Here we go again: another panel, another well-meaning webinar, another branded Zoom background. March celebrated women, April tackled autism and financial literacy, and now May waves the flag for mental health. I used to be the eye-roller—sometimes even while sitting on the panel or designing the poster. Don’t we have enough to do? Shouldn’t we focus on this year-round?

I finally realized these months aren’t HR marketing ploys. They’re reminders to drop the task list and talk to our teams like humans, because relationships are the real work.

Results Follow Relationships

Earlier in my career, during Pride Month, one of my team members quietly came out during our weekly one-on-one. “I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she said, “but never found the right moment.” She was going to be bringing her girlfriend to the upcoming summer party and didn’t want me to be surprised. I had posted the requisite rainbow emoji in Slack and attended the company panel, but I hadn’t created the space for real conversation. I hadn’t signaled that I was truly available to listen. That moment stayed with me. How many other conversations had I missed by treating these awareness months as HR initiatives rather than leadership opportunities? I’d forward the webinar invitation, share the resource guide, then dive back into what I considered the “real work”—projects, deadlines, emails.

But here’s what decades of leading teams have taught me: when relationships fray, results follow. I saw it last year when a high-performing team slowly unraveled, not from missed deadlines but missed signals. Team members stopped sharing concerns early, stopped offering candid feedback, and stopped trusting that someone would listen. When performance issues surfaced, the underlying connections had already broken down.

This isn’t just my experience. Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index revealed that 85% of employees would come to the office specifically to rebuild team bonds, yet 73% say they need a better reason than “because leadership said so.” The data confirms what I’ve seen firsthand: people crave real connection, but they’re resistant to mandated togetherness that feels performative.

Now, with teams scattered across time zones and screens, these designated moments for deeper conversation matter more than ever. They’re not interruptions to our work—they’re essential maintenance for the human infrastructure that makes all other work possible. And this infrastructure needs more maintenance than ever. While we debate whether we’re heading for a financial recession, researchers have already identified another one: a friendship recession. Pew Research reports that 53% of U.S. adults have only one to four close friends, while 8% have none.

I felt the power of ambient connection when I left my last company. A colleague—one of the few of us who came into the office regularly (we lived a few blocks away)—told me quietly as I was packing up my things, “It’s going to feel lonely without you here.” I laughed and joked that he still had the snacks (and those gummies!) But he was serious, and I understood. I would miss him, too. Even on heads‑down days, it helped to look up and see him and the rest of the team working; to trade a quick question without opening up Slack; to know we could duck into a conference room for a quick brainstorm rather than start an email thread for days. That connection was also felt with the greater distributed team–it just demanded more intentionality. I would drop into video calls five minutes early sometimes and told my team I would be there. The small talk in those unguarded minutes replaced what we lost in the hallway. One colleague held a weekly, camera‑on office hours slot for work questions or catch-ups. Most people who showed up just wanted that catch-up!

Proximity has changed; people haven’t. We still need deliberate touchpoints reminding us that we are not alone and in this together.

Conflating Communication with Connection

Even as we recognize that relationships drive results, we keep making the same mistake: conflating communication with connection. We think more tools, more touchpoints, more check-ins, more updates, will strengthen relationships. Yet somehow, we’re all feeling more isolated.

More platforms, tools, apps, and newsfeeds are making us “digitally lonely.” Feelings of disconnection keep rising, and the answer is not another AI friend (Thanks anyway, Mark). Many of my colleagues have even started stepping away from platforms like LinkedIn. Not because they don’t value connection, but because the content feels increasingly inauthentic—automated, performative, optimized more for visibility and communicating rather than genuinely connecting and contributing something. I’ve noticed myself stepping away, too. I’ve thought a lot about how to reconfigure what I write, share, communicate in a way that is genuine to me, and also impactful to others. I’ve taken courses on AI, and Writing with AI, and am continually reminded that even as I use AI tools to work smarter, they’re tools, not replacements. AI can help me structure a one-on-one but it can’t make eye contact. It can’t notice when someone pauses before answering. And it can’t build trust. That’s on me.

OpenAI recently had to roll back a ChatGPT update because it became—quite literally—too sycophantic. It over-validated everything users said, complimenting even harmful ideas and reinforcing absurdity instead of offering real support or constructive feedback. This is a reminder that even AI needs the proper guardrails to be truly helpful. These tools can enhance our work, but they need boundaries—and they need us to verify their output and ensure they’re actually serving their purpose.

The lesson isn’t to stop using AI or any of these tools that help us connect—it’s to use it responsibly. To check in with ourselves. To make sure our tools are amplifying our leadership and humanity, not replacing it.

This balance between tools and human connection becomes especially critical during awareness months, when it’s tempting to let automated posts and pre-packaged programs do the heavy lifting. But just as AI can’t replace genuine leadership, a corporate wellness webinar can’t replace real conversation.

Leadership Practices that Matter

As I wrote in ReCulturing, culture isn’t just what we say—it’s what we practice, consistently. Here are three ways to transform Mental Health Awareness Month from a corporate initiative into a meaningful connection:

• Turn a Panel into a Conversation: Instead of just attending another mental health webinar, use it as an opening to discuss in your 1:1. “That speaker mentioned burnout. Here’s when I have felt burnt out (share a story). How are you doing? How can I support you?” Let the silence hang.
• Create Safety through Structure: Use these themes to normalize tough conversations. During one Mental Health Awareness Month, I shared that I valued health. Going to the gym and meditating were core practices to my physical and emotional health. I also told them that my 3 PM appointments on Wednesdays were not movable since they were my therapy sessions. After that, nobody rescheduled their therapy sessions anymore.
• Make Mental Health Part of Work: Instead of keeping wellness initiatives separate from “real work,” integrate them. During Mental Health Awareness Month, I asked a team member struggling with anxiety about how we were running our meetings to facilitate a meeting effectiveness review. Her perspective helped us cut unnecessary meetings and create tighter agendas. Sometimes, the best person to solve a problem is the one who feels it most acutely.

So this month, don’t just mark Mental Health Awareness Month. Model it. Let your leadership be the most human thing you offer. Because hashtags fade. Human connection sticks.