Caring Leadership

As a manager and leader for over 35 years, and a parent for 24 years, I see many similarities in the roles. Being a caring leader means ensuring that your team has an environment to thrive and grow, and are safe in what they are doing. This week I have read with interest some comments about psychological health and safety and it being the realm of psychologists and EAPs rather than managers and leaders. Whilst I agree that treatment for mental health issues falls in this realm, surely we need to understand what could go wrong and ensure that the environment is such that it minimises the potential for things going wrong. This is what we do at home for physical and psychological risks. We don’t have hazards around the house which could cause our family harm. We make our house child safe when they are born. We risk assess the home for any potential hazards and teach our children to take safe actions. Similarly, we need to risk assess our workplaces to ensure that we have managed the potential hazards to prevent incidents, both physically and psychologically. This is why we need to involve everyone in the identification of hazards and develop awareness of the risks. What are the hazards?

Where are the risks?

What could go wrong? How can I mitigate these risks? Remove hazards, install safety measures around them. How do I prepare my team to avoid them? Training and Awareness. This is applicable to physical and psychological risks. We cannot rely on a retrospective fix. We need to look for prevention and proactive measures before they happen. The cost of Mental Health workers compensation is rocketing because leaders are reluctant to address the proactive and preventative measures and see psychological injury in the psychologist domain. Training your Leadership teams in psychosocial health and safety awareness will benefit your business and reduce the cost of workers compensation, as well as reduce the level of absenteeism and presenteeism.