2020 saw mental health take a battering as the various aspects of the coronavirus pandemic took their toll.  It has been a period that has prompted many to argue for a more empathy-driven style of leadership that takes into account the various issues and concerns employees may have.

Alas, new research from the University of Gothenburg suggests that men may be less suited to such a style of leadership as their female peers.  The research found that as men become senior managers, their attitude towards mental health worsens.

The results reveal that 24% of the male managers had a negative attitude towards depression, compared to just 12% of female managers.

“We were surprised that the differences between female and male managers persisted even after we’d controlled, in our statistical analyses, for other factors like the managers’ training, the type of workplace they were at, how long they’d been managers, and whether they had experience of co-workers with depression,” the researchers say.

Emotional support

The researchers examined this difference via an index that contained 12 distinct statements that aimed to explore each managers’ emotional, cognitive, and behavioral attitude towards people with depression.  The data showed that there were significant differences between male and female managers in 11 of the 12 statements.

For instance, male managers would be far more likely to agree that they felt uncertain around employees with depression or that those employees were a burden on the workplace.  What’s more, male managers were also less likely to modify tasks to support a colleague with depression, or indeed hire anyone who had a history of it.

Sadly, these attitudes seemed to grow the higher up the hierarchy people climbed, with this trend prevalent in both male and female managers.  These attitudes did soften, however, when actual exposure to colleagues with mental health issues occurred.

A growing problem

The researchers believe that with stress and depression on the rise during the pandemic, the findings are extremely worrying, and suggest that managers are ill-equipped to cope with the mental health burden the workforce is shouldering.

“Managers with negative views may find it more difficult not only to relate to issues involved in mental health generally, but also to provide support for people who may need job modification in the short or long term,” the researchers say.