The world today can seem like a dark and terrible place, which is why it is always inspiring to hear stories of good leaders who know how to take care of mental health of their teams.
Madalyn Parker is a web developer. A few weeks ago, she shared an email that she sent to her boss after she asked for a couple of days off for mental health reasons.
Parker shared in a tweet the response that CEO Ben Congleton gave to his request, where he says:
“Hey Madalyn, I wanted to personally thank you for sending emails like this. Every time you do it you help me remember the importance of taking the time to take care of our mental health. I can’t believe this practice isn’t standard across all organizations. You are an example to all of us and you help break down stigmas so we can bring our whole selves to work.”
When the CEO responds to your out of the office email about taking sick leave for mental health and reaffirms your decision. 💯 pic.twitter.com/6BvJVCJJFq
— madalyn (@madalynrose) June 30, 2017
Parker’s tweet went viral in a surprising way as it resonated with an increasingly prevalent (but still ignored) need in our society: the importance of mental health.
I took a mental health afternoon at my last job and got passive aggressive documentation about the mental health coverage in our health plan
— Janie Larson (@RedQueenCoder) July 1, 2017
The boss discussed the impact of the tweet on a Medium page in a post titled “Mental health is still a topic in the workplace” where he wrote that it seemed impossible for him to talk about the concept being taboo at work, considering that one of every six Americans is on medication for a mental condition.
“I can’t believe it’s still controversial to talk about sick leave. Did you know that only 37% of full-time employees in the United States have paid sick leave?
The CEO said that we live in the knowledge economy and that a company must take care of the health of its employees in order to stand out. “When an athlete gets hurt he can sit out a couple of games to recover. Let’s stop thinking that the brain is different.
What do you think of this boss’s response? Do you think it was the right attitude?