Workplace Wellness and Empathic Leadership Starts with Your Ears
Suicide fatalities are 5 times higher in the construction industry. This is why I always remind people to do a gut check, particularly leaders. And I ask leaders to do regular gut checks with their troops.
Trust your instincts
Never blaze past that feeling that something might be wrong. Humans are intuitive creatures like that, so much so we sometimes gaslight ourselves into thinking otherwise.
But from a leader’s perspective, this is even more important. Do you really know your people?
Example ⇣
I stopped by the contractor’s office trailer on a job site to talk with another safety guy.
He looked upset, out of sorts, and not focused on the job.
It was obvious that he was very upset about something.
Come to find out it was the anniversary day of his son’s suicide, and he was away from home.
I could see it was bugging him.
At the time he was in a busy office.
I pulled him aside and asked him to come for a drive to check on some things with me.
I had no idea how to help this guy, so… I simply allowed him to talk as long as he wanted.
We drove for quite a while. He just rambled on and on.
There were tears and several big bro hugs when we returned from that drive.
Then he said → “Thanks brother I needed that”
He walked back to the job site and started talking with other people.
It may not have cured his ailments (nothing truly can with that kind of loss in your life) but it helped him reset nonetheless.
Imagine if he had taken that perspective out onto the job site and tragedy resulted because his head wasn’t in the game.
There is an excellent suicide prevention t-shirt campaign with the phrase…
“Stop suicide with your ears.”
It turns out that we can support someone grieving, with our ears too.
As I said, suicide rates are extremely high in our industry. So be courageous enough to care through conversation.
This is the kind of action we have to take to curb it. That can start with listening or having the guts to start the conversation.
Craig Gauvreau-Safety Consultant: Craig Gauvreau is a CRSP (Canadian Registered Safety Professional) with over 20 years of experience in industrial health & safety. Craig began his career in the Canadian Armed Forces and served as a sergeant in the Infantry. Now as a health and safety leader in the energy industry, his no-nonsense leadership and genuine care for his fellow workers enables him to cut to the heart of an issue and move safety beyond rules and procedures. Craig makes safety personal. Keep Safe Consulting, Follow on LinkedIn
Craig Gauvreau-Safety Consultant: Craig Gauvreau is a CRSP (Canadian Registered Safety Professional) with over 20 years experience in industrial health & safety. Craig began his career in the Canadian Armed Forces and served as sergeant in the Infantry. Now as a health and safety leader in the energy industry his no-nonsense leadership and genuine care for his fellow workers enables him to cut to the heart of an issue and move safety beyond rules and procedures. Craig makes safety personal.
Looking at the bigger picture, it is not just construction workers that are at risk. The truth is that all men are at risk.
There is a generalisation that men have always got lots of mates around them and are always having a good time driving fast cars, drinking beer and chasing the ladies. There may be some truth to this when we are young but as we get older we reach the point where all of our friends have moved on and have lost our appeal to other people, etc. We are of no interest to anyone with nobody left to talk to and now just blend into a blank background. There seems to be a peak in a mans life during their 20’s-30’s and they are left feeling like they are just unnecessarily taking up space on planet earth after that.
This is in contrast to ladies who always seem to have somebody to go out shopping with or go for coffee with. Making new friends seems to be so much easier for them. They are even still receiving male attention well into their retirement.
I spend my days and nights on my own with nobody to talk to and just sit here thinking back to my younger days when I had friends and family around me. Over the years I have learnt not to reach out to anyone as there is nobody that genuinely cares. I am therefore just ploughing on in life and waiting until that ultimate day when it is finally all over. I am not alone and there are many more men just like me.
Loved this article and I will be sharing this with others.
The timing is perfect.
Just a couple of weeks back, I had an altercation with my boss as I missed some stickers on a wall that were meant to come down. He started to indicate that if I was anyone else, he would probably sack them. So l said not to even go there as the building manager should have pointed them out to mine on the nearly 8 times that I asked him if I needed to know anything (they were supposed to have been removed 2 months back). I also pointed out that since losing Martin, stickers on a wall pale into of lesser importance in the bigger scheme of things. The conversation did end up amicably, but I was not prepared to be bullied and the stickers (about 6 in total and the size of 6cm square) are now gone. But saying this, I was concerned and think it is related to my loss.
Thanks very much Craig, as this is an article that all bosses need to read.