Vistage Blog

Getting mental health in the workplace right can be a delicate balancing act for leaders. Protecting their own mental health, while also looking after the mental health of employees – and achieving profitability goals – takes some doing. With this in mind, we consulted two mental health experts to get practical advice for leaders around strategies they can implement straight away and throughout the whole year.

Here at Vistage, we’re incredibly proud to hear how being part of a Vistage group has helped our members to achieve great things. One such member is Anna Golden, commercial director at Olympia London.

The London-based exhibition venue is over 130 years old, having been founded in 1886. Formerly part of a bigger group of venues, the business responsible for running the venue has gone through a vast amount of change over recent years: including being sold to German investors in 2017. 

With so much change and reporting to overseas owners who have very little day-to-day contact with the business, Anna felt that she needed some support outside of Olympia London.

If you are growing a business with the intention of selling, then you are in the right place.

The first article in this series discussed how to get the foundations right.

Now, we consider how to prepare a growth plan that transforms your business into an asset that’s attractive to investors.

• You might also like: How to write a growth plan like a scale-up business.

With October 31^st just around the corner, there is no doubt that Brexit is at the forefront of many business leaders minds. In this guest post, Vistage Speaker Ken Allison offers a view on how employment law may change in the coming months.

Last year, a new initiative trended at #4 on Twitter, generating 325 pieces of broadcast and print coverage and achieving more than 11 million views online alone. It’s a huge achievement for any launch, made all the more remarkable because its central issue typically struggles to reach the public consciousness.

As we’ve previously mentioned, building a workplace with good mental health (of staff and leadership alike) is a key priority for raising morale, productivity and creativity all round. But how can a time-pressed business leader make this happen?

Stress and pressure are all part and parcel of being a leader. But it’s not difficult for the day-to-day pressures of leadership to become overwhelming. Looking after your own mental health first and foremost will leave you in the best shape to continue to give your all to your business and employees. And as we argued earlier in this series, being honest about the impact stress can have on your health and wellbeing is actually good leadership.

We’ve talked a lot about the Vistage Chair role on our blog recently, from why we need you to get involved to reasons to choose the role to what Vistage Chairs actually do. Plenty of useful advice, we hope, that will help you to decide whether the role is right for you as you pare back or completely relinquish your existing leadership responsibilities.

Building a workplace with good mental health – of staff and leadership alike – as a key priority raises morale, productivity, creativity, and ultimately your bottom line.

Life at the top can be lonely. It’s definitely stressful.