With the 2026 Winter Olympic Games recently wrapping up, many people are talking about final medal counts. Yet those numbers will fade from minds faster than the more important takeaway from the games: the importance of mental health in top physical performance.
What we’ve seen on the world stage over the past few weeks is that behind every elite performance is a team: coaches, trainers, psychologists, and teammates who create an environment where athletes can be honest about when they’re struggling. Plus how that openness doesn’t weaken a performance but instead makes it stronger. By giving these athletes a space where they can address their stress early, reset when needed, and compete with clarity, it can make a world (champion) of difference, allowing them to perform at the top of their ability.
In recent years, Olympians such as Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, and now Ilia Malinin and Amber Glenn, have helped normalize these conversations. Even former competitors like Gracie Gold, now serving as an IOC mental health ambassador, have reinforced the message that high performance and mental wellness go hand in hand.
Supporting Performance In Workplaces
Is this so different for those working in a 9-to-5 workplace with high expectations? While employees may not be competing for medals, they still face immense pressure, and mental health plays a crucial role in sustaining performance.
Leaders need to be asking themselves a simple but critical question: How can we build an Olympic level support system at work? Not just during moments of crisis, but proactively, so employees can “bring home the medal” for themselves, the company, and their clients?
Building that system starts with leadership and modeling. Successful managers will be the ones who proactively create safe environments where employees feel comfortable saying they’re overwhelmed, whether the challenges are work-related or personal.
High performance depends on psychological safety, and managers need to remember two things:
- Employees are human. All people have different limits and emotions, and that stress, if left unaddressed, won’t just disappear. Instead, it will fester and become a much larger problem.
- Openness creates safety. Managers need to model openness about their own challenges in these spaces. This will signal to employees that it’s safe to speak up and address stress early, which in turn will allow team success to flourish.
Leaders can further mitigate burnout with practical, consistent practices. Regular one-on-one check-ins should be more consistent, but they should also extend beyond goals and metrics to include a straightforward question: How are you doing?
Normalizing conversations about “off days” or, as I often say with my own team, feeling a little “crispy around the edges” helps remove the stigma around not being 100 percent all the time. When managers model that kind of honesty, it signals that speaking up won’t lead to consequences, but to support.
Building Safety With Structure
Policy matters too, as it will amplify both team mental health and by extension, overall culture. By encouraging employees to use PTO proactively, actively limit after-hours emails and texts, and promote resources like employee assistance programs, it will make it clear that mental wellness isn’t separate from performance, rather it sustains it.
Creating the right environment also applies to the physical environment employees are working in, whether that be remote, hybrid, or fully back in office.
Just as the Olympics now provide quiet rooms and psychologists to help athletes manage stress, workplaces can build spaces and practices that allow employees to decompress and reset. This might mean creating quiet areas in the office, offering optional remote workdays, or simply encouraging employees to step away when they need a mental break.
Policies that allow people to truly disconnect during PTO also reinforce that time off is restorative, not just a formality. For remote teams, support can be maintained through phone or video check-ins tailored to individual comfort levels, ensuring that employees don’t feel isolated or disconnected.
When people know they have safe spaces, resources, and leaders who are willing to listen, they’re able to bring their best selves to work. Like Olympians, employees perform at a higher level when they feel supported, seen, and secure in asking for help.
Elite athletes don’t win alone, and neither should employees. High-performing teams in the workplace, like the most successful Olympic teams, rely on collaboration, peer support, and leaders who model vulnerability and proactively support mental wellness to achieve their collective goals on any given day.
When managers encourage colleagues to focus on team outcomes rather than just individual metrics, employees know they have a safety net. That sense of support allows them to tackle challenges confidently, sustain high performance, and thrive over the long term.
Just as Olympians rely on their teams to reach the podium, employees flourish when they know their workplace has their back.
