When the strain begins to show

Economies are under stress – and so are employees. A review in November of sickness absence* revealed an estimated one in six workers in England and Wales is affected by anxiety, depression and unmanageable stress.

Similarly, in June last year, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development surveyed 592 organisations for its Absence Management Report, produced in partnership with Simplyhealth, and found stress is now the top cause of long-term absence and that for the second year running there had been an increase in reported mental health problems.

The report concluded that the high cost of such absence makes it an urgent issue for business leaders.

But some leaders are not coping too well themselves. Last October saw a high profile example of this when Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, shocked the City by taking leave of absence due to severe exhaustion, only returning to his desk this month.

There are expected to be changes to the nature of his team and his responsibilities to help avoid future stresses.

Such events at this level can unsettle investors; the bank’s share price was adversely affected. And the high-profile nature of the chief executive’s post means that any breakdown quickly becomes very public. So what lessons are there for those at, or on their way to, the boss’s chair?

Moira Benigson, managing partner of executive search company, the MBS Group, has found some executives are choosing not to apply for the top posts, preferring to serve instead on several boards as a non-executive director or diversify in other ways. Her firm has produced a report based on interviews with 40 candidates who had recently rejected top roles

For the first time, Ms Benigson is also seeing a global trend of strong candidates rejecting opportunities in favour of a role which will make the most of their skills but will shield them from the public demands of the top job. Job satisfaction, a happy family life, less travelling and emotional well-being are increasingly being placed above financial reward.

Michael Sinclair, clinical director of London’s City Psychology Group, is one of the medical experts trying to prevent employees from breaking down.

He wrote Fear and Self Loathing in the City: a guide to keeping sane in the Square Mile and his next book, The Little CBT Workbook: a step by step guide to gaining control of your life, is published next month.

“I am seeing more and more chief executives come to me either while they are at work or once they have been signed off,” he says. “Those that have been signed off are often in an acute state of crisis and depression, experiencing debilitating levels of psychological distress and may require more intensive psychological treatment and in-patient admission. I often meet with them once they have been discharged from hospital to continue their treatment.”

Their problems range from depression and insomnia to chronic fatigue, backache, irritable bowel syndrome and alcohol and drug misuse. Many, he says, prefer being signed off from work with a physical illness rather than admit to being stressed.

As a consultant to City occupational health departments, Dr Sinclair has seen an increase in stress, including suicide attempts, across all sectors but believes those in finance are particularly vulnerable: “Psychological problems arise if they become institutionalised within their corporate world.

“Despite feeling unwell, they often work long hours – presenteeism – and live in fear of letting down the people in their personal life. They tend not to open up for fear of redundancy.”

Dr Sinclair witnesses “imposter syndrome” when leaders live in a perpetual state of fear of being found out as “de-skilled”. Some bankers also tell him they are too ashamed to reveal their profession socially.

One chief executive described feeling overwhelmed: “I was not feeling like a whole person any more. I couldn’t sleep, so would go jogging at 4am only to have to go to bed at 9pm because I was so exhausted. I became obsessively tidy to feel in control.”

With economic gloom failing to brighten, chief executives need to lead in a way that supports employee engagement and wellbeing, which needs to be considered in succession planning and recruitment, argues Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

He says there is more of a need for emotional intelligence today than 20 years ago, as leadership becomes less about command and control and more about how to engage people. He believes recruitment processes need to screen for personality and aptitude. It’s no longer good enough for senior players simply to pass stress on, as this can create a toxic culture, undermining performance. Mr Willmott thinks non-executive directors should be addressing this issue.

Brian Marien, chief executive of Positive Health Strategies, a consultancy, agrees that resilience is fundamental to the bottom line and says psychological well-being is known as the best predictor of performance: “Talking about stress, burn-out, mental breakdown and the personal, organisational and societal costs is not the way into the boardroom. However, talking about resilience, ‘cognitive fitness’, optimising performance and return on investment does attract attention.”

Dr Sinclair urges business leaders to learn to compromise more, reduce information overload, modify expectations of themselves and others, alter their environment, reduce caffeine and sugar, practise forgiveness, accept their fallibility and face their fears. He says taking time out is not selfish but a way to replenish.

He believes if there were no stigma around mental health problems, stress in the corporate world would be halved: feeling stressed about becoming stressed magnifies the levels of stress: “It’s like an onion with a core at the centre – the inevitable and understandable level of stress – and layers around it (unhelpful negative thoughts, presenteeism, drinking) all exacerbated by the stigma.

“If we were to peel the layers away, we might find the level of stress at the core is really quite bearable.”

* “Health at Work”, Dame Carol Black and David Frost, November 2011