Are academe’s managers talking enough about mental health and wellness?
Working and leading through turbulent times make it difficult to put your best professional foot forward, day in and day out. Sure, the work still needs to be done. Managers still must hold teams accountable, ask for updates, and resolve problems. But if 2020-21 taught us anything, it’s that campuses won’t succeed in the long term if managers do not take care of the people they manage.
Leading through emotional exhaustion is not easy. It demands sophisticated soft skills. It means learning how to motivate a team, raise morale, and demonstrate empathy. It requires those of you who are managers to put aside your own feelings and focus on other people’s needs. That can be difficult with a large team, especially if the leader is stressed and emotionally exhausted, too.
Remember: A few bad days do not represent someone’s overall ability or personality. A few meetings where the tone of someone’s comments is off does not make that a habitual problem. A few mistakes or absent-minded errors do not make someone a screw-up. Yet leaders often spend more time offering negative feedback — harping on mistakes — than celebrating all the things employees do right. And, sadly, that is understandable in difficult times, when managers may focus on the negative because they are under pressure to “fix” things.
No one is suggesting that academic managers ignore repeated mistakes or avoid reprimanding employees if it is deserved. But we are in different times, and leaders need to think about why a problem in someone’s work is important to bring up now, and how to deliver the message.
Continue reading: “How to Manage Through Emotional Exhaustion,” by Kerry L. O’Grady
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