Ask a Therapist - Recognizing Anxiety at Work

(transition whooshing) (gentle music) This question comes to us from Tracy on how to support your team as a leader. As a team leader, I wanna make sure I'm supporting my team effectively, especially when it comes to mental health challenges like anxiety. What are some common signs that someone might be struggling with this at work? Also, what steps can I take to better support anyone on my team who might be dealing with anxiety? Well, Tracy, thank you so much for sending in this question. You sending in the question lets me know that you are caring and compassionate and truly, truly want to support your team and their well-being and sustainability. It really starts with the culture that you create. So an environment that feels inclusive, that is focused on well-being, not so much focused on overproduction or showing up or proving themselves. That type of environment allows for brave and safe spaces and relationships to exist. So that type of environment might lead your team to come and talk to you if they are experiencing signs of anxiety. As we talk about anxiety, it's important to note that anxiety doesn't always have a look. So it's not necessarily that you'll be able to spot anxiety. You might think that your star team member is perfectly healthy, fine, whole, and happy at work, but they might be having the most anxiety out of all of your team members because it can look like overproduction, it can look like showing up to work early and leaving late, it can look like answering emails within a certain timeframe, but that can also look like anxiety. That can also look like trying to prove myself worthy based on merit. When you are looking for some signs, even though there is not a way to... Anxiety doesn't have a face, you can be curious about people. And being intentional when you show up to work, are you being mindful and wholly present? That way, you being able to notice when someone's attitude at work changes or when someone's habits have changed. If someone who has always been on time, now they're late all the time. Like, these are things that you can take notice of, even if they don't fall under a bucket of signs of anxiety. If we start with being flexible, like, first, we would look at the environment and then we recognize it's not gonna all look the same. So once we've recognized the environment, built a brave space, understanding that now that they feel safe enough to come to me and for me to ask questions and be curious, I'll do that. But then, being flexible. Look at the things that you actually have control over. Are you creating agendas for your meetings? Like, these are some practical things that you can actually do to alleviate things that might cause anxiety for the whole team. So not having an agenda for a meeting can cause anxiety. Having...