How well teams have fared over the Covid pandemic years, has often come down to how well team leaders and managers are able to recognise the emotional demands of a job.
Managing ourselves and our feelings can be exhausting. If our role also involves supporting others, (for example children, young people, families, patients) then we are often in the position of helping others to manage their emotions whilst our own have to be “parked” for later. It can be helpful to reflect on when that “later” might in fact be.
Take a moment to reflect on the following:
Is it seen as important in your organisation to recognise and try to understand emotions and how they might be expressed?
Do you have conversations about healthy ways to manage a difficult feeling and ways for everyone to think about self-regulation - not only when you go home at the end of the day, but also during the working day itself?
Is it “safe” to be honest with those around you about how you are feeling?
Do you have conversations about ways to respond to colleagues appropriately when it is clear that difficult feelings are threatening to overwhelm them?
These habits of relating are what create the culture in an organisation and what in the end can support your employees to give of their best in their job, whilst also looking after themselves and each other well.
As adults, most of us spend a lot of our time at work and the culture that exists in our workplace has a big impact on our lives. We aren’t different people ie. one who goes to work and another one who is part of a family/community outside of work. How we feel about ourselves at work and about the work we do, and the people we do it with, has a direct influence on how we are able to be outside of work.
We know that organisations of all kinds thrive when they are emotionally healthy and psychologically safe - when employees feel safe and empowered, with a shared sense of purpose. Families and communities also thrive when habits of relating are healthy.
“The evidence is clear that it is the places and circumstances in which people are born, grow, study and work that have a powerful influence on their mental health”
(The economic case for investing in the prevention of mental health conditions in the UK – McDaid and Park Feb 2022)
If you’d like to explore how we might help you to nurture an emotionally healthy workplace, please get in touch hello@emotionalhealth.org.uk
Mary Taylor, Head of Parent Programmes
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