The Pain Behind the Silence

Mental health and organizational phenomena such as the reluctance to speak up generally travel on parallel tracks. Yet the connections are evident: When we are depressed or anxious, we are more likely to keep a low profile and withhold opinions, which potentially can change our career trajectory and our organization’s health for the worse, says Kyle Brykman, an associate professor of management at the University of Windsor’s Odette School of Business.

In this conversation with Smith Business Insight’s senior editor Alan Morantz, Brykman discusses his research into silence and mental health and the hidden ways mental health manifests in the workplace. Brykman conducted his study with Anika Cloutier (Dalhousie University), Erica Carleton (University of Regina) and Daniel Samosh (Queen’s University). All four completed their PhD studies at Smith School of Business. 

You’ve done a lot of work in the area of employee voice but in this study you’ve extended your research to mental health. What was your motivation?

I think the best research starts from personal experiences, and this one did as well. I can remember one student coming to me during office hours and explaining that she struggled with participating in class. She said, “I’ve got this social anxiety and it’s really hard for me to speak up.”

For whatever reason, it was a light-bulb moment for me to say we have these students who have different anxieties that might prevent them from speaking up in class. And I know from my research that people get rewarded at work when they share their ideas. So I thought that if this person is not speaking up because of anxiety, they won’t get rewarded. And we’re probably having the same problem in the workplace. Yet I knew of no research that looked at how mental health relates to silence or speaking up in the workplace. I thought that was an important starting point for understanding: What’s going on here? Are they related? And if they are, we really have to shine a spotlight on this.

What did your study find in terms of how silence and mental health show up in the workplace?

The main effects we found were not surprising to us, because it’s what I heard from people. It makes sense that people who are more depressed and more anxious are generally less likely to speak up. They will withhold their ideas at work.

But as researchers we wanted to understand why this was happening. What we found was that when people are more depressed and anxious — I should say we looked at the same people over time because mental health fluctuates — they are more likely to keep their ideas to themselves. They self-censor. There are two big reasons: they think it’s pointless and not worthwhile, and they’re afraid something bad will happen.

In general, anxiety exacerbates fears. Like the fear of, “If I speak up, I’ll get into trouble. People will never talk to me. I’ll cause trouble for my colleagues.” And that’s what we found: When you feel more anxious, you’re more afraid of the consequences. And if you feel depressed, you get the feeling of, “Why should I put in the effort?” Either way, the result is they don’t speak up.

Where do managers and co-workers fit into this narrative of silence and mental health?

We asked the [study] participants to what extent someone in their organization endorsed an idea they offered or supported something they said that week. It was very specific to ideas. What we found was that when people said, “That was a great idea,” or “I really love what you offered last meeting,” it had a profound muting effect on the experience of negative mental health. To me, that is a silver lining. It’s exciting because mental health is so difficult to intervene and affect. But these little behaviours have a really lasting effect.

It goes back to how our thoughts, emotions and behaviours influence each other, and how we make sense of these interactions in our head. Getting our ideas endorsed says to us, “I know I’m depressed or feeling a little nervous, but maybe speaking up is not so bad right now because people like it when I say something.” It helps to counteract some of the negative thought patterns associated with these mental health experiences.

The study finding is intuitive and not particularly surprising. Yet the follow-on point, that work colleagues have a positive role to play, may not be fully appreciated. Managers and co-workers may give a wide berth to fellow employees struggling with mental health out of fear of appearing intrusive. Your study suggests that it’s not about being a counsellor or confidant but being supportive of them as capable contributors.

That’s exactly it. When someone experiences a mental health issue, we say, “Why don’t you take some time off to recover?” Sure, we need that sometimes, especially for very negative experiences. But it isn’t the only response. There’s also something like offering genuine support via endorsing people’s ideas. It’s much more proactive to say, “You’re competent, you’re capable.” Building people up helps them manage their own negative thought patterns. So it’s not just, “Your mental health is impaired right now. What can I do to help you feel less anxious? Can we maybe not set so many meetings and manage your schedule?”

I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that. That’s how we, as a society, react to mental health challenges. But therapists would tell you that it actually makes a ton of sense to build people up, to say, “That was a great idea. I really like what you’re doing.” You’re providing empowerment and building up their confidence or self-efficacy. We’re not saying it’s a cure-all for mental health, but the evidence definitely bears out that it has a really big effect on people’s behaviours.

And though I agree that the findings are not all that surprising, I don’t believe people really think about the connection between mental health and silence. They don’t recognize how mental health shows up at work. That, for me, is the story. Maybe we’re scared to talk about it. Maybe we don’t know any better.

One way it definitely manifests at work is people being silent when they have ideas that they would have otherwise shared. I’d love to yell this from the rooftops as a reminder that it’s to our detriment. We feel bad when we don’t share what we want to say, and organizations cannot benefit from our self-censored ideas. So everybody stands to lose here.

Someone can be silent and withhold ideas because they’re struggling with depression or they’re anxious at that particular time. But they can also be silent because something is awry in the organizational culture. If a manager is trying in good faith to be sensitive, how do they understand what’s really going on?

Yes, there are many reasons why someone might be silent beyond their current mental health, including a toxic culture or one lacking psychological safety. However, an important caveat of our research is that we found that fluctuations in silence correlated with fluctuations in depression and anxiety for the same person over a four-week period, in which case the organizational culture would be pretty much the same.

I believe this underscores the importance of consistency and repetition in empathic leadership behaviours that show sensitivity. While it’s nearly impossible to fully grasp someone’s mental health state, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the goal. Instead, leaders can focus on understanding the inherent risks employees perceive when speaking up and the skepticism they might have about its impact. Although small, offering encouragement and reassurance when people open up with ideas can make a big difference in the long run.

The key is to be genuine, empathic and consistent with these small supportive behaviours. That’s leadership.