Charting a new path: Emotional intelligence will be in-demand skill for leaders post-pandemic

Employers are facing increasing pressure from employees to adopt more flexible ways of working while workplaces and individuals look to lower rates of depression and anxiety that have skyrocketed since the onset of the pandemic.

Nearly everyone, including high-net-worth individuals in the UAE, have seen rising stress levels from blurred lines between the office and living room as work from home because the standard.

In the UAE, the ultra-rich are more stressed than their ultra-wealthy counterparts in other regions, with 96 percent reporting at least one symptom of mental stress, compared to the global average of 77 percent, according to a new survey by Bupa Global.

As individuals and employers alike look to chart a new path and redefine what work looks like, Arabian Business sat down with Dean Pollard, general manager at Bupa Global – Africa, India & Middle East to discuss the findings of the report and dive into why stress levels have risen so dramatically, what companies and leaders can do to keep stress and mental health problems at bay, and what skills managers will need to lead employees in a post-coronavirus world.

Can you give me a little bit of background about why Bupa Global launched this Global Executive Wellbeing Index for the second time?

Bupa Global is always checking into the market with various research studies that are barometer checks. And if you look at the events of the last 20 months or so, the pandemic was certainly a game-changer of great proportions, and it had global reach.

We anticipated that there were going to be causal effects from the pandemic, and a shift in policy that comes from it.

Between the summer of 2020 and summer of 2021, we’ve seen some of the data points swing around a bit. And in the UAE, we’ve seen some more demonstrable changes around just general confidence.

The people we surveyed are setting the direction for employees, various authorities, and customers. But when you have a disturbance of the peace of this magnitude, leadership, which is always a lonely place to be, it’s amplified when you’re dealing with protracted periods of time of high levels of uncertainty.

And those compounding pressures outside of the normal pressures have an impact on one’s state of mind. And during times of crisis, leaders need to be cool, calm and collected.

I think you cited overwork as one of the main factors. Surely that was with us, particularly in this part of the world before the pandemic, but has that accelerated it?

I think work-life balance got smashed for a while. And when it’s fully immersive, I think that’s quite exhausting.

Roughly nine out of 10 said, ‘Ok I’m having some mental health issues.’

There’s been some explicit or organic means to find ways to let off steam.

Going forward, do we go back to the default setting before the pandemic in terms of what we expect from employees?

I don’t think you ever go back. I think you find a new setting.

There is a general resilience within the populace. It’s up to the individual to be aware to take time out to sort of explore themselves and their thoughts. Find some way to just to step out, whether it’s through meditation or something else.

There are challenges around coping, and for those who want to cope better and improve, there are tools available.

Was there anything else in the research that really kind of stood out to you or spoke to you?

I didn’t expect the optimism we picked up from the UAE cohort in 2020’s survey to have diminished. My thinking is that the authorities here have done a great job in rolling out the vaccines. They’ve been vigilant and strong in terms of their social directions.

The UAE is further along the recovery curve and probably having a more of a reality check about how it’s going to be hard work moving forward.

If you’re an employer and you’re reading those headlines, what do you need to take away from that? Are you seeing more companies say that we need to migrate to include more mental health coverage in our insurance packages?

Not everybody wants to come to the boss or employer with these issues.

They want a third party that they can seek support from. So we have employee assistance programmes in place to provide advice on mental health and wellbeing and counsel around that, and then there are other clinical settings that they can be directed to.

It’s all very confidential and can be done online, so we see ourselves as responsible for providing care for our people, but Bupa doesn’t have to be providing it. It can provide those services through other means.

Has it ever been tougher at the top? When you look at the stress levels among high-net-worth individuals, it’s unprecedented. But how do they ensure the sense that ‘Actually, we can deal with this’ cascades down through their organisations.

It is tough at the top. Among leaders, entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals, 94 percent have some form of mental stress.

In the last 12 months, we’ve had heightened claims activity; they’ve gone up by about 30 percent globally, and mental health is driving those claims up. The UAE sits in the top 10 countries.

There’s a big push for leaders to have greater emotional intelligence (EQ) going forward, but that’s not a typical skill for some people. Now leaders have to figure out how to support their teams and keep their numbers up. Is that causing stress among this group?

Some need to learn those skills and some need to find those skills, or some need to retrain themselves in that space. There’s always the hard technical skills, right. But the softer, more empathetic skills don’t always come easily for some business leaders.

Some of the really successful leaders have a really high IQ, but also high EQ as well. Sometimes the best form of leadership is just to observe and listen, and the noise will dissipate.

Be front and centre for your people and have that ability to check in and help unpack the problems. That won’t always be obvious, because you need time and space.

They are not easy skills to uphold all the time.