3 ways to care for your team’s mental wellbeing this holiday season (and yours too!)

Author: Jennifer Gendron - Global Chief Commercial Officer at Koa Health - Employee Mental Health and Wellbeing Solutions

The holidays can feel unduly stressful, as if all of us are rushing so that we can relax. With end-of-year deadlines and other time-sensitive priorities, everyone is trying to push one more deliverable over the finish line to spend quality time with their families. When it comes to mental wellbeing, people may have mixed feelings about the holidays, the workload, and in many parts of the world, the changing temperatures. As a matter of fact, anxiety and depression can be at an all-time high^[1] around the holiday season, and that means it’s the most important time to take preventative measures. Instead of dealing with symptoms of the holiday blues once they become acute, adopt a proactive mindset, wherein a little extra effort is taken to help mitigate stressors and increase wellbeing consideration.

Here are three best practices to help you get started:

1.Be a friend (to yourself and others)

While your team looks to you for leadership, they also look to your behavior as a model for organizational norms and as a strong influence on company culture^[2]. How you lead your people impacts their own motivation and has implications for long-term employee performance and satisfaction in and outside the office^[3]. It’s a lot of responsibility. But an easy step you can take to create a culture that prioritizes mental wellbeing is through the way you speak to your people and yourself.

For example, if you have a friend that’s tired, what would you say to them? You would insist they take a break. The same goes for your direct reports and for yourself. The holidays are a time to pay attention to cues (your own and your team’s). Focus on lessening fatigue and burnout, as opposed to pushing through. Pay extra attention to the language you use with your direct reports and yourself. And treat everyone with a little extra gentleness.

2.Take a (lunch) break

While it may be tempting to work through lunch or stay late each night to prepare for your holiday leisure time, it is critical to remember that you are a role model for your team’s behavior. If you don’t take time off, your people might not feel they can either. By taking time for self-care, you allow your team to do the same. This can mean a short walk outside or spending ten minutes of unstructured time in the office as a team just catching up. Whatever your schedule allows, remember that you become a clear example of mental wellbeing for your team when you take care of yourself.

3. Speak openly about your mental wellbeing

Unfortunately, there’s still quite a bit of stigma around mental health, particularly when it comes to asking for help. This is despite ample research that shows that people’s work lives improve dramatically when their mental health is taken care of^[1].

As a leader, you have influence and the power to propel change and reduce mental health stigma. Try speaking openly about what you do to take care of yourself or ways that you take care of your own mental health. This reduces stigma and strengthens emotional and affective bonds between yourself and your colleagues and peers. And perhaps most crucially, it brings mental wellbeing out of the dark and into the light, where the organization can help to truly address it.

Advocating for mental wellbeing for your team and your organization only takes a few small steps—the same steps you can use to care for your own mental health. Being a good leader means taking care of yourself so you can help others to bring their best selves to work as well.

Take your holiday mental wellbeing strategy to the next level with our complete Holiday Mental Wellbeing toolkit, which explores additional preventative measures such as fostering gratitude, setting boundaries, and dealing with grief.