Written by Willie Nicholson, Business Consultant
Willie Nicholson has held numerous leadership roles, building and empowering successful teams while enabling employees to grow and achieve career success. His go-to phrase is, "It's not who's right. It's what's right."
In an unprecedented move, the U.S. has officially declared a mental health crisis among children, highlighting the urgent need for attention and resources to address rising rates of anxiety, depression, and trauma in young people. This declaration underscores the strain on mental health services and the impact of societal challenges on youth well-being. With this call to action, experts and policymakers are advocating for transformative measures to support the mental health of the nation’s children.
Children are our most valuable resource and our best hope for the future – John F Kennedy.
Actions and events in a workplace can have a ripple effect that extends beyond the immediate colleagues, influencing a wider network. I believe bad managers' stress on employees carries over into their families, hurting children.
I once came across an unknown author's quote: "Parents must be okay for their children to be okay. Parents' mental health is the foundation for children's mental health." Because stress lingers, it reminded me of my experience with job stress and carrying it home: what does it mean to be okay? Is it because I think I’m okay? But I am still stressed and have normalized it. It also reminded me that stressing a child out only takes a moment.
In this article, we will explore if there is a connection between bad managers and children’s mental health. Research suggests that there is a strong correlation between the two.
On October 19, 2021, for the first time in US history, a children's mental health crisis was declared in the US by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and the Children's Hospital Association (CHA)
Crisis news is not new. The declaration of a children’s mental health crisis is significant and begs the question of what is fueling this.
We are used to hearing many stories about the upsetting emotional toll that bad managers take on their employees. Less focus is placed on the impact this emotional toll has on the children of employees. Even the potential that there may be long-term negative effects on a child's mental health should make many of us apprehensive. Chronic stress from work is thought to be one of the main sources of ongoing stress that has a detrimental effect on mental health and accumulates over time.
And, if these numbers do not alarm you, then maybe, that increased suicide attempts have been the most common mental health condition seen in children's hospitals.
Myth, misconception and mistake
Imagine the saga that can unfold when misapprehension leads to assumptions. When I was a newly hired manager, I once took over a team of difficult but incumbent employees in a toxic environment with an HR department that supported the current tough team. One of my tasks was to fix this problem. On top of everything else, the team outright said they would be getting me fired. Naturally, they believed I was a poor manager.
Let me clarify the myths, misconceptions, and mistakes cited when discussing bad managers.
Myth: There are traditional stories that people do not leave companies because of bad managers. The fact is people do leave companies because of bad managers and they also leave for other reasons.
Misconception: Bad managers and leaders are always intentionally malicious or actively trying to harm their team. In reality, poor management stems from a variety of factors, including, lack of skills, inadequate training, egos, lack of empathy, or not understanding how to lead or motivate teams.
Mistake: The primary mistake is trying to fix the result rather than the cause. It’s generally not productive to solely blame bad managers when in reality they are contributing to the problem, and when there is a rich tapestry of different factors, each contributing in a unique way.
I want to be very clear about my viewpoint. It is not always necessary to pass stress on. It is now your responsibility to take action, regardless of your role as an employee, parent, manager, leader, or organization. "The ball is in your court,”
Stress is contagious
“I am not arguing. I am just explaining that I’m right.” Rick Sanchez from the animated series “Rick and Morty”
Bad behavior can cause stress that becomes toxic to others, especially in the workplace, where a manager's stress can trigger similar responses in their employees. Recently, I have been thinking about how long bad behavior should be accepted. When does indifference turn to intolerance?
Consider this scenario: you are enjoying a fantastic day until you encounter your manager, who speaks to you in an unpleasant and insensitive manner. This is the manager's persistent behavior, and you have attempted to call it out to no avail. You choose to endure it for a variety of reasons. But the conduct persists. For a variety of reasons, you decide to endure it.
I think the problem with bad behavior is that we both have choices. The decision to act badly or not rests on the person who is behaving badly. I may choose whether or not to accept it. Bad behavior is bad behavior regardless of whether you are a manager or not. Why would we put up with the same behavior at work if we wouldn't put up with it from our kids, friends, or anybody else? Furthermore, we shouldn't tolerate bad behavior because you are getting paid.
