The traditional image of senior, executive leadership typically presents with heroic levels of personal sacrifice, invulnerability, and stoicism, with company performance prioritised at the expense of all else. Although modern approaches to leadership increasingly admit vulnerability, the fact remains that heading companies to optimum levels of performance is hard, challenging work. Expectations imposed – or self-inflicted – on elite leaders can easily escalate to a point where demands become overwhelming and unachievable. When leaders drown under the weight of these goals, sadly, companies sink with them.

Poor mental health exits on the end of a continuum. When performing at their best, elite executives thrive under challenging, but rewarding, levels of demand. Sustained demand, however, can readily become less tolerable stress, which then starts to impact on performance, culminating in the misery of illness, burnout and failure^[1]. Far from being immune to the extremes of this spectrum, there is increasing evidence that senior executives are more likely than their subordinates to become mentally unwell, due to the demands with which they, uniquely, must wrestle. Of further concern, is that this vulnerability is accompanied by factors that routinely lead senior executives to conceal any traces of mental illness, for fear of weakening their positions. Failure to recognise and address poor, executive mental health can result in devastating consequences for the executives themselves, their boards, their employees, and their overall company performances. 

It is therefore crucial that those tasked with taking on the burden of leadership, at the pinnacle of organisations, are enabled to safely examine the state of their own mental health and given ready, convenient access to effective interventions when needed. These must be provided in a manner whereby elite leaders, feeling the onus to maintain an invulnerable persona, are encouraged and supported to gain confidential, expert help, before its requirement becomes critical.

^[1] The Williams Pressure Performance Curve (1994)