In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Justin Ray, a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Virginia. Justin owns South Chesapeake Psychiatry and Transforming Minds Interventional Psychiatry, and is the provider for the City of Chesapeake's Assertive Community Team.

Justin spent 22 years in the US Navy, thirteen of them as a psychiatric technician, before qualifying as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. He now runs two practices in Virginia and works with an Assertive Community Team, reaching people with severe mental health problems who are unlikely ever to walk into a clinic. He calls it street psychiatry.

That range gives him a particular view of where organisations go wrong. Plenty of workplaces tell people to speak up when they are struggling, then judge them when they do. As Justin puts it, we talk a good game without acting a good game. He makes the case for support that arrives before the crisis rather than after it, boundaries that leaders actually keep, and autonomy matched to what each person can carry, with room to step back and try again without it counting against them.

We get into why leaders so often ask the wrong people. The most senior person in a field may not have seen a patient in years, and an answer that works on paper is not always the one that works in someone's front room. He is blunt about one-mistake cultures too: an organisation runs a process well ninety-nine times, gets it wrong once, and cancels the whole thing.

Justin is just as honest about his own judgements, telling a story about a cinema in Puerto Rico, a room full of other people's children, and everything he thought before he had his own. What he takes from it is that reflection is the thing most of us skip. That sits awkwardly against workplaces now so lean that people are doing two jobs and the time to think has been designed out.

🔑 Key Topics

• Saying the right things about mental health, then punishing people who speak up
• Support that arrives before the crisis, not after it
• Autonomy as something matched to the person, not handed out evenly
• Why leaders ask the wrong people, and what gets lost between the conference and the front room
• One-mistake cultures, and the paralysis of needing every box ticked before anything moves
• Judgement, bias and the reflection almost nobody makes time for
• Where AI genuinely helps, and where it just adds to the pile
• Critical thinking, and why the best answer is rarely the only one

💡 Did You Know?

Assertive Community Teams work the opposite way round to most mental health services. Rather than waiting for people to come to appointments, the team goes to them, often to people who are homeless or moving in and out of hospital. Justin says the things getting in the way are usually ordinary ones, transport as much as anything else.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Offer support before someone reaches crisis, rather than asking afterwards why nobody noticed
• Check who you are asking. Put the expert view alongside someone doing the work today
• When something goes wrong once, adjust the process instead of scrapping it
• Match autonomy to the person, and let someone step back without it counting against them
• Protect time to reflect. It is the first thing a lean organisation quietly loses
• Make it safe to bring an idea, and safe to question one

🗣️ Join the Conversation

Does your workplace offer support before things get bad, or only once someone is already struggling? Share your thoughts and connect with us.

Connect with Justin Ray:

1. South Chesapeake Psychiatry, his Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are linked there: https://www.southchesapeakepsychiatry.com/
2. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-ray-pmhnp
3. The Neuropsychiatry Brief, his newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-neuropsychiatry-brief-7419766362270494721
4. Transforming Minds on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583368707307

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Eloise Skinner, an existential psychotherapist, former corporate lawyer and fitness teacher.

Eloise spent five years in corporate tax law before retraining as a psychotherapist. She works in existential therapy, the field concerned with meaning, purpose, identity and values, and she also teaches yoga and Pilates. That mix shapes how she sees workplace wellbeing. Not mental health as a separate box, but what she calls integrated wellness, where physical health, community, a clear mission and a sense of greater meaning all sit together.

We talk about what organisational change does to the people inside it. Eloise's point is that a shift in mission, or a period of scaling, arrives personally for every individual in the business, and that saying so out loud matters more than most leaders realise. We also get into distance: how easy it is in a large organisation to sit a hundred steps away from the person your work eventually helps, and how much motivation goes missing in that gap.

The practical heart of the conversation is values. Eloise walks through an exercise anyone can do with a sheet of paper, and explains why an argument at work that upsets you far more than it should is often a value conflict rather than a personality clash.

🔑 Key Topics

• Integrated wellness, and why mental, physical and emotional health can't be split apart at work
• What organisational change does to the people inside it, and why acknowledgement matters
• The distance between someone's daily tasks and the person their work eventually helps
• Leaders embodying what they ask of others, and the existential idea of dialogue
• The knowledge held by people lower down an organisation that never travels upwards
• A values exercise you can do on a sheet of paper
• Why a disproportionate reaction at work is often a value conflict
• Career change, portfolio working, and why fewer young people want to become managers

💡 Did You Know?

