National Mental Health Day & The Cost of Looking Away
Yesterday, October 10th, was a day set aside to recognize mental health. As a result, there are three areas I would like to spend some time today reviewing:
Mental health and leaders of organization and supervisors impact on them via layoffs and poor leadership.
Reducing the stigma of discussing mental health and utilizing resources for support and lowering the perceived bar of asking for / offering help
Discuss what human first leadership looks like
First, mental health and the impact of leaders and layoffs. In Everybody Matters, Bob Chapman says his company measures success “by the way we touch the lives of people.” That is a different measure than profit alone. Chapman also writes about the human cost of layoffs:
“You rarely hear leaders talk with compassion about the impact of layoffs on the lives of individuals and their families after companies send them home with damage to their self-worth and a dramatic loss of income. Eighty percent of people report a negative impact on their health within a year of getting laid off, and their risk of dying goes up by 44 percent to 100 percent. The frequency of sickness absences doubles in downsizing companies.”
These figures are reported in Chapman’s Everybody Matters. They remind us that a layoff is not just a line on a spreadsheet. It reaches a person’s health, self-worth, and family. Chapman also recalls hearing Dr. Casey Chosewood say that the person you report to at work can have a greater impact on your health than your family doctor. Later, speaking to more than a thousand CEOs in San Antonio, Chapman told them: “I know you are worried about the cost of health care. Well, you are the cause of the health care crisis. That is a challenging message for leaders. But if our decisions and behavior affect people’s health, we have a responsibility to take that seriously. Every employee is someone’s precious son or daughter. We should lead with that in mind.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 573,195 announced U.S. job cuts through September 2026, including 120,136 cuts where AI was cited as a reason. Those are announced cuts, not a measure of what every affected person is experiencing. But behind every announcement are people and families facing change and uncertainty. Chapman saw layoffs as a leadership failure. He and other leaders took significant pay cuts during a downturn that threatened their business, then worked through it. That is a powerful example of sharing the burden rather than placing it all on employees.
We should keep that in mind because how we treat employees matters, not just during layoffs, but every day. The pressure we feel at work can follow us home, and what we carry home comes to work. Poor leaders, as Bob rightly calls out, greatly impact our well-being. I have heard leaders excuse harmful behavior with, “Oh, that’s just [name] being [name].” That is a red flag. It can be code for tolerating behavior because someone is considered valuable to the organization. Either our values mean something, or they don’t. Craig Groeschel has said, “Culture is what you create or what you tolerate.” I agree. When we let a senior leader or manager treat people poorly, we show everyone what the company really accepts. Looking away is not neutral. Looking away encourages the behavior.
Second, if we do have a poor leader or, more generally, are having a harder time, we also have to make it easier to ask for help. Employee Assistance Programs, or EAPs, remain among the most underused resources I have seen, even when organizations promote them. Some people may not know how to access them. Others may feel uncomfortable bringing them up. If someone broke an arm, many of us would recommend a doctor. If we saw them about to trip, we would say, “Watch out.” But when someone may be hurting emotionally, we can hesitate because we don’t know what to say. We don’t have to have all the answers. We can care enough to share the EAP number and let the person decide what to do next. Other professionals, including psychologists and psychiatrists, can help too. As leaders and colleagues, we can make support easier to find, without trying to diagnose the issue or a person.
Finally, that belief is at the heart of human-first leadership. I did not start the year with those words in mind. I was frustrated by layoffs and by the callous ways some organizations treat employees. That frustration led me to write They’re Worth It! What It Means to Put Employees First. I kept seeing people treated less like human beings and more like robots. Now, as organizations use AI more and more, I’m less concerned about the robots and am more concerned about the leaders acting like them. Leaders that have seemed to lose their humanity. I firmly believe we will see a world where businesses care about the humans in them. Imagine that! I do. I believe we can still see a marketplace where we value people over profits. And until that day is a common reality, I will continue putting pen to paper (keys to a keyboard).
Shouldn’t we all?
You can learn more about Challenger’s September 2026 report and the World Health Organization’s description of burnout. If this reflection speaks to you, please share it with someone who may need it. You’re also welcome to subscribe for updates.
Coach Ha-Keem
