This article is based on the Allwork.Space Future of Work Podcast episode “Leadership Mental Health: The Business Priority Companies Can’t Ignore with Melissa Doman.” Click here to watch or listen to the full episode.
For years, workplace mental health conversations have largely focused on employees. Managers were expected to support struggling teams, maintain morale, navigate uncertainty, and absorb pressure quietly in the background. But according to organizational psychologist and former therapist Melissa Doman — who has worked with global companies including Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Siemens, Dow Jones, Estée Lauder, and more — that model is starting to crack.
In a recent episode of The Future of Work® Podcast, Doman argued that organizations are still deeply divided in how they think about leadership mental health. Some companies increasingly recognize that leaders are central to the emotional functioning of an organization and need support themselves. Others still expect leaders to operate as symbols of stability rather than people with emotional limits.
That tension is becoming harder to ignore as workplace pressure continues mounting across industries. Leaders are being asked to manage layoffs, return-to-office disputes, AI anxiety, productivity concerns, disengagement, and communication breakdowns all at once, often without clear guidance on how to manage the emotional toll that comes with it.
The Emotional Cost of Leadership Is No Longer Hidden
Doman says leadership stress is frequently misunderstood because discussions about workplace mental health often become tangled in assumptions about therapy, diagnoses, or personal vulnerability.
Instead, she approaches mental health far more concretely: emotional, cognitive, and social functioning.
That framing matters because leaders are often dehumanized inside organizations. Employees tend to see titles before they see people. The result is an expectation that leaders should continuously absorb stress without showing strain themselves.
According to Doman, that expectation is both unrealistic and unsustainable.
When leaders are overwhelmed, the impact rarely stays contained. It shows up in communication breakdowns, emotional outbursts, lack of transparency, poor collaboration, favoritism, disengagement, and reactive decision-making. Employees often respond to those behaviors with frustration or distrust, but Doman argues curiosity matters too. Instead of only reacting to poorly behaved leadership, organizations also need to ask why those behaviors are happening in the first place.
That does not excuse harmful behavior. Power dynamics remain real, and leadership behavior carries outsized consequences. But ignoring the emotional conditions leaders are operating under does little to improve workplace culture long term.
Why Mental Health Conversations Still Feel Risky at Work
Despite years of workplace conversations around burnout and well-being, many employees and leaders still hesitate to talk openly about mental health at work.
Doman says that hesitation is shaped by far more than company policy. Culture, family background, religion, gender expectations, country of origin, industry norms, and past workplace experiences all influence whether someone feels safe discussing emotional challenges professionally.
Inside organizations, the situation becomes even more complicated.
Some workplaces encourage open conversations. Others quietly discourage them through retaliation, stigma, or vague messaging that promotes “wellness” without giving employees practical tools or protections.
Doman believes many organizations make the mistake of encouraging people to “talk about mental health” without teaching them how.
That includes knowing:
- What is appropriate to share at work
- Who certain conversations should happen with
- What legal protections employees may have
- How to discuss challenges without oversharing
- How managers should respond without becoming therapists
The distinction matters. Doman repeatedly emphasizes that managers are not clinicians, doctors, or counselors. But they are still responsible for caring about the general functioning of their teams.
For employees, that may mean communicating practical workplace challenges instead of disclosing diagnoses directly. Someone may explain they struggle with concentration, organization, overwhelm, or task management without sharing deeply personal medical information.
The goal, according to Doman, is creating more accessible and practical workplace conversations centered on functioning rather than forcing clinical disclosures.
Industry Culture Still Plays a Major Role
The willingness to discuss workplace mental health varies dramatically by industry.
Doman says sectors like manufacturing, construction, and contracting often remain resistant due to longstanding cultural norms around toughness and emotional restraint. At the same time, professions tied to licensing and public trust, such as law, finance, and medicine, can create additional fear because employees worry they may appear unfit to practice if they disclose struggles.
Technology companies tend to show more variation. Some have built cultures where conversations around emotional health are normalized and supported. Others still operate in hyper-competitive environments where relentless performance expectations leave little room for vulnerability.
Company size, surprisingly, is less predictive than culture itself. Some small companies avoid the topic entirely, while larger organizations may actively integrate mental health support into leadership development and workplace strategy.
Remote Work, Loneliness, and the Community Problem
The conversation also touched heavily on loneliness and isolation, especially as remote and hybrid work become permanent realities for many workers.
Doman noted that modern work has created a paradox: people are more digitally connected than ever while simultaneously feeling increasingly isolated. Remote work can improve mental health for some employees while worsening it for others.
The bigger issue, she argues, is flexibility.
Rigid mandates around where people work often create frustration because they remove autonomy from adults who may know how and where they function best. Some organizations justify return-to-office requirements around collaboration, while employees often suspect financial pressures around office real estate are equally influential.
That tension continues fueling broader workplace distrust.
For coworking spaces and flexible workspace operators, Doman sees an important opportunity. Entrepreneurs, freelancers, remote workers, and self-employed professionals frequently struggle with isolation and lack of community. Coworking environments can help fill that gap by offering both social connection and professional structure.
As mental health conversations become more integrated into workplace strategy, community itself may increasingly become part of the value proposition flexible workspaces provide.
AI Anxiety Is Adding Another Layer of Pressure
While the conversation did not focus heavily on AI, Doman acknowledged its growing impact on workplace anxiety.
Workers are already navigating uncertainty around changing roles, automation, and evolving expectations. At the same time, leaders are being asked to guide teams through those changes while managing their own fears privately.
That pressure compounds existing stress inside organizations already struggling with burnout, disengagement, and communication fatigue.
Doman argues the solution is not turning workplaces into therapy sessions. Instead, companies need better conversational literacy around mental health, clearer expectations, and stronger systems for helping people function sustainably.
The conversation becomes less about “wellness initiatives” and more about maintenance.
As Doman put it, every organization ultimately depends on human beings to function. If companies ignore the cognitive and emotional functioning of those people, the consequences appear everywhere: lower morale, weaker collaboration, reduced innovation, disengagement, communication breakdowns, and declining productivity.
What Healthier Leadership Actually Looks Like
One of Doman’s strongest arguments is that leaders who acknowledge their limits are often viewed as stronger, not weaker.
Employees cannot see leaders as human unless leaders allow themselves to be seen that way.
This means leaders should be communicating intentionally about capacity, stress, boundaries, and expectations in ways that create trust and model healthy behavior.
According to Doman, leaders who openly recognize the emotional realities of leadership help normalize healthier workplace conversations overall.
The alternative is increasingly difficult to sustain: organizations expecting leaders to carry escalating emotional burdens while pretending those burdens do not exist.