Eloise estimates that around 90% of people entering psychotherapy come to it as a career change, often later in life. Her own route was five years in corporate tax law first.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Write down every value that matters to you, group the similar ones together, then narrow it to about five.
• For each of those five, write an example of what it looks like in practice. It brings them to life.
• Through the week, notice when you're living those values and when you're in conflict with them. A repeated conflict is telling you something.
• If your organisation is changing, name the personal effect out loud. Don't assume people will simply switch over.
• Connect the daily work to the person it eventually helps, and make that connection visible to the people doing it.
• If a job isn't a long-term fit, making the plan matters even when the move is years away. The autonomy is what helps now.

🗣️ Join the Conversation

When did you last stop and ask what actually matters to you at work? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Eloise: Website | Instagram

1. https://www.eloiseskinner.com
2. https://www.instagram.com/eloiseallexia

UKCP research behind the 90% figure: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/news/personal-experience-in-psychotherapy-is-a-growing-motivator-for-joining-the-profession/

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Charmian Johnson, a former global law firm partner, now founder of Charm Johnson Coaching and a Partner of The Mental Wellbeing Company. Through nervous system-aware training and coaching, she helps law firms reduce absence and attrition while improving performance and wellbeing. She also helps female lawyers move from overthinking and self-doubt to self-trust and feeling more like themselves again.

Charmian trained in trauma-informed coaching at weekends while still practising, and what she learned changed how she understood herself and her own career. She had received feedback that under pressure, she could sometimes come across as frosty and irritable which she hated. At the time she struggled to see how she could do anything about it without changing the demands of the job. What she had never been taught, during three decades in law, despite mental health training, awareness sessions and resilience training, was anything at all about the nervous system.

We talk about why organisations are spending more on wellbeing than ever and still asking why it is not working. Charmian believes an often overlooked piece is biological: understanding how our nervous system influences the way we think, feel and behave under pressure. Once people understand why they show up the way they do, the question in a workplace can change from "what is wrong with Dave in accounts" to "I wonder what is going on for him", and that small shift can change almost everything that follows.

We also get into language. Charmian has learned that walking into a corporate environment and talking about being "trauma informed" can create misconceptions about what the work involves. In the workplace it doesn't mean a therapist digging into their staff's childhoods. However talking instead about being "nervous system aware" can open the door to the same important conversation about stress, behaviour and performance in a way that feels relevant and accessible in the workplace.

🔑 Key Topics

• Why wellbeing budgets keep growing while the results stay flat
• Nervous system awareness as the piece traditional wellbeing strategies leave out
• The invisible backpack of trauma we all carry into work, and why nobody else can see it
• Why "trauma informed" can close doors that "nervous system aware" opens
• Training everyone rather than a few, and the gap it creates when you don't

💡 Did You Know?

A CIPD finding Charmian cites: half of organisations taking steps to reduce workplace stress did not think their wellbeing initiatives were effective. [Source: CIPD, Health and Wellbeing At Work: Survey Report, September 2025]

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Notice the body before the behaviour. Shoulders around your ears, a clenched jaw and shallow breathing are early signs of a stress response, and they arrive before the outburst does
• Change the question. "I wonder what is going on for them" gets you somewhere that "what is wrong with them" never will
• Train the whole workforce, not a handful. When some people understand this and others don't, you have built a gap between them
• Ask someone for a coffee and a catch up. Charmian found some people who had not been asked once in five years
• Look at your data for overworking as well as absence. Both tell you something is wrong

🗣️ Join the Conversation

Has anyone ever explained to you why your body reacts the way it does at work? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Charmian: LinkedIn | Website

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/charmian-johnson-4a99725b/
2. https://charmjohnson.thementalwellbeingcompany.com/

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Nicky McLaughlin, Area Partnership Manager for Scotland at CAP (Christians Against Poverty), a debt counselling charity now in its 30th year.

Nicky supports the debt centre managers and coaches who visit people in their own homes, often at the hardest points of their lives. That means holding two things at once: the toll that debt and crisis take on clients, and the toll that supporting them takes on staff. We talk about what a genuinely healthy workplace looks like when your team spends its days absorbing other people's distress.

