No matter how good you are at your job or how long you’ve been at it, being an effective leader is never easy. As a leader, you play many roles — from coach and mentor to (sometimes) drill sergeant and disciplinarian.
The key is understanding exactly what your employees need when they need it. But if there is anything predictable about human beings, it’s their unpredictability. As a leader, you not only have to be many things to many people, but you have to learn to quickly read the room and your team and adapt quickly to whatever the situation may present.
Unfortunately, in this era of unprecedented change and challenge, “reading” your team effectively means detecting sometimes subtle and unexpected signs of anxiety. After all, no matter what industry you may be in, chances are your workers are experiencing more stress than they perhaps ever have before.
But different generations exhibit, experience, and process anxiety differently. As a leader, it’s incumbent on you to understand those differences and lead accordingly, including recognizing the increased risks your younger employees may face — as well as what to do about it.
Why it matters
The reality is, we are an anxious and stressed-out society. However, anxiety is far more than just uncomfortable — it can be debilitating. Over 40 million Americans suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder, making anxiety disorders the most common form of mental illness in the US.
And we’re feeling the impacts. It’s estimated that anxiety-related physical and mental health challenges result in more than $42 billion in healthcare costs each year. But the impacts go far beyond these expenditures. In the workplace, anxiety is also strongly linked to lost productivity, decreased performance, and increased absenteeism and attrition.
A generational curse?
Anxiety, both in and out of the workplace, is by no means nothing new. The prevalence of anxiety disorders attests to this. However, a mounting body of research suggests that some demographic groups are at greater risk both of developing anxiety disorders and of suffering significant effects from them.
Studies show that our youngest generations — millennials and, especially, Generation Z — are especially vulnerable to anxiety. More than 50% of workers under the age of 23 have reported feeling anxious about stress they experienced in the previous month, while 40% of millennials said the same. Contrast this with the national average of just 34% and it’s clear that anxiety is taking an especially significant toll on our young people.
It is not really surprising that rising generations would be especially vulnerable, and it’s far more than just the inherent challenges we all have faced in the transition to adulthood. The reality is that Generation Z grew up in a very different world than their leaders likely did.
These kids came of age in the era of active shooter drills in schools. This is the generation that not only grew up with a digital device in hand, but also had to learn some hard lessons to protect themselves against cyberbullying and sexual exploitation online. And this is the generation that grew up amid the economic fallout of the Great Recession.
Now they are leaving high school or college and are preparing to enter a workforce that is perhaps more competitive, more demanding, and less secure than ever before. It is little wonder they would be anxious.
What to do
No matter what your business does or how effective and happy your team may seem, as a leader you’re responsible not only for your employees’ performance, but also for their workplace wellbeing. After all, how can you expect the best from your employees if you’re not working hard to support them and to cultivate a positive workplace environment that helps them be their best?
When it comes to understanding your employees’ individual mental health needs, one of the first and best things you can do is work with them to identify their personal triggers. How we respond to particular stressors does not only vary from one generation to the next, but also from one person to the next.
Training your staff to recognize those situations and contexts that stress them out is the first step to formulating an action plan to mitigate these effects before the stress spirals into full-fledged pathological anxiety or panic.
On a practical level, try something as simple as offering your workers a quiet place to retreat to when the workday threatens to overwhelm. A place where they might listen to music, meditate, or simply nap will not only help them combat their stress, it will also communicate to them how important they are as individuals to you and to the company.
In addition, one of the best things you can do as a leader to help your workers, of any generation, to overcome anxiety, is to practice, teach, and model the premise that adversity is opportunity. The goal, above all, is to help employees develop resiliency. Help them learn not to be afraid of or paralyzed by challenges and setbacks but, instead, use them as an opportunity for growth and improvement.
Being a good leader is about far more than turning a profit or meeting a productivity metric. It’s about learning to meet the unique and evolving needs of your team. That includes understanding the prevalence of workplace anxiety, its risks, and its repercussions, and then using every leadership tool in your toolbox to help your employees overcome these threats.
Charlie Fletcher is a freelance writer who is passionate about workplace equity, and whose published works cover sociology, politics, business, education, health, and more. You can see more of her work by visiting her portfolio.