Authentic leadership & PsyCap’s role in tackling, events that impact well-being and environmental sustainability

Abstract

There is a growing level of awareness among organizational leaders, that stress-induced mental health challenges are on the rise globally. High stress levels are often attributed to a spectrum of causes, from natural and human-made crises to the rapid pace of technological advancements and societal shifts. The number of causes necessitates an examination of not just the cumulative effect of these event constellations, but also their complex interactions, which may amplify stress in ways that are not yet fully understood. These dynamics appear to be contributing to a worrying trend of increased mental illness, anxiety, and depression, notably among professionals on the front lines of these societal changes, like medical practitioners and first responders. For example, there were more fire fighters who committed suicide last year in the US versus those who lost their lives protecting others. Additionally, these professionals are directly exposed to the increasing cases of mental illness, anxiety, and depression among the public, an exposure that further amplifies their own stress levels. Some of the factors contributing to these high levels of stress include natural disasters and human-caused events, as well as some of the most transformative discoveries and innovations in human history. We begin this paper, by examining how a constellation of consequential events are shaping our global society’s well-being, e.g., the COVID 19 pandemic, AI innovation and Climate Change. Next, we examine evidence-based interventions that may offer potential avenues for addressing these high levels of stress. For instance, development interventions focused on authentic leadership that can enhance leader and follower’s psychological capital or PsyCap, resulting in lowering levels of stress, especially when operating in work roles that have higher level of daily stress. These positive forms of leadership help to address the numerous challenges that individudals, organizations and communities face today and well into the future. A clear emphasis in our work is also placed on examining how positive forms of leadership and organizational behavior, can impact two very different, but critically important outcomes, including the individual and collective mental health and well-being in organizations, communities and societies. Consequently, the overall goal here is to recognize the problems we face across a broad range of first responder professions, while offering specific solutions to address those problems.