How To Work And Lead With Intention with Jacqui Brassey & Vivek Bapat

Morra Aarons-Mele (0:01)

Hi, I'm Morra Aarons-Mele, host of The Anxious Achiever. Today, I'm going to bring you one of our most downloaded and one of my most favorite episodes from our archives. It's a classic. The Anxious Achiever has been at it for a long time. We have over 300 episodes, and honestly, they're all still more relevant than ever. You may hear details in this episode that remind you it's from another time, but I guarantee that the advice you get will be as crisp and meaningful and the stories as resonant as before. If you have a favorite episode of the show, let me know. I'd love to air it again or even re-record it for you fresh. Enjoy this classic Anxious Achiever episode.

Intention, the leadership tool we all need to use now. Today, we'll have two conversations with leaders who are thinking about intentionality. A bit later, we'll hear from Vivek Bapat of the software and technology giant, SAP, about how he approaches work, why mental health is a key part of DEI, and strategies and tricks he's learned in many years as an introvert like me, about being a remote-based leader.

First though, my conversation with Jacqui Brassey. She's a co-leader at the McKinsey Health Institute, an author of the book Deliberate Calm, How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World. She looks at adaptability, emotional flexibility, and leadership resilience. Jacqui studies how toxic leaders affect our anxiety, and in turn, how that anxiety shows up in our performance and in our office culture.

Jacqui is an anxious achiever herself, whose own crisis of confidence has inspired her area of study. Here's our conversation. So just tell me quickly, you know, why is McKinsey invested in mental health?

Jacqui Brassey (2:03)

I think every organization currently is invested in mental health, and McKinsey is one of the many organizations that really look at what can we do for our own people, but also for the organizations that we work with, to help them become better. And through the McKinsey Health Institute, which is an initiative by McKinsey, but separate from McKinsey, which is a non-fee generating institute, one of the things we do is also research to mental health and well-being. And it turns out it's a very important aspect, of course, of employee performance, productivity, et cetera, but also for attracting talent and retaining talent. So apart from doing the right thing, because it's just the right thing to do for human beings, the good thing is also that it turns out it's good for your organization.

Morra Aarons-Mele (2:53)

Okay, so let's start with toxic workplace behavior. This is something that I think all of us feel like we know it when we see it. How do you define toxic workplace behavior?

Jacqui Brassey (3:07)

So the way we looked at it, we have looked at it in our study that we launched in April. And indeed, as you say, it can be very broad topic and it can be very narrow. And the way we defined it, we literally had six questions that we asked people. And those six questions varied from, my manager really calls me, that is like a very explicit bad type of behavior. And it's very clear when that happens.

Morra Aarons-Mele (3:33)

Wow, that makes fun of you.

Jacqui Brassey (3:35)

Exactly, or puts me down in front of others. And two, one of the questions was, I work with people who shut me out of conversations. And that's more of an implicit type of experience of toxic behavior. The second question was, my manager puts me down in front of others. My manager makes negative comments about me to others. I work with people who make derogatory remarks about me. And I work with people who belittle me or my ideas. And then the last one, I work with people who shut me out of conversation. So it's about my manager, who's clearly not treating me well, or the people in my team.

And that is actually, Morra, we found people indicated in this study that we did, and that was a global study in 15 countries, representing 70% of the working population. And one out of four indicate to experience high levels of toxic workplace behavior, which was a complete shock to us.

Morra Aarons-Mele (4:32)

Let me just ask a question because I'm curious. There aren't measures in there about my employer doesn't respect my time, or my employer expects me to be always available to them, or any of those kinds of questions. Does that complete lack of respect for time and boundaries factor into toxic workplace behavior as far as you see it?

Jacqui Brassey (4:56)

It is. So we did have, we have more questions in that survey.