At the heart of the conversation is an idea Nicky keeps returning to: people are whole people. You don't leave your grief, your money worries or your home life at the door when you clock in. Nicky is honest about his own history, giving up a job years ago to stress and anxiety, learning that it was okay to say he wasn't okay at work, and why sharing doesn't have to be all or nothing. It's a warm, practical conversation about care, boundaries, and building a culture where nobody has to pretend they have it all together.

🔑 Key Topics

• Why the people drawn to caring work so often carry their own experiences, and what that means for supporting them
• The whole person at work: why splitting your work self from your home self doesn't hold
• Sharing without oversharing: telling what you need to tell, and why it isn't all or nothing
• Modelling vulnerability as a manager, and why going first changes the culture
• The risk of assuming the one person who did the training is now the office's mental health service
• Why a single check-in isn't enough, and the follow-up that so often gets missed
• Signposting over rescuing: you don't have to be the fount of all knowledge
• Dynamic flexibility: responding to the curveballs real life throws at working people

💡 Did You Know?

CAP started 30 years ago with one man, a financial background and ten pounds in his pocket, in Bradford. It now runs around 250 centres across the UK.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• You don't need the ins and outs of someone's situation to support them. Acknowledge what's shared and ask what would help
• Build your own "what I can say" script, so opening up feels safe rather than all or nothing
• If you manage people, go first. Naming your own struggles gives everyone else permission
• Check in again weeks later. Distress often surfaces on a delay, long after the first conversation
• Keep a signposting list. Knowing who to point people to matters more than having every answer
• Make flexibility responsive, not just a line in a policy. The train delay, the school closure, the sick child

🗣️ Join the Conversation

Where's the line for you between bringing your whole self to work and keeping some things private? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Nicky: LinkedIn | CAP

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicky-mclaughlin-040257b3
2. https://capuk.org

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Michael Alexander, CEO of JAANUU, a fashionable yet functional medical apparel company founded in 2013 by a female paediatrician.

Michael's core belief is simple: a CEO's number one job is to drive culture, and culture is what protects the mental health of everyone in the organisation. We talk about what that looks like day to day, from letting people "shoot the ball" and miss without fear, to keeping ego out of decisions, to picking up the phone instead of firing off another Slack.

It's also an honest conversation about the harder side of leadership. Michael shares the sudden loss of a young, much-loved colleague, and how crying in front of the whole company became a moment of connection rather than weakness. We look at grief at work, why people's responses differ, and how a workplace can hold that together.

🔑 Key Topics

• Why the CEO's first job is culture, and how culture shapes mental health
• Psychological safety, and creating a workplace where it's safe to "shoot the ball" and miss
• How ego gets organisations stuck, and why "be humble" is the leadership habit that matters
• Owning mistakes as a sign of strength, not weakness
• Keeping relationships close, treating small issues before they drift too far apart
• Communication, consistency and coaching, and why the phone still beats the endless Slack thread
• Values that are lived versus values written on a wall
• Grief in the workplace, and respecting that everyone responds differently
• AI as a job enhancer, not a job replacement

💡 Did You Know?

JAANUU surveyed 1,000 healthcare professionals for its "Scrub Effect" study, testing the idea that when people look good and feel good, they give better care at the bedside. Read the Scrub Effect study:

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Make it safe to fail: people who fear mistakes stop taking the shots that move things forward
• Keep ego out of decisions, aim for the business to win, not for you to be right
• Treat "asking for help" as a strength your team is allowed to show
• Make micro-adjustments early, before a small tension becomes a hard-to-repair rift
• Pick up the phone or walk over, you notice how someone really is when you're face to face
• Check in again weeks and months after a loss, grief often surfaces on a delay
• Use AI to enhance people's thinking, not to replace it

🗣️ Join the Conversation

What does your workplace do when someone makes a mistake, punish it, or learn from it? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Michael: LinkedIn | JAANUU

1. Michael's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelevanalexander/
2. JAANUU website: https://www.jaanuu.com
3. Scrub Effect study: https://www.jaanuu.com/blogs/stories/the-scrubs-effect-what-you-wear-shapes-how-you-care

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Jodie Marshall, Founder and Managing Director of social enterprise A Mind Apart, and founder and owner of her consultancy and coaching company Mantleco Ltd.

