What Beliefs Are You Projecting About Mental Health Onto Your Team?

Why Mental Health Training for Managers Must Start With Self Awareness 

“I thrive on stress.”

Those words echoed from a sales manager attending our mental health training for managers programme, his organisation had brought us in to deliver.

It was a stark revelation and a potential danger zone.

Delving deeper, it became apparent that he misunderstood the stress response, something I’ve witnessed time and again with managers. But it’s also something our training is designed to address effectively.

I explained to him that stress triggers the body’s survival mechanism, the freeze, fight, or flight response. While that’s vital in situations of danger, it’s detrimental to performance, especially in high-stakes roles like sales.

When an individual is stressed, the brain’s executive functions shut down. Rational thinking, empathy, decision-making, and verbal fluency all diminish. In sales, where relationship-building and understanding a customer’s needs are key, this becomes a major liability.

What this manager had mistaken for “thriving” was actually a spike of adrenaline, a chemical high, not a sign of optimal performance. Once he understood that, he could finally see stress for what it was: a survival response, not a performance tool.

He recognised that he'd innocently wanted to witness stress in his team in order for them to meet their sales targets...

The High-Performance Myth: Stress vs. Pressure

Another common misconception I see managers carry is the belief that sustained pressure leads to high performance. That it’s somehow heroic or necessary to operate in a state of constant urgency.

But the evidence, the neuroscience, and the lived experience of countless employees tell us the opposite.

Stress and high performance are incompatible.
Because the more stressed a person is, the more reactive and less resourceful they become.

That’s why mental health training for managers is so important, not just as a compliance tick-box, but as a transformational lens.

When leaders understand what’s really happening in the body and brain under pressure, they stop glorifying stress—and start prioritising safety, regulation, and psychological clarity.

“They’re Playing the Mental Health Card”

This is another belief I hear voiced in quieter corners of organisations.

The assumption that someone is “using” a mental health issue to avoid work, dodge responsibility, or underperform is still prevalent in certain leadership circles.

But here’s the truth:
That belief reveals more about the culture than the employee.

It reflects a lack of psychological literacy. It reveals a discomfort with vulnerability. And often, it’s a projection of the manager’s own suppressed relationship with mental health.

These beliefs don’t just damage morale—they create distrust, reduce disclosure, and increase absenteeism. And they usually go unchallenged until training provides the space to unpack them.

When Managers Bring Their Own Mental Health Experience Into the Room

Here’s something most organisations miss:
Even managers who have struggled with their own mental health can unknowingly project those beliefs onto others.

One manager I worked with held strong views about depression, shaped entirely by her family’s experiences. She didn’t realise how deeply those personal narratives influenced her assumptions at work—until the training gave her a mirror.

With space for reflection, she realised:

“Just because depression looked one way in my family, doesn’t mean it looks the same for everyone. And it doesn’t mean it can’t be worked through.”

This is the power of experiential learning. It’s not just what we teach in mental health training—it’s how it gives leaders permission to reflect, recalibrate, and rehumanise how they lead.

Why Mental Health Training for Managers Is Non-Negotiable in the UK

In the UK, 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health challenge in any given year. And many of those people are already in your workforce. Some are in leadership roles. Others are navigating frontline or hybrid positions.

What often gets overlooked is the compounding effect of unexamined beliefs—especially when they’re held by someone in authority.

Consider a manager who quietly believes that anxiety is just “part of life.”
Now imagine that same person is also a trained mental health first aider.

Do you see the risk?

Even with formal titles or training, if the internal belief system hasn’t been examined, the impact of that leader is limited—and potentially harmful.

Belief Shifts = Behaviour Shifts

The most powerful thing I witness during our mental health training for managers isn’t a new skill or technique being learned—it’s a belief being shifted.

When a manager moves from:

• “Stress is normal” → to → “Regulation is leadership”

• “Mental health is HR’s problem” → to → “This is part of how I lead”

• “If I don’t have the answers, I shouldn’t say anything” → to → “Presence is more powerful than perfection”

...that’s when transformation happens.

For the manager. For the team. For the whole culture.

Because people don’t just follow policies—they follow energy.
And when a leader’s energy changes, their whole team feels it.

Summary

Managers’ beliefs about mental health directly impact how their teams feel, perform, and speak up. Through mental health training for managers, we help leaders identify and shift unconscious beliefs—creating more psychologically safe, compassionate, and high-functioning workplaces.

Ready to Lead Differently?

If you want to create a culture where mental health isn’t feared, ignored, or misunderstood, but respected, integrated, and supported, then your journey starts here.

💬 Get in touch to find out more about our mental health training for managers.
Let’s create healthier workplaces from the inside out.