New Data Reveals the Critical Importance of Mental Health Leadership at All Levels
Workforce Mental Health Assessment Releases 2025 Annual Report: Mental Health Leadership at All Levels
April 22, 2025, Rutherford, CA – One Mind at Work, a global nonprofit dedicated to building the future of workforce mental health, today released the latest insights from the Mental Health at Work Index™. The Index is a standardized assessment of organizational-level initiatives to address workforce mental health. The data show that organizations with leadership support for mental health at every level of the organization were more likely to report improvements in employee satisfaction in the last year.
The new annual report titled “Mental Health Leadership at All Levels” demonstrates the critical importance of leadership support for mental health. The findings underscore the positive impact of mental health leadership at the executive, managerial, governance, and grassroots level.
In today’s complex and rapidly changing environment, organizations that prioritize mental health outperform those that don’t. They attract and retain top talent, build resilient teams, and drive better business outcomes.
This report unpacks four key findings:
- C-suite support for mental health isn’t cascading. Executives are signaling that mental health matters, but many aren’t modeling healthy behaviors or holding others accountable.
- Managers are pivotal—but need support. They shape the daily experience of employees, yet few are equipped to personalize and champion mental health at the team level.
- Boards are lagging behind. Despite their oversight role, most boards are not meaningfully engaged in workforce mental health strategy.
- Employee leadership is untapped. Workers can be powerful change agents, but their insights and influence remain largely underleveraged.
“Our goal is to create a positive work environment where managers understand that leadership includes conversations about mental health, knowing the available resources and avenues for support, and being vulnerable with their teams to reinforce our culture of