We start with a question most workplaces skip: who looks after the leader? Jodie is honest about her own burnout, and about how a burnt-out leadership can never build a team that isn't burnt out too. She explains why she deliberately put a therapist on her board, so that when hard conversations come up there is someone to bring the human angle, and so she has support of her own.

From there the conversation widens into something rarely tied to mental health: money. Jodie makes the case that financial sustainability is a wellbeing issue. When an organisation is firefighting, wellbeing, training and development are the first things dropped. Get the business right, and you can reinvest in the people. We also talk about the fear running through employment right now, the young people entering work who are the COVID teenagers, and Jodie's argument that mental health belongs under the Equality Act, not just the HR inbox.

🔑 Key Topics

• Why a team can't be well if its leadership is burnt out, and who supports the leader
• Building a board on purpose, putting a therapist in the room
• Financial sustainability as the foundation of staff wellbeing
• "What is not serving you?", the courage to drop what is draining the team
• Fear-driven employment: probation, rights from day one, and getting stuck
• Neurodiversity and treating a team as individuals, not one 40-hour mould
• Shared responsibility between employers and workers, and the generation now entering work

💡 Did You Know?

After A Mind Apart brought in creative therapy and proper wellbeing support for those they were working with and their team, serious safeguarding incidents with the young people they work with fell dramatically, from something close to a daily occurrence to a handful across a whole year. When you resource the people doing the work, the work itself changes.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Look after the leadership, not just the team, and ask your board to resource it
• Treat financial sustainability as part of your wellbeing strategy, not separate from it
• Ask of every service and commitment: is this still serving us? Be willing to stop
• Do the market research before you launch. Piling untested ideas on your team is a wellbeing cost
• Have the conversation about someone's working pattern and needs. Letting people lead it is not saying the wrong thing
• If you are an SME without HR, get external support in place before you need it, through a chamber membership or ACAS

🗣️ Join the Conversation

If you lead a small organisation, who looks after you? And what would change if you treated the health of your business and the health of your team as the same question?

Connect with Jodie: LinkedIn, A Mind Apart, Mantle

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodie-marshall/
2. https://amindapart.org.uk/
3. https://www.mantleco.io/

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Tracey Secker, founder of Voices Social Enterprise, a non-profit raising awareness of domestic abuse, trauma and other forms of abuse, supporting both employees and employers through training, resources and events. Tracey also works with the charity Rape and Sexual Violence Project.

Tracey came to this work through lived experience of domestic abuse and its long aftermath. She understands how trauma can shape the way someone responds to managers, colleagues and pressure at work, often without realising it at the time. That understanding sits underneath everything she now does.

We talk about why a mentally healthy workplace starts with a culture that feels safe, open and supportive, and why so many people, including senior leaders, stay silent for fear of being judged or seen as weak. Tracey lays out the scale of the issue: around one in four women and one in six men experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, which means trauma is present in almost any workforce, whether it's current or historical.

She's candid about the assumptions that get in the way. "It doesn't happen here" is, she argues, one of the most dangerous things a leader can believe. People hide it well. For some, work is the one place they feel in control, a safe space they protect by becoming someone else for the day. The fix isn't to turn managers into counsellors. It's far simpler, and it belongs to everyone: notice, ask, listen, believe, and point people towards the right support.

🔑 Key Topics

• Why a mentally healthy workplace starts with a culture that feels safe, open and supportive
• The scale of domestic abuse and trauma in any workforce, and the ONS figures behind it
• How historical trauma, coercive control and post-separation abuse follow people into work
• Why "it doesn't happen here" is the assumption that does the most damage
• Work as a safe space, and the quiet signs someone may be surviving something at home
• Supporting people without being a counsellor: hear, believe, listen, signpost
• Policies that mean something versus tick-box policies that don't
• Why checking in on each other is everyone's job, not just managers'

💡 Did You Know?

