Charity leaders are struggling to deal with “personal feelings of shame and inadequacy” in steering charities through Covid-19 challenges.

First time chief executives in particular are attaching shame to tough decisions they are making to off set income losses amid the pandemic, including redundancies and restructuring.

The findings have come in research by ACEVO and Mental Health First Aid England into the impact of Covid-19 on the mental health and emotional wellbeing of charity sector staff and leaders.

They said: “Charity leaders struggle to find a balance between authentic openness and a professional focus on business interests, causing personal feelings of shame and inadequacy.”

A key factor in particularly inexperienced leaders’ sense of shame comes “as they are simultaneously responsible for staff wellbeing but need to take decisions that may cause staff harm”.

The Workforce wellbeing in charities report highlights the importance of support for chief executives as they make difficult decisions. It calls for “spaces where they can seek reassurance from others in the same situation and know they are not alone”.

Home working is also having a detrimental affect on the mental health of charity leaders.

This has “blurred the boundaries between personal and professional lives, and leaders’ control over their authenticity and personality has been disrupted”, found the report.

“The reliable touch points for organisations to check in with their people – such as face-to-face working – have disappeared. This has meant that mental health has quickly been impacted,” it adds.

The report highlights figures from the charity Mind that found that nearly two-thirds of people report worsening mental health during the pandemic.

“For many leaders it has been challenging to give time and support to staff when their organisation might face closure and their own support needs are not being met,” states the report.

Self-assessment questions to improve mental health

The report sets out five self assessment areas for charity boards to improve the mental health of staff and leaders:

• Is one of your trustees responsible for mental health and well-being in the organisation? Is this responsibility included elsewhere, perhaps under HR?
• Do you have agreed policies for managing workforce mental health difficulties?
• Have you spoken about including mental health in your organisational strategy?
• When did you last ask your chief executive about their mental health, with a genuine interest in their answer and with enough time to design a support package together?
• Do you support your CEO to engage in peer learning, personal development or other opportunities to share challenges as part of their day job?

“As sector leaders, we have an important role to play in ensuring workplaces are happy and healthy, said Jules Hillier, chief executive of the charity Pause and chair of the research’s working group.

“But we can only do that effectively if we ourselves are able to cope. This working group opened a rich and rewarding stream of honest reflection, about the challenges of being a CEO in the social sector and the considerable impact on our lives. We hope the themes in the report will be helpful to other CEOs considering their own wellbeing and that of their teams.”

ACEVO chief executive Vicky Browning, added: “We started this project because we were aware that a number of chief executives were struggling with workforce mental health on a day to day basis. The working group soon broadened their discussions to encompass the mental health of the chief executives themselves.

“CEOs have a duty of care to the people they work with and for, but also to themselves. To use an analogy from airlines: it’s important to put on your own mask first before helping others.”

In October the Charity Times Leadership Conference heard from charity leaders who had launched a What’s App group to help each other deal with mental health challenges they are facing amid the health crisis.

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