We all go through good and bad days – our mental wellbeing can even change from hour-to-hour but the key is if a person can bounce back. If they can’t, this is where we’ll, unfortunately, see peoples mental health issues spiral.
Because we don’t know what our employees are thinking or feeling (unless they tell us). How do we recognise when someone isn’t able to bounce back – what are the external factors we can look out for?
The key identifier is a person’s behaviour. This is because, as we mention at the start of this article: Our mental health is linked to our thoughts, our thoughts affect our feelings, and our feelings manifest our behaviour.
More specifically a person’s behavioural change and this plays testament to why the best leaders have such a deep relationship with the people they lead – they’re able to spot these changes in behaviour early and identify them.
So what could these behaviours include, and what should leaders be looking out for in the workplace? We’ve put together a few common occurrences which link to a person’s mental wellbeing, but remember, everyone is different:
Isolating: If someone is feeling isolated or alone they tend to isolate themselves further.
Argumentative: A colleague may be more argumentative or disagree more than usual.
Appearance: there might be a change in appearance. We’re not talking about looking scruffy here, but a shift in someone’s pride in appearance. Are they doing things differently: not washing their hair as much or not ironing their shirt for work anymore?
Performance: has their workplace performance changed, without any internal change to their role?
Withdrawal: someone who withdraws – not just in work or on a webinar but possibly on their social media: have they removed themselves from a work WhatsApp group?
Language: a change in their language: “oh that always happens to me”
Swearing: someone who didn’t use to now does a lot
Smell: not the smell when you’ve been out the night before, but possibly that they’re carrying a lingering alcohol smell which wasn’t there before.
Remember we’re looking for a shift in their behaviour. Not that they are necessarily doing things extremely worse. Any of these above behaviours could indicate that your colleague is suffering from a mental wellbeing issue.