Around one in four women and one in six men experience domestic abuse in their lifetime (ONS). In a team of ten, the maths is unavoidable: someone you work alongside is likely carrying it, current or historical, whether you can see it or not.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Don't assume trauma isn't present. Find out. Even an anonymous QR-code check-in can surface what you can't see
• When someone opens up, hear, believe and listen first. You don't have to fix it
• Be honest about your limits. Don't promise what you can't deliver, and signpost to specialist support
• Make your policies (domestic abuse, menopause, mental health) mean something, and live by them from the top down
• Check in on people, including the ones at the top who rarely get asked
• Treat a disclosure as a chance to support and educate, not automatically to discipline

🗣️ Join the Conversation

When did someone last ask you, simply, "are you okay?", and what difference did it make? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Tracey Secker on LinkedIn | Voices Social Enterprise

1. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracey-secker-9522b047/
2. Voices Social Enterprise: https://www.voices-social-enterprise.co.uk

If anything in this episode affects you, support is available. In the UK, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline (run by Refuge) is free on 0808 2000 247, 24 hours a day. If phoning isn't safe or possible, you can also reach them through the live chat on their website: https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Steven Pink, who is the CEO of Verve Healthcare, a SELDOC Group company. Steven has worked in retail, banking, aviation, the NHS and private healthcare. You will hear in the podcast how experiences from each of these industries have shaped Steven's view on how to lead well.

Steven's route to leadership has been interesting, starting as a 16-year-old selling men's suits in Marks and Spencer to leading two healthcare businesses as CEO: Verve Healthcare and SELDOC. That breadth shows in how he thinks about work. For Steven, a mentally healthy workplace is one where people get something back for themselves, not just a wage, but a sense of purpose, challenge and growth. He makes the case that we often have far more agency over our working lives than we think. We need to take hold of it.

We talk about reflection as a vital discipline rather than a luxury. We consider why leaders who never carve out time to think end up leading with tunnel vision, and how saying no in a good way is an important technique you can learn; it isn't just about confidence. Steven shares his own turning point on health and fitness, and what changed when he finally treated his own wellbeing as a priority.

He's also candid about the kind of leader he wanted to become. After working for some excellent bosses and some poor ones, he set out to build the kind of workplace he wished he'd been in when he was unhappy. The result: 97% workforce retention over five years in his current business, without the need to always be the best payer. His explanation is disarmingly simple, just be a bit human.

🔑 Key Topics

• Why purpose and challenge matter as much as pay for mental health at work
• The agency we have over our own working lives, and why we underestimate it
• Reflection as a leadership discipline, and building structure to protect it
• Saying no by offering an alternative, a learnable technique, not just confidence
• Leaders not always putting themselves last, and why looking after yourself isn't selfish
• Building the workplace you wish you'd had: humanity, belonging and retention
• Influence with humility, and the responsibility that comes with seniority

💡 Did You Know?

Steven's business holds 97% staff retention over more than five years, despite, in his words, not always being the best payer. His reason: once people arrive, it's simply a good, human place to be. Genuine kindness and low ego are vital ingredients for effective leadership.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Decide what gives you value from your work, then engineer more of it into your week
• Protect time to reflect, whether that's the gym, a walk, or talking it through with someone you trust
• Practise saying no with an alternative: "I can't really do that this week, but I can do a great job with it next week. Would that work for you?"
• Treat your own health and wellbeing as your number one priority; allow other things to reorganise around it
• If your team look nervous or avoid you, treat it as feedback on your leadership, not on them, change how you are
• Use influence with humility, the bigger your role, the greater your responsibility

🗣️ Join the Conversation

When did you last give yourself real time to reflect, and what changed when you did? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Steven: LinkedIn | Verve Healthcare

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenpink123/
2. https://www.vervehealthcare.co.uk/

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Dr Emma Williamson, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and CEO of Aneemo. Emma spent over 20 years in the NHS, including developing what is now the largest homeless psychology service in Europe, and she now supports organisations across sectors through trauma-informed leadership, training and immersive learning.

We start with a simple question: what does a mentally healthier workplace actually look like? For Emma it begins with psychological safety, compassion and a trauma-informed approach, an environment where people can raise concerns or admit they're struggling without fear of repercussion, while still holding high standards and healthy challenge.

From there the conversation opens out into leadership. We get into how we set managers up to fail, handing them targets and KPIs but little training, support or time.We talk about why so many people, younger workers especially, are stepping back from management, what happens to our judgement when we're burnt out, and why leaders so rarely give themselves the care they extend to everyone else.

