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Seeing the Signs: Leaders, Mental Health, and the Courage to Ask

I’ll be honest: a big part of me feels like I’m the wrong person to write about this. But that discomfort is the reason I am writing this. I’m not a therapist. I don’t have letters after my name. I still feel a little clumsy even using the word “suicide” in a conversation. But I’ve also noticed something over the years: almost everyone feels that way. Most people are uncomfortable talking about mental health and suicide, especially at work. And that might be the biggest reason we need to talk about it more, not less.


This article isn’t about turning leaders into clinicians. It’s about something simpler and more human: noticing when someone on your team is a little off, caring enough to ask how they’re really doing, and being willing to walk with them toward real help. It’s about choosing not to look away.


I’ve worked in organizations that have lost people to suicide. When it happens, it hits like a shockwave. You feel it in the hallways, in the break room, in the way people look at each other and then look away. There’s the grief of losing a person you knew, but there’s also this heavy mix of confusion and quiet guilt: What did we miss? Were there signs? Could I have done more? Those questions don’t go away quickly, and they tend to land hardest on the people in leadership.


Most of the time, people don’t show up to work and announce, “I’m not okay.” Instead, it leaks out around the edges. You start to see small changes in their normal patterns. Someone who’s usually upbeat becomes quieter and harder to read. The person who used to hang around after a shift now disappears as soon as they can. A steady, reliable employee starts showing up late, missing details, or making mistakes that are uncharacteristic. Any one of those things, on its own, could just be a bad day. What matters is the pattern. The real skill for a leader is to compare people to their own baseline, not to everyone else. What’s different for this person, over time?


Even when we notice those changes, most of us hesitate. We tell ourselves, “It’s none of my business,” or “I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” or “If I ask and it’s serious, I won’t know what to do.” So we offer a safe, vague line like, “Let me know if you need anything,” and then we hope they’ll come find us if it gets bad enough. But the truth is, our silence communicates something too. When we avoid the hard conversations, we unintentionally send the message that struggling is something you’re supposed to handle alone, off to the side, where no one has to see it.


I’m not writing this because I always handle these moments well. I’m writing it because I’ve seen what happens when an organization loses one of its own, and I don’t want our hesitation or discomfort as leaders to be part of the reason we miss chances to help. The good news is that “help” does not mean having all the answers. It usually looks much simpler than that.


It starts with noticing. Giving yourself permission to trust your gut when someone doesn’t seem like themselves. Asking, “Have I seen this change for more than just a day or two?” If the answer is yes, that alone is enough reason to check in. You don’t need a diagnosis. You need curiosity and care.


Then comes the conversation, which is the part most of us dread. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic intervention. It can be as simple as pulling someone aside, away from the noise and the crowd, and saying something like, “I’ve noticed you seem quieter and more distant than usual these last couple of weeks, and that’s not like you. How are you doing?” The key is to name what you’re seeing, tie it to your care for them, and then actually listen to the answer. Not to argue, not to fix, not to rush past it—but to listen.


Sometimes the first response you’ll get is, “I’m fine, just tired.” And sometimes that’s true. Other times, it’s a test. They’re trying to see if you really want to know or if you’re just checking a box. You can gently push a little further: “I hear you. I also see you pulling back more than usual, and I care about you. If something’s weighing on you, I want you to know you don’t have to carry it by yourself.” You’re not prying; you’re opening a door.


When someone does open up, that’s often when leaders start to panic internally: “Now what? This is bigger than me.” But your role isn’t to solve everything. Your role is to be a steady, compassionate bridge. Sometimes that just means saying, “That sounds like a lot,” and giving them space to unload. Other times it means helping them think about what support might look like—reminding them of resources your organization already has, or suggesting they talk with someone whose entire job is to help people through heavy seasons.


One of the most powerful things a leader can say in that moment is, “You don’t have to handle this alone, and I’m willing to help you take the next step.” That might be walking them through how to contact a clinician, connecting them with a peer support person, or just checking in again in a few days and asking how they’re doing now. The follow‑up matters. When you circle back, you’re saying, “I meant what I said. I didn’t forget about you once the conversation ended.”


There’s also a line where a situation moves beyond a hard season and becomes a real safety concern. If someone starts talking about not wanting to be here, about feeling like a burden, or hints that they might hurt themselves, that’s not something to sit on and hope passes. As a leader, you’re not expected to carry that alone either—but you are responsible for taking it seriously and involving the right help. That might mean looping in HR, a mental health professional, or whatever crisis resources your organization uses. It might feel awkward. It might feel scary. But ignoring it is not a better option.


I still don’t feel like the perfect person to write about this. You may not feel like the perfect person to talk about it with your team. But if we wait until we feel perfectly qualified and perfectly comfortable to have these conversations, we’ll never have them at all. And in the meantime, there will be people quietly struggling in the next office, the next cubicle, the seat right next to you.


We have brought in the organization LiveOn here in Utah and had them speak to our team about suicide prevention and it was eye opening. There are other great organizations out there as well that can help make this uncomfortable conversation much better.


Leadership, at its core, is not about having every answer. It’s about paying attention to your people, being willing to step into uncomfortable spaces, and using whatever influence you have to move them closer to help instead of leaving them alone with their pain. Sometimes that looks like a big, formal decision. Sometimes it looks like a simple, quiet moment in a hallway where you say, “You don’t seem like yourself lately. How are you really doing?”


If all this article does is nudge you to notice one person who seems a little off, and you choose to ask instead of look away, then it’s worth it. Those small, awkward, honest conversations may never show up on a performance dashboard. You may never know what they prevented. But they are absolutely part of what it means to lead.

 

 

@988lifeline, @MentalHealthAmerica, @NAMICommunicate, @NAMI, @samhsagov, @PsychFoundation, @MentalHealthAmerica (MHA)


 
 
 

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