Helping Young Leaders on Your Team Navigate Mental Wellness

We wanted to pull together a preacher, elder, professor, mom, advocate and mental health professional for a Q & A forum on how to help young twenty-somethings navigate mental wellness.

We got all of those opinions in one person!

Stefanie Rowe LPC, LIMHP is a licensed counselor and Strengths Coach in Omaha.  As a wife, mom, Christian University professor, people helper, elder and on the teaching team at her church, Stonebridge Christian Church, she has a unique view into current and future church leaders. She seeks to empower them to lead and love those who are on their team and within their reach who have mental wellness concerns.

We sat down with her to pick the brain of someone in the day-to-day trenches of both mental wellness and church leadership world to get her unique perspective.

Lp: Every leader 40 and older we know wants twenty-somethings on their team. We’ve been talking about reaching millennials for too long, and now Gen Z is in their early twenties! What are a couple of things that every Gen Xer or Boomer Senior Pastor should know about the mental wellness of younger twenty-somethings who are joining them at the table?

Stef:  First, the younger someone is in leadership, the less stigma he or she feels about taking care of his/her mental wellness. Thank goodness! This is a change that has been coming and frankly, still has a way to go. But where Boomers might whisper about seeing a therapist (I had a Boomer once “confess” to me that he saw a therapist) might do so reluctantly and as a last resort, Gen Z is posting about it on Instagram, going sooner, and hiding it less. More and more, Gen Z & Millennials are more informed and more transparent in most areas of their lives, including their mental wellness. Overall, I see this as a very good change of direction, but it can look really confusing to their bosses.

Lp: We read statistics that 1 in 4 will be diagnosed with some sort of mental condition in this age group. That means that there are a lot more undiagnosed and untreated. Is it just an assumption that this comes with the hire?

Stef: I assume that at one time or another, every single person we lead is going to struggle with mental wellness in some capacity. For example, an unexpected death or grief, a challenging breakup with a romantic partner, a financial or health crisis, issues of attachment or previous trauma can sometimes raise concerns that carry a formal diagnosis by a professional counselor, such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD, just to name a few. We are wise to be openhanded about this area of wellness. For many employees, gone are the days of “stuffing it” and “putting on a brave face at work.” Welcoming honesty and transparency and not be shocked by these things, which have been going on forever and affecting work for just as long are finally being talked about while at work.

Lp: What are a couple of things a church could do to address this similarly as other employee benefits?

Stef: To begin, leaders need to be willing to look at the whole person whom they lead. This includes the physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental. In this way, creating an environment that’s not power hungry and fear driven is especially important. While we shouldn’t ask pointed questions about anyone’s diagnosis or mental health specifics (they can share what they want, when they want), we do want to create an environment that cares about the employee as a whole person. Practically speaking, we can also encourage and make flexible room during the workday for counseling and other medical appointments and offer health insurance plans that make counseling affordable.

Both of my boys have major medical concerns that require us to occasionally see specialists. To do that, we have to pull them out of school and take time off work. Not all doctors and specialists have appointments that fit perfectly into someone’s day off or “after work” hours. If this person had cancer, we’d move heaven and earth to make sure they could see their doctors, and I believe a similar view should be made for counseling and especially psychiatric appointments.

Lp: We talk a lot about the first 90 days in our coaching. Everyone seems to start with a bang, but then there’s a day when it’s like they fell off the shelf. How can a supervisor or coach be prepared and navigate this well when depression or anxiety begins to show itself in these times?

Stef: We would do well to establish open and honest lines of communication with our employees so that if they want to talk about this, the door is open. If we create an environment where one of our colleagues brings this up to us, we need to be advocates, listeners, and help him or her in whatever way he/she may ask. We want to give a response that communicates, “I see you; I hear you; and I will help you however possible.” This includes, among other things, keeping an up-to-date list of counselors we know and trust, a good understanding of what our insurance covers for counseling (ex. Do we have an HSA? Do we require a co-pay? Who do we call to find out?) and being knowledgeable about when to call 911, when to go to an Emergency Room, and when to see an outpatient therapist or medical doctor.

Lp: Many of our churches have been using slogans like “It’s ok to not be ok” for a long time, but it still appears when it comes to mental wellness this is true if it’s something you “got over previously.” What can all of us do to remove that stigma?

Stef: I still see a lot of senior leaders who tell people it’s okay to go to counseling but won’t go themselves. I’m over it! In fact, taking care of yourself as a person, leader, husband/wife/father/mother is one of the best things you can model for younger leaders. Your uneasiness with counseling is not hidden. If that’s you, your colleagues can tell. You sound like the boss who says, “Don’t work on vacation,” and then calls from the beach. It’s a mixed message when those at the top aren’t taking their own advice. People are going to do what you DO, not what you say.

I also see a lot of senior leaders who share their stories of mental wellness once they are “through” the worst of it. While I understand and respect that you don’t have to share the entirety of it with everybody (good-bye Facebook), I encourage you to consider being honest with your team. A simple, “I’ll be out this afternoon for some personal counseling” goes so, so far with the younger team looking up to you. “For the last six months, I’ve been seeking counseling for crushing anxiety, and I’m feeling much better now,” tells your team to button it up, even hide it, until it’s “fixed. UGH.

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For more, Stefanie can be reached at her website HERE