Mental health: “Managers prefer to remain silent to avoid appearing incompetent by revealing their flaws.”

In the debate on workplace suffering, the spotlight is often focused on employees outside of management. However, another type of exhaustion is gaining ground in the shadows: that of managers, whose mental health has never been so threatened. According to a survey conducted by Opinion Way for Empreinte humaine, 52% of managers experience psychological distress. Despite this alarming finding, managers too often fall into the blind spot of corporate mental health prevention programs.

Why does this malaise receive so little attention? In the collective imagination, managers have no right to complain. They must embody a certain solidity given the various responsibilities they shoulder. While their mission is to achieve performance objectives, they must also preserve the well-being of their teams and protect them from burnout. Caught between these contradictory injunctions, managers are subject to numerous tensions and sometimes feel very alone in dealing with them. They prefer to remain silent to avoid appearing incompetent by revealing their flaws. They mask the gradual erosion of their psychological balance, and when they crack, it's behind closed doors.

This process is proving extremely costly, including for the company. For example, extended sick leave is skyrocketing in many sectors of activity, such as finance and healthcare: among managers, 32% of long sick leave is attributed to psychological disorders, according to the social protection group Malakoff Humanis . This figure demonstrates a social urgency in terms of recognizing managerial suffering.

While companies are deploying numerous tools to improve quality of life and working conditions, in accordance with their obligations under the labor code, sophrology and yoga sessions are not enough to stem this silent illness. Some companies are beginning to understand this and are implementing more targeted support measures.

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