Florence Gaub on authenticity at work, how to nurture your team's mental health as a manager, and what we can learn from our failures

Mind/work with Jasmine El-Gamal

When it comes to mental health in the workplace, the buck stops at the top. A survey of 34,000 people across ten countries revealed that 60% of people worldwide say their job is the biggest factor influencing their mental health. And whether we realize it or not, the way we show up to work, as managers, leaders or colleagues, affects the environment around us, and the people in it.

Managers in particular have an outsized influence on our mental health in the workplace. The same study showed that managers have just as much of an impact on people’s mental health as their spouse, and even more of an impact than their doctor or therapist. A whopping 81% of employees say they would prioritize good mental health over a high-paying job, demonstrating just how much the workplace environment can make or break an organization’s ability to attract top talent, and keep it.

In today’s episode I spoke to Florence Gaub, the Director of research at the NATO Defense College in Rome about how to show up as our best selves at work and how to notice and prioritize the mental health of our colleagues and employees, including in times of crisis. We also spoke about fostering our self-confidence in order to show up authentically at work, how a good manager will notice and nurture the mental health of their team, how to learn from our failures and those of others, and what sports can teach us about resilience in the workplace.

Bio: Florence Gaub is Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defense College (Rome). She was previously foresight advisor at the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, special advisor to the EU’s Commissioner on Strategic Foresight Maros Sefcovic, as well as deputy director at the EU Institute for Security Studies. Before that, she was the institute’s resident Middle East analyst, and started her career at the NATO Defense College as Faculty Advisor in the Middle East Faculty. Florence also serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Complex Risks and is Vice-President of the European Forum Alpbach, an Austrian non-profit.

Her career has taken her from conflict and war in the Middle East and North Africa to institutional change and geopolitical shifts. In her work, she focuses on long-term trends, challenges and opportunities, and how to future proof societies for them. Florence has authored numerous publications, her more recent ones include “Arab Climate Futures”, the EU’s "Global Trends to 2030" report, as well as “The Cauldron: NATO’s Libya Operation”. Her book “The Future: a manual” will appear in September 2023. She holds a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin, as well as degrees from Sciences Po Paris, the Sorbonne and the University of Munich. She’s a French-German national and served in the French Army as a reserve officer.

In her free time, Florence likes to surf, box and ski.

Resources:

Florence Gaub: https://www.ndc.nato.int/about/organization.php?icode=189#

Twitter: @florencegaub

Losers [Netflix Series]: In a "winning is everything" society, how do we handle failure? This series profiles athletes who have turned the agony of defeat into human triumph.

https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80198306

Mental Health at Work: Managers and Money (Report) https://www.ukg.com/resources/article/mental-health-work-managers-and-money?ms=4000

Should Managers Matter that Much to Mental Health? (Forbes) https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2023/02/21/should-managers-matter-that-much-to-mental-health-3-critical-considerations/?sh=65586b066211