Managers Impact Mental Health At Work. But They Should Care About Their Own, Too

Originally published at Forbes.com

After reading Forbes Contributor Tracy Brower’s series on mental heath in the workplace, it’s clear that managers play a pivotal role in dictating workplace culture. How managers treat their employees affects the collective stress level at work—for better or worse.

Much of an employee’s attitude toward the job at hand reflects the quality of the relationship with their manager. The more positive the attitude, the easier it is to handle the stress that comes with any job. And, when employees are in the right state of mind, the workplace naturally becomes more productive.

But what about managers? At the executive level, mental health is equally important, due to its trickle-down effect on the rest of the workforce. It is impossible to be the right kind of manager for your employees when your own mental health is disrupted. A stressed manager makes for a stressful office.

To a large degree, the answers to the managerial mental health question are true for people across the board. Regular exercise that clears the mind and burns calories, while also maintaining flexibility, muscle mass, and core strength; recreation that requires “presence,” refreshing you and occupying your mind fully, from golf and tennis to skiing, fly fishing, and hang gliding; and programming in self-care that takes you out of the role of serving others, whether it’s a massage, reading, or just hanging out with friends.

These tips work for most people most of the time. But there are also best practices that I was taught and are perfectly tailored to the role of an executive. Managers who follow them are more balanced and effective as leaders.

Early in my career, I was fortunate enough to have a boss who became a mentor. I remember his words to this day: “You need to set a pace for yourself as a leader that keeps you resilient and gives you endurance—not for a year or two, but for 20 years. You (or your team) cannot afford to suffer through periods when you are burned out. Your people need you to be available and responsive all the time, not just when your schedule allows.”

When managers prioritize their own mental health, they need to take the long view. Here’s what a 20-year pace looks like, broken down into five key steps:

Retain a power reserve of time and energy

You always retain a power reserve of time and energy for the bursts of focus and commitment that are needed to respond to crises and opportunities. On a given day or in a given month, you may be required to stay in “high gear” indefinitely, without shedding the basic requirements of your leadership role, so always keep something left in the proverbial tank.

Budget for availability

Keeping something in the tank is additive to availability—being there for your people. That is the second power reserve and it means “on-demand,” not just by appointment or with days of lead time. The nature of a manager’s position is that, when people need your input or approval, their productivity stops until you respond. Build in the room to return phone calls and emails as soon as possible. Try building in same-day meetings too, ensuring that productivity is not lost unnecessarily.

Prepare for the unexpected-but-urgent

Since the “urgent” tends to squeeze out the “important, but not urgent” (such as strategic thinking or background research), your third power reserve needs to be ready for explicit thinking, reading, or planning time and energy. You won’t always have an hour or two to prepare, so get ready for urgent situations by first accepting that they are inevitable.

Delegate generously

Once your three power reserves are built up, remember one thing: There is only one way to maintain a 20-year pace while also budgeting in the time and energy needed for crisis and opportunity responses. It is to embrace delegation, delegation, and more delegation. To maintain your own sanity and maximize your efficiency, delegate everything but those things that only you must do because of your position, or only you can do based on your skill, stature, and experience. Managers can handle other things, but they need to step back and empower their employees to get them done too.

Address errors immediately and honestly

You make delegation work by combining your availability with the confidence that you are a valuable resource to your people, who must learn and grow on the job. As another mentor of mine taught me, “Things happen, things blow up, and we all make mistakes. There are only two deadly sins: Lying or hiding a problem. You’ll never get in trouble for sharing uncertainty or exposing a concern.” When stuff hits the fan, the only conversation for managers and employees is about “what to do now—together.”

If managers instill a collaborative ethos at work, rather than overwhelming themselves, their employees will reap the benefits too. People will leverage your availability as a resource to allow you to delegate even more, reducing your overall stress and making them feel more motivated at work. The mindset is not “hands-off”; it is something like “doors and ears open.”

When managers keep their doors and ears open, they can set a 20-year pace of resilience and endurance. They can stay mentally equipped to do their own job, while also remaining present in other areas of life—the ultimate measure of a healthy mind.