I believe we can all agree that stress is not stationary and has no boundaries, and as Dorothy Nolte famously remarked, children do learn what they live. Then they grow up to live what they've learned.
What I did not know is that stress can be contagious. When people are stressed the chemical hormone cortisol leaks out of the skin through sweat and can impact others.
And like a nasty cold or flu, it can spread fast. Research shows that simply observing someone who is under a lot of stress can jack up our levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. In fact, stress is so contagious that a new Swedish study found that you can even spread stress to your dog.
Stress erodes parental-child connections and, according to study, is infectious, spreading like wildfire. The parent-child crossover effect illustrates how emotions or behaviors may spread throughout a family structure. The "ripple effect" refers to the overflow from the workplace into the home.
According to studies, between 30 and 50 percent of working parents are already concerned about their kids' mental health without having to deal with additional stress at work.
Anything that has a long-term impact on our children's mental health, regardless of the source, should raise grave concern and is unacceptable. Bad managers create stress. Employees are afflicted and pass it on to their families.
Managers would argue the pressure and stress that managers put on their staff to get things done originates from leadership. When this happens, and it does, achieving managerial outcomes takes precedence over employee empathy. Ineffective managers become even poorer managers.
In truth, a manager's approach is a personal choice. Its downstream consequences are not justified by compounding the situation. Unfortunately, this unseen dispersion of rage enjoys a robust but unregulated reputation in business.
We are aware that parents give their kids emotional support. Although well-meaning parents may be aware that their mental health affects their family, they might not always be aware of the additional harm that bad managers cause to their families.
Because I have been on both sides as a manager and parent my perspective is divided. A manager who experienced pressure and stress to meet leadership objectives, and a parent whose daily routine entails a straight path home to an unaware family carrying an invisible element of stress that is very contagious and harmful. We may not be able to control bad managers, but we can strive to control ourselves.
There really are two sides to every story
“Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument” Desmond Tutu
“The first to present his case seems right until another comes forward and examines him.” Proverbs 18:17
The most critical thing we need to know is often the most important piece of information we don’t have. Instead of pretending we know what we are doing we should fill that gap.
Dr. Safia Debar, a stress management expert at Mayo Clinic Healthcare explains that the difference between good and bad stress is about the perception of stress and how your body is actually handling it. It is reasonable to acknowledge that a little bit of stress can be helpful and motivate you to perform well. I would argue that no one else, even managers, can determine how much stress each person can manage before positive stress turns into negative stress, and it is commonly known that too much positive stress can turn into negative stress.
As a result, it may appear reasonable and possible that many managers do not take their employees' families into account while interacting with them due to leadership directives. However, one may consider this line of thinking to be an appeal to hypocrisy. Another fallacy that avoids addressing the subject directly in favor of reactive criticism in response to a claim.
Some managers may not believe that they affect the families of their employees, and they most certainly may not think that they are contributing to children's mental health crises. This is because those managers are more focused on their obligation to meet predetermined objectives than the opinions of their staff. They are in managerial positions to accomplish goals. It does not lessen the manager's obligation to achieve those goals whether an employee disagrees with the management's decision, or objectives, or even believes the manager is awful.
It is also possible for managers to explain that following directions from superiors does not always indicate a lack of character. Managers are seen badly for carrying out the decisions that leaders make. You see that all the time between parents and kids. Children view their parents as terrible individuals when they make decisions. Although this argument appears to be sound, it is incorrect because it involves an unsubstantiated assumption about a link between two things, known as the "causal fallacy," which cannot be verified.
A recent 2024 Harvard Business Review article supports that managers’ burden is increasing. “The job of the manager has become unmanageable. Organizations are becoming flatter every year. The average manager’s number of direct reports has increased by 2.8 times over the last six years, according to Gartner research. In the past few years alone, many managers have had to make a series of pivots from moving to remote work to overseeing hybrid teams to implementing return-to-office mandates.”
The manager's claim that pressure from the top is not helping their cause is further supported by Gartners’ research that found that managers today are accountable for 51% more responsibilities than they can effectively manage and yet they remain the load-bearing pillars of an organization. They carry the weight of leader expectations at the top while responding to employee expectations at the base. This is accurate.
Managers are, undoubtedly, under more pressure now. This demonstrates the hazards of the ripple effect and how weak managers, who are already unhappy and victimized, pass on their stress to their staff. However, as author Ryan Blair wrote, “If it’s important to you, you will find a way. If not, you will find an excuse.” In psychology, it is often called “projection.” where you unconsciously attribute your experiences to another person.
Leadership is not blameless for their role in this issue. Businesses need to do more to address this issue. Whether you agree or disagree, terrible behavior is always unacceptable and should never be condoned, supported, or spread.
This data reveals stress is not biased and is more proof that supports bad managers' role in fueling the children's mental health crises. Further casting an unflattering spotlight on businesses, they cannot expect to escape.
Before we assume that nothing has been tried to help reduce parental stress, working from home has been one approach. According to a study from Northwestern University, around 40% of parents who worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic reported experiencing higher parenting stress due to disruptions from their children, compared to only 27% of parents who worked onsite. This illustrates that other factors are at play with stress. I am sure that some children would in turn say that parents working from home adds additional stress on them as well.
When it comes to dealing with bad managers, organizations are trapped between a “rock and a hard place.” I once asked our CEO, "Do you really think training will change bad managers?" He said, "Well, I can’t fire all my managers." He is right. But does this also imply there is nothing more that can be done?
As a matter of facts
“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence” David Hume
Fortunately, a 2023 Work in America Survey found that the majority (77%) of workers reported being very (36%) or (41%) satisfied with the support for mental health and well-being they receive from their employers.
Unfortunately, 84% of American workers say poorly trained people managers create unnecessary work and stress.
It should be noted that bad managers and toxic cultures are not the only contributing factors to children's mental health crises. Yet, workplace issues are more intricately linked to health concerns than any other stressor in life, even more so than financial or family issues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mental health foundation, 2023
20% of adolescents may experience a mental health problem in any given year.1
50% of mental health problems are established by age 14 and 75% by age 24.
10% of children and young people (aged 5 to 16 years) have a clinically diagnosable mental problem3, yet 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.
The pew charitable trust
Dec 8, 2023 — Our nation faces a new public health threat. Accelerated but not solely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, feelings of anxiety and depression have grown to levels where virtually no one can ignore what is happening.
A CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation poll put a number to it: 90% of Americans feel we are in a mental health crisis.
The centers for disease control and prevention (CDC)
The most recent data, from 2021, was stunning:
42% “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” up from 28% in 2011.
22% “seriously considered attempting suicide,” up from 16% in 2011.
Youths have had low rates of suicide mortality, but that began changing about a decade ago. Today, (ages 10-24) account for 15% of all suicides, an increase of 52.2% since 2000.
Suicide has become the second-leading cause of death for this age group, accounting for 7,126 deaths.
Project hope
About 15% of the world’s adolescents have a mental health condition.
Around 1 in 7 young people ages 10 to 19 have a mental health condition.
Mental health issues often start in the early stages of life: About half of all mental health issues begin before age 14 and most cases go undetected.
Mental health disorders could cost the world $16 trillion by 2030
Over half of Americans with a mental illness don’t receive treatment
In May 2024, the Children’s Hospital Association issued the following statement titled “A Better Tomorrow for Children’s Mental Health Depends on Today’s Actions.”
“Most people don’t often associate mental health emergencies with children. Instead, people tend to believe children and adolescents are immune to depression, anxiety, loneliness, trauma, or severe mental health challenges. They simply don’t want to believe that pediatric emergency departments see a significant number of school-aged children at risk of suicide.
But that’s simply not reality. The truth is suicide is the second leading cause of death in 10- to 24-year-olds, and suicide attempts, ideation, and self-injury are among the most common mental health conditions seen in children’s hospitals’ emergency departments (EDs). These serious issues accounted for 31% of behavioral health encounters in children's hospitals EDs in 2023 alone, according to data from the Children’s Hospital Association’s Pediatric Health Information System®.”
What’s more, unmet mental health needs in childhood can lead to crises in adolescence and young adulthood. According to the CDC, in 2021, 22% of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide, and one in ten attempted suicide at least once during the past year.
This crisis is also costly to American businesses. The more time a parent spends caring for a child’s mental health needs, the greater the disruption to their work and productivity. It is estimated that indirect costs related to mental health such as lost productivity cost employers $47.6 billion annually.
Naturally, managers would argue that pressure is the root source of stress, not bad managers, who are contributing to children's mental health crises. This is confirmed by the fact that managers are beginning to collapse under pressure.
Fifty-four percent of managers are suffering from work-induced stress and fatigue.
44% are struggling to provide personalized support to their direct reports.
One in five managers said they would prefer not to be people managers given a choice.
Forty-nine percent of workplace conflict is a result of personality clashes and egos.
The danger is significant, employees who report to bad managers are far more likely to fail:
Three times more likely to want to leave their organizations
Four times more likely to underperform on both customer satisfaction and innovation goals.
But what are the parents saying? , Evernorth Health Services commissioned YouGov to survey 2,500 U.S. parents. Working parents managing a child’s mental health needs reported a significant impact, personally and professionally. Compared to working parents of children who do not have mental health challenges, they are far more likely to have mental health struggles of their own, with 54% reporting a diagnosed condition.
“Curbing the youth mental health crisis and its human and economic toll is imperative for a thriving, vital society.” David M. Cordani, chairman and CEO, The Cigna Group
In August 2024, said in an advisory he had warned about young people’s mental health in 2021. “My hope is that we can shine the light on something that affecting millions of people across the country.” He went on to state “Let’s be clear, the actual stress factors are wide and have long concerned parents.” Dr. Vivek Murthy, US Surgeon General,
The evidence is compelling, but only if you want to see it. Because they are the center of the working parent's universe, it is more appealing and thrilling to blame lousy bosses and their egos; Albert Einstein wrote, “More the knowledge, lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego.” Consider this Reddit post, in which a middle manager tells the story of top management's bloated ego, which disliked an exceptional, hard-to-find software designer and compelled the middle manager to face this employee. The worker resigned when they were in the middle of a two-million-dollar offer, which was lost to the business for whom the software designer later worked.
In “Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday wrote that Geneen famously said, “The worst disease which afflicts business executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it is egotism. Whether in middle management or top management, unbridled personal egotism blinds a man to the realities around him; more and more he comes to live in a world of his own imagination; and because he sincerely believes he can do no wrong, he becomes a menace to the men and women who have to work under his direction,”
Thinking about what happens next
“When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.” Anthony D’Angelo.
If the welfare of children is not something important to us, then what is? If it is true that our children are our most valuable resource, our best chance for the future, how did we arrive at the point where a child mental health crisis had to be declared?
The objective is not to solely cast all the blame on bad managers but to evoke our compassion and empathy to ignite the opportunity to diminish this problem at every source. Mental health challenges are not hidden from us. They are in plain sight and amongst us. The opportunity to study, explain, and manage these challenges is what should stir something in us. This is not about who is right. It’s about what is right.
It may not seem important to talk about the stress that bad managers cause right now, but a small change in behavior can improve leadership skills today and the mental health of others now and in the future.
Again, although not the only contributing factor, the research covered here provides viewpoints that do nothing to refute the notion bad managers create stress for employees that contributes to their mental well-being that extends to families.
The only logical question is, “If we know the problem exists and have clearly identified one source of the problem, can we deny its existence?” I could remind you of this article's title and ask if you initially believed this was true. However, this is not to determine if this is a moral or ethical issue. The purpose is to raise awareness.
I would conclude that studies have demonstrated that terrible managers negatively affect the mental health of employees and that employees pass their stress, worry, and other job-related distress down to their families. Therefore, it is reasonable to conjecture that bad managers are inadvertently exacerbating the children's mental health crisis.
Our children's legacy depends on all of us: companies, managers, employees, and others actively directing our concern toward the same final goal. Even the large number of CEOs of businesses who legitimately claim, "I can't fire all my managers," would undoubtedly agree that what is currently being done is not enough and further measures need to be taken to help our children have a more sustainable future and bridges all racial, ethnic, religious, and creedal divides.
Visit my website for more info!
Read more from Willie Nicholson
Willie Nicholson, Business Consultant
Willie Nicholson, a thought leader and business adviser, helps others improve their knowledge of the business world. Because he didn’t have early mentors in his life, Bill entered the corporate world uninformed and inexperienced. Bill didn't appreciate the value of advice until he had the opportunity to work with two separate female leaders who helped him develop his early business understanding and aptitude. From then, he began to take an early interest in helping others understand the intricacies of business.
