Leading from the front: putting the people back into people management

Mental health conditions are common in the working population. Every organisation should have a comprehensive strategy that not only promotes mental health and provides effective return to work support but that proactively responds to mental ill health in the workplace at an early stage. This will bring about better health for people and save costs for organisations.This article outlines the scale of the issue and draws on leadership research to explore how this could be used in the workplace to build a culture able to respond to and manage mental health effectively at work. It outlines how the Centre for Mental Health (formerly the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health) has addressed some of these issues by working with the Australian charity, beyondblue: the national depression initiative. The Centre has made beyondblue's highly successful National Workplace Programme available in the UK in order to build management competencies so that managers have the skills, knowledge and confidence to act.