- By Sophie Pinkoski

Being part of the executive team isn’t just about delivering results for the organization. It’s also about being there to help the CEO navigate the pressures and challenges that come with their job. That may include providing emotional and psychological support to navigate stress and maintain their mental health. Given the urgency and importance of their responsibilities, CEOs often feel they must prove their strength as a leader by pushing through on their own. As a result, the subsequent burn out can manifest in unproductive and unhealthy ways. It’s therefore often up to the executive team to take stock of their mental health and recognize warning signs before their CEO becomes overwhelmed by their workload. These patterns of behaviour will be different for everyone, informed by their past experiences, negative associations, and their general personality. Each of these aspects informs your CEO’s perspective and their emotional reactions to challenging stimuli. Understand that when they have a strong reaction to a specific, less important situation, it’s usually a sign they are reacting to much bigger mounting pressures. The more you can work with them to identify their early signs of stress, the more you can be the support system they need to manage their mental health. 

Here are ways you can proactively support your CEO’s mental health: 

Identify their triggers–– Everyone’s emotional triggers are going to be different according to their unique experiences. They often come to the surface as a survival mechanism in response to perceived threats. This can then lead to a fight, flight, or freeze reaction to a basic fear of failure, being wrong, uncomfortable emotions, or rejection. Many scenarios might exacerbate these instincts, including feeling undermined, dealing with high pressure deadlines, receiving negative feedback, or resistance to change.

These are instances where an individual feels powerless in the face of losing control.

Symptoms of a stress response can manifest in unusual changes of behaviour like a drop in work quality, forgetfulness, lack of focus, avoidance, self-doubt, or sudden change in priorities. These behaviours often won’t seem rational. When you begin to recognize these negative patterns, you can identify your CEO’s emotional blind spots they’re unaware of to give them a toolbox of ways to manage their stress in a healthier way. 

Explore practical coping mechanisms––Just as emotional triggers and responses will be different for everyone, the most effective coping mechanisms will differ between individuals as well. The most important part is finding the best ways to de-escalate in a stressful situation. Neurologist Viktor E. Frankl famously said, “between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lives our growth and our freedom.”

Finding coping mechanisms that work for your CEO means disrupting their immediate reaction to a stressful situation by deploying healthy ways for them to take a step back and gain perspective.

The simplest way to do this is to take a break before making any potentially impulsive, irrational decisions. In fact, taking breaks has been found to lead to an 80% increase of productivity. In this sense, doing less can be actually be more effective in helping us do more in the long-term when given the time to process the things that overwhelm us most. Taking a break gives your CEO opportunities to use that time away to mentally recharge. This can be a time for mindfulness, reflection, exercise, hobbies, or to even seek out a second opinion. At the end of the day, this is time allocated to reframing stressful situations so your CEO can return to them with a fresh perspective. This can often de-escalate a spiral of catastrophizing, or fearing the worst-case scenario will happen.

When the CEO is buried under too many responsibilities at once, it can be difficult to maintain perspective on what’s most important.

In this case, ask them, what tasks will make the most difference in the next 60 to 90 days or the organization's strategy? These will anchor their focus on strategic priorities or the big picture. So much of your work as the CEO’s support system is helping them face their emotions directly and without judgement in order to bring them back down to earth. 

Prevent burn out––Once you recognize your CEO’s emotional triggers and stress behaviours, there are ways you can help them manage them. Much of this is ensuring their individual workload doesn’t become so overwhelming it causes full blown burn out. As of 2022, Deloitte found that 70% of C-Suite executives were considering or planning to leave their position to prioritize their mental health. The prevalence of burn out for CEOs means they can be considered a result of feeling they need to manage their stress on their own. As their support system, you can remind them that they are not, in fact, alone at the top. Check in with them regularly to gauge their state of mind and assess their current capacities. Help them delegate tasks to others who share that authority or skill wherever you can to balance out their workload. This can also help your CEO pace themselves to prevent too many responsibilities from piling up. If they begin avoiding overwhelming tasks, suggest shifting their focus to smaller wins to rebuild their confidence, capacity, and motivation to tackle larger tasks. Above all, validate their feelings and give them a psychologically safe space they know they can come to vent and talk through their biggest stressors candidly.

Giving them the outlet to acknowledge their emotions empowers them to face them head on instead of burying them.

In essence, it lets them take control of the situation before it can control them. 

The more the organization's executives can be there to help shoulder your CEO’s emotional burdens, the more capacity they will have for running the organization to the best of their ability. With you at their side, they don’t have to be so lonely at the top after all. Sometimes even leaders need someone to talk them down from an emotional spiral. Getting them out of their head is the best thing you can do to prevent those mental blocks from escalating into burn out. And when you and your CEO are seen collectively managing stress in a healthy, productive way, others within your organization can do the same. 

Further Reading 

Managing Triggers Under Stress, Forbes 

Top 6 Signs of Burn out for CEOs and the C-suite, LinkedIn 

Emotional Triggers in Leadership: What You're Not Being Told, LinkedIn 

Breaking the Burn out Cycle: CEO Success Strategies, Vistage 

How Leaders Let Emotions Get The Best Of Them And 4 Ways To Avoid,  Forbes 

Dealing With CEO and Executive Stress, Vistage 

A Ceo's Strategies for Dealing with Stress, LinkedIn 

CEO Stress: Strategies for CEOs to Reduce Stress, Achieve Clarity, Vistage 

How To Reduce Stress As A CEO And Why It’s Important, CEO Today Magazine 

Leading Through Anxiety, Harvard Business Review