check in and enjoy small talk. Don’t go direct to the agenda at a team or individual meeting. Ask others how they are and what’s happening in their lives at the moment, encouraging them to expand when they answer. “I’m fine” isn’t enough. This is particularly important when on remote calls, when we tend to go to the agenda far more quickly than we do when we meet in person.
- Acknowledge personal and professional growth. Celebrate together and make people feel good about what they are achieving and the progress they are making.
After the crash and having lost his courier job, Whitfield completed his outpatient treatment and did volunteer work as he found his way slowly back to his feet. He had previously completed a degree in social policy, and his drive to find purpose led to him to complete a Master’s degree in youth and community development. Whitfield attributes his recovery in large part to devoting his time to such a powerful social cause and making a difference to people.
“Helping other people and enabling them to flourish made a huge impact on me personally too, giving me the direction and self-respect to move my own life forward.”
Whitfield now devotes his time to running The Octopus Foundation, the charity he and his partner set up to support people who miss out on mainstream support services in his native Kent, England and which has won a number of community awards.
“My experiences have taught me”, Whitfield reflects, “not to question or judge people by their behaviours or their story when they come onto the programme. It’s what they bring to you on any particular day and working with them to bring the best of themselves”.
