By: Daniele Anderson
Throughout my Navy career I felt like I did not belong that perhaps I was not fit to lead. For many years I believed that I had fooled the world. I fooled my teachers, coaches, admissions counselors, mentors, and friends. I was not a leader and soon they would all realize I was a fraud. No matter what I attempted, it may have begun favorably but somehow, some way I ended up ruining it. I could not figure out why. I had convinced myself that I had fooled dozens of people instead of realizing that I was not a fraud I was wounded. I did not understand mental health. Throughout my military career we took precautions when engaging in physical activity. Ensuring that we were safe. If we were injured, we went to medical to have it fixed. I had no idea that my mental health was wounded and needed care.
Society does not take the same precautions and initiative when it comes to mental health as it does for other physical ailments. After suffering a severe depressive episode in 2015 that kept me from deploying, I was sent to a psychologist who diagnosed me with severe clinical depression. I was shocked. I had always believed that maybe I just did not measure up. To me, my periodic episodes of severe sadness, crippling anxiety, feelings of loneliness, and outbursts of anger was a sign that I was not fit to be a leader. It wasn’t until I me my therapist, who believed I had suffered from depression most of my life, that I began to realize those who believed in me and nurtured the potential they saw in me were not misguided. Unfortunately, through all my military training on leadership this was one lesson I was never taught.
There have been countless books and articles written about leadership. Some have waxed philosophical about whether leaders are born or if they are made. A more important question might be, how are leaders unmade? I submit that the origin of leaders is unimportant because the traits that have often been synonymous with leadership, such as, courage, ethics, and fortitude can all be nullified by the patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms we have developed before we ever conceived of being leaders.
We extol leaders for succeeding in stressful and fast paced environments. Often, we revel in our ability to overcome adversity by any means necessary. There is an entire industry surrounding motivational speaking and literature on leadership. Today leaders will tell you that to be better you must work harder and longer than everyone else. If you want success there must be nothing you are not willing to sacrifice. However, if the barrage of successful captains of industry and military leaders who have died by suicide in the last few years has taught us anything it is that leadership goes beyond what we can see.
However, they have only focused on one part of leadership. Is what we achieve or fail to achieve the measure of a leader? Does the decline in the quantity or quality of what we produce mean that we have somehow lost the traits that made us a leader in the first place? Perhaps we have set not only impossible standards but unhealthy standards for leaders. Our minds much like other parts of our bodies require rest when it is fatigued and care when it is injured. Yet we treat it like a machine with an unending capacity for production instead of an integral part of our overall health.
The world looks at those who encounter mental health challenges and sees people who are broken and cannot be trusted to lead. We should not shy away from these challenges. As leaders we are often asked to fix procedures, equipment, or organizations that are “broken”. Problem solving is a core trait that all leaders should have. Yet, society treats those with mental health issues as a problem that cannot be fixed, or that any solution proposed is tenuous at best. As a society we must change the way we perceive mental health. Instead of viewing things like depression as a failure we must view it as an injury. Like all injuries it requires prudent care.
The, admittedly few, successes I enjoyed in my Naval career were not some fluke. I was a leader. I valued those I led and understood the responsibility that was placed on me. I had all the tools necessary to succeed but I was not aware of a crucial component to leadership, mental health. Leaders must train ourselves and others to see mental health as an integral part of our physical health and not a place of shame and silence. The more we open dialogue and understand mental health conditions the better we can prepare and support future leaders. I still don’t know if leaders are born or if they are made but I do know that if we do not address ALL the ways we are wounded we risk never reaching our full potential as leaders.