The Mindfulness Blog

Me, I'm a doer-- especially when it comes to workplace wellbeing and caring for mental health. Dreamers? I don't have a lot of sympathy for them, these days; The dream was something I dreamed about, years ago.

Maybe you're neither-- maybe you're somebody else, but the promise of something (ill-defined) that's supposed to come at some time in the future (unspecified), is not a promise that I'm inclined to accept. I've heard all the talk-- it's time for some action.

"Manana" is simply not an option, for me. That may sound a bit extreme to some, but colloquially, it's called kicking the can down the road and the issues of workplace wellbeing and mental health have been "kicked" a few times too many.

I'm not thinking of anyone in particular, but I'm starting to think that the challenge to workplace wellbeing and mental health may lie somewhere I had never previously considered. Logically speaking (that's my retired lawyer brain at work), I know that statistically, most leaders throughout the business world are still men-- could it be that the real challenge, is men?

Being of the male persuasion myself, the notion is hard to swallow, but logic is leading me to think hard, and ask a question that is both troubling and controversial: Are male leaders quietly adverse to the growing concerns about workplace wellbeing and mental health? Are the values that males are taught, antithetical to the basic human instinct of caring for others?

I'm ambivalent about the direction my thinking has headed, but I have no ambivalence whatsoever about the importance of advocating support for workplace wellbeing and mental health education as concerns that have been debated ad nauseum, and now demand action.

Something's got to give-- something will give-- but I'm still wrestling with the wisdom of calling out male leaders, and the business milieu they've been raised to protect.
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