Her answer to the one change that would make the biggest difference is refreshingly practical: regular, genuine one-to-one spaces. "Supervision, not snoopervision," a phrase she credits to Dr Karen Treisman, support that's about the person, not just their objectives.

🔑 Key Topics

• What a trauma-informed workplace looks like, and why it benefits everyone, not only those who've experienced trauma
• Psychological safety sitting alongside high standards and healthy challenge
• Why trauma is a wide umbrella, and why we don't need to label or diagnose to support people well
• How we set leaders up to fail, and why healthy teams produce better outcomes than target-chasing
• Burnout and the three signs to watch for: emotional exhaustion, disconnection, and feeling you achieve nothing
• Why leaders have to start with their own wellbeing, and role-model boundaries, leave and rest
• Distributed leadership, and letting go of the idea that one person does it all
• "Supervision, not snoopervision" (a phrase from Dr Karen Treisman): regular one-to-one support as prevention, not paperwork
• What to do when you don't get on with your line manager
• Whether wellness action plans help, and why it's how they're used that counts

💡 Did You Know?

Around 70% of the global population will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, and more than a third of workforce sickness and absence is linked to mental health. A trauma-informed approach isn't a niche concern, it's about almost everyone you work with.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Build regular one-to-one spaces that are about the person, not only their KPIs, at least monthly
• Notice the people who say "I don't need that", sometimes they can be the ones who need support most
• As a leader, start with yourself: take your leave, hold your boundaries, find your own support
• Use "I" statements rather than "you" statements when a working relationship is strained
• Treat wellbeing tools as the start of a conversation, not a tick-box exercise
• Find your own "team of solidarity", the people who reset you when your boundaries slip

🗣️ Join the Conversation

Do you get a regular one-to-one space that's actually about you, not just your targets? And if you lead a team, are you giving yourself the same support you give everyone else? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Connect with Dr Emma Williamson: LinkedIn | Website

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-emma-williamson-04bb7a85/
2. https://www.aneemo.com

In this episode of Inside Out: Mental Health at Work and in Life, I'm joined by Marjorie Thomson, a commercial leader with more than 30 years in the construction industry.

Marjorie's career has taken her from graduate trainee in Croydon to regional director responsible for a £26 million business, through two start-ups, two sales, and the process of leading a company through administration. She's now commercial manager at the startup she helped build, in what she describes as the best place she's been in her entire career.

We talk about what culture actually is, not what the organisation declares, but what people decide to build on the ground. Marjorie argues you cannot shape a bully, and she's honest about the last 18 months leading up to her previous company's collapse, about the mental health crisis playing out in construction right now, and about what kept her going when it would have been easier to walk away.

This is a conversation about what good leadership looks like when it shows up in other people, why mental health first aid training changed how she listened, and why, despite everything, seeing people develop is what still gives her hope.

🔑 Key Topics

• What a mentally healthy workplace actually looks like in practice
• Why culture isn't driven by the organisation, it's driven by the people in the right positions
• Why you cannot shape a bully, and what happens when one becomes your leader
• Leading over 120 people through the slow decline of a business
• Misogyny in construction, then and now
• What mental health first aid training changed for Marjorie as a leader
• The specific mental health pressures in the construction industry
• Why "I stayed for the people" is a leadership stance, not a consolation prize

💡 Did You Know?

Construction has one of the highest suicide rates of any UK industry. Marjorie talks about why the sector's culture of "just get on with it", combined with long hours, financial precarity, and a near-complete lack of psychological safety, makes honest mental health conversations almost impossible on site, and often impossible in the office too.

📝 Actionable Takeaways

• Check where your organisation's culture is actually coming from: the boardroom, or the people closest to the customer?
• If you spot a bully in leadership, don't try to coach the behaviour out. Marjorie's lived experience says it cannot be shaped
• Look at who your team comes to for advice. That's a signal of who's leading in practice
• Audit your approach to wellbeing. Are you ticking boxes, or creating real space for people to speak?
• If you're in a failing organisation, remember the people relying on you. That's a legitimate reason to stay, and a legitimate reason to leave when the damage becomes personal
• Ask yourself: what gives you hope? If the answer is nothing, that's information worth acting on

🗣️ Join the Conversation

What shapes workplace culture more, the people in it or the organisation that employs them? Have you ever stayed for the people when everything else told you to go? Share your thoughts and connect with us on social media.