5 Easy Ways to Support a Team Member Struggling with Mental Health.

He’s good at the job, but he’s just… not himself recently. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to make it worse." – A senior leader during one of our mentoring sessions at Go Slow to Go Fast.

Jen is a high performer. She is results-focused and exacting in her expectations. But right now, she’s facing a situation that doesn’t fit into her usual list of leadership behaviours and tools that have worked for her: one of her team members is struggling with their mental health and Jen doesn’t know how to help.

Jen’s dilemma is more common than many leaders want to admit. In one of our coaching sessions, she shared her frustration: “I’ve given him space, I’ve taken work off his plate, but nothing’s changing.”

So if you’ve ever found yourself desperate to help someone and asked yourself what to do when someone in your team is struggling, then this is for you.

It turns out that her team member had been through a personal bereavement and was navigating a long NHS wait for support, and had been feeling isolated from the rest of the team. Jen wasn’t unsympathetic, she just didn’t know what to do. 

The ‘fix it’ mindset that had served her well in other leadership challenges wasn’t helping here.

Here’s what we explored together:

1. It’s not your job to diagnose or solve. Your role is to listen, validate, and signpost to professional support. Ask how they are, not why they’re not delivering.

2. Make it OK to not be OK. Leaders set the tone. Jen realised she’d never shared her own challenges with the team. So we worked on a script for a team check-in where she named the pressure, acknowledged how hard things had been, and invited her team to speak up early if they were struggling. The tone of the team shifted almost immediately because they started to model Jen, and this started to build the all important ‘openness and trust spiral’ (Candour creates clarity. Clarity builds confidence.” Amy Edmondson, The Fearless Organization, 2018)

3. Build routine support. We introduced a weekly check-in rhythm using an intentional micro-pause in 1:1s, a moment to check in on how people were doing, beyond the to-do list. Not a long conversation, just a question, a chance to notice. Because when all you talk about is delivery, you miss what might be getting in the way of it.

4. Don’t make assumptions. Jen had been pulling work away to “help”, but the team member interpreted that as mistrust. Instead, we worked on setting shared priorities and giving that person a sense of agency.

5. Use the capability and willingness lens. One of the most helpful frameworks we use with leaders like Jen is a simple two-by-two: 

• Does this person have the capability? Do they have the willingness?

• If both are there, support and coach. 

• If willingness is high but capability is low, train and guide. 

• But if neither is present, it’s okay (and sometimes necessary) to involve HR and have the conversation about moving them on or out. Holding that clarity can help leaders make decisions with compassion and confidence.

If you’re a Jen, someone who holds the bar high and wants to do right by your people, please remember: you don’t have to have all the answers. You just need to show up, ask the right questions, and stay present when it’s uncomfortable.

We believe leadership isn’t about carrying everything. It’s about creating the conditions for your team to carry on, together. And when you’re stuck, the capability-willingness lens is a great place to start. Supporting people doesn’t mean rescuing them, it means understanding where they are and what they need next.

The statistic in our cover photo is taken from the report 'Surviving or Thriving? The State of the UK's Mental Health, by the Mental Health Foundation and can be accessed here.