The Weight of Leadership: What CEOs and HR Managers Need to Know About Mental Wellbeing at Work

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes with being responsible for other people.

It is not just the workload, though the workload is real. It is the constant low-level hum of awareness: Is my team okay? Is Sarah disengaged or just tired? Why has James been so short-tempered lately? Am I doing enough? Am I missing something?

If you are a CEO, people leader, or HR manager reading this, you know exactly what we mean. And chances are, while you have been monitoring everyone else, you have not spent much time asking the same questions about yourself.

This post is for you — and for the people in your team who need you to understand what is happening around them.

The pressure leaders are carrying right now

The role of a leader has changed fundamentally over the last five years. Where once a CEO or people manager was primarily expected to drive performance and manage output, they are now also expected to be emotionally attuned, psychologically safe, culturally sensitive, and personally available, often simultaneously, often without adequate support of their own.

The data reflects this. A 2023 Deloitte report found that 70% of C-suite executives are seriously considering leaving their current role due to the stress it causes them. Meanwhile, a Workplace Mental Health report from Mental Health Foundation NZ found that managers consistently report higher levels of work-related stress than the people they manage, precisely because they are absorbing pressure from both above and below.

This is the leadership squeeze: the board wants results, the team wants support, and somewhere in the middle is a person trying to hold everything together while quietly running on empty.

What makes it worse is the unspoken rule that leaders are not supposed to struggle. Asking for help can feel like a sign of weakness. Admitting uncertainty can feel like a loss of authority. So leaders carry the weight invisibly, and pay for it privately.

Why your team's mental health is now part of your job

There was a time when mental health at work was considered a personal matter. Something handled behind closed doors, between an employee and their GP. Not anymore.

New Zealand's Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 explicitly includes psychological health as a workplace hazard that employers have a legal duty of care to manage. The WorkSafe guidelines on workplace stress and mental health are clear: employers must take reasonable steps to identify and address psychosocial risks, not just physical ones.

But beyond the legal obligation, there is a simple human and commercial reality: mental ill health in teams is expensive. The Mental Health Foundation estimates that poor mental health costs NZ businesses approximately $1,500 per employee per year in lost productivity, absenteeism, and staff turnover. For an organisation of 100 people, that is $150,000 annually, most of it invisible on the P&L.

And yet the single most common thing we hear from leaders is: "I didn't see it coming."

What mental ill health actually looks like in a team

The challenge is that mental ill health rarely announces itself. It does not arrive with a diagnosis attached. It arrives slowly, quietly, and often disguised as something else entirely.

Here is what to actually watch for, not the textbook symptoms, but the patterns leaders miss:

The person who stops contributing in meetings. They used to have opinions. Now they are quiet. You assume they are bored or disengaged, but withdrawal from participation is one of the earliest signs that someone is struggling to keep up internally.

The high performer whose output suddenly drops. When someone who has always delivered starts missing deadlines or producing work below their usual standard, it is easy to attribute it to laziness or motivation. Often, it is cognitive load, anxiety and depression both significantly impair concentration, memory, and decision-making.

The person who is "always fine". The employee who says nothing is wrong, laughs things off, and appears unbothered is not always the most resilient person in your team. They may be the person who has learned, through experience or culture, that it is not safe to be otherwise.

Increased irritability or interpersonal conflict. When someone who is normally easy to work with becomes short, reactive, or difficult in team relationships, stress or mental health strain is often the underlying driver. This is particularly common in people who have been carrying too much for too long.

Physical complaints without a clear cause. Frequent headaches, digestive issues, fatigue, and recurring illness are all recognised symptoms of chronic stress and anxiety. If someone is calling in sick more often, or regularly flagging physical symptoms, it is worth a gentle, private conversation.

Changed routines around arrival, departure, or breaks. Someone who starts coming in very early or staying very late, not as a one-off, but consistently, may be using the structure of work to avoid something else, or may be struggling to manage their workload during normal hours.

Social withdrawal. If someone stops joining the lunch group, declines invitations, or physically isolates themselves at their desk, they may be conserving emotional energy because they simply do not have enough of it to sustain normal social interaction.

None of these signs alone is a diagnosis. But a cluster of them, or a sustained change in someone's normal pattern, is a signal worth responding to.

How to have the conversation you are avoiding

Most managers know when something is off with a team member. What stops them from acting is not indifference, it is uncertainty. What do I say? What if I make it worse? What if they deny it?

Here is a simple framework that works:

Choose the right moment. A private, low-pressure setting, a one-on-one, a walk, a quiet moment at the end of the day. Never in a team meeting or a rushed corridor conversation.

Lead with observation, not diagnosis. "I've noticed you seem a bit quieter than usual lately" is far better than "I'm worried you might be struggling with your mental health." One opens a door; the other makes someone feel labelled before they've had a chance to speak.

Ask and then stop talking. "How are you really going?" and then wait. Genuinely wait. The silence that follows is not awkward; it is the space where an honest answer has a chance to form.

Do not try to fix it. The most common mistake well-meaning leaders make is moving too quickly into solution mode. Your job in this conversation is not to solve the problem. It is to make the person feel seen, taken seriously, and safe. That alone is powerful.

Know what to offer. Before you have the conversation, know what support actually exists. Does your organisation have an EAP (Employee Assistance Programme)? A mental health resource hub? Flexible working arrangements? Having something practical to point to matters.

Follow up. One conversation is not enough. Circle back in a week. Not with "are you better now?" but with "how are things going?" Consistency signals that your care was real and not just a box-ticking exercise.

The part leaders forget: you need support too

Supporting a team's mental health while managing your own is genuinely difficult, and yet most wellbeing initiatives in organisations are designed entirely for employees, with leaders as the delivery mechanism rather than as participants.

This is backwards.

You cannot model psychological safety if you are not psychologically safe yourself. You cannot encourage your team to ask for help if you are visibly incapable of doing the same. And you cannot sustain the emotional labour of caring for other people if nobody is tending to your own reserves.

Some of the most effective things leaders we work with have done for themselves:

Normalise your own limits. Saying "I don't have capacity for that this week" or "I'm finding this stretch pretty demanding" in front of your team is not weakness. It is permission. It tells every person watching that it is safe to be human at work.

Get your own support structure in place. Whether that is a leadership coach, a peer network, a therapist, a trusted mentor, or a structured leadership development programme, leaders who have someone to talk to perform better and last longer. This is not soft advice; it is practical resilience management.

Build genuine recovery into your schedule. Not just busyness with a different label, actual recovery. Proper breaks, proper holidays, regular movement, and a life outside of work that you actively protect.

Attend the wellbeing sessions you commission. When the CEO or HR leader turns up to the team workshop, it changes the dynamic of the entire room. Your presence signals that this is real, not performative.

What a proactive approach actually looks like

The organisations that manage mental health best do not wait for a crisis. They build psychological health into how the organisation operates — not as a separate programme, but as part of everyday culture.

That means:

Managers who are trained to have early conversations, not just HR who are trained to manage escalations.

Regular, genuine pulse-checking, not just an annual engagement survey, but ongoing dialogue about how people are actually doing.

Workloads that are visible and manageable, not just aspirational.

A wellbeing programme that is consistent, varied, and valued, not a one-off Mental Health Awareness Week activity with low attendance.

And critically: leaders who go first.

The difference between knowing and doing

Most leaders reading this already know that mental health matters. The gap is rarely awareness, it is implementation. The uncomfortable question is whether what you are doing in your organisation right now would actually make a difference to the person in your team who is struggling.

If the honest answer is "I'm not sure", that is a useful place to start.

Wellbeing Workshop works with HR managers and business leaders across New Zealand to build that implementation, practically, sustainably, and without adding another impossible task to your list. Whether it is a Mental Health First Aid workshop for your people managers, a tailored Mental Health at Work session for your team, or a broader wellbeing programme that actually sticks, we will help you work out what is right.

Book a free discovery call with Nicola — tell us where things are at, and we'll recommend the right next step.

Wellbeing Workshop is New Zealand's most comprehensive provider of workplace wellbeing workshops and webinars. We work with organisations across NZ and Australia to build healthier, happier, higher-performing teams.

Further reading:

• Burnout vs. Stress: How to Tell the Difference (And What to Do About Each)

• Why Your Team's Financial Stress Is a Workplace Problem

• Mental Health for Leaders Workshop

• High Performance Leadership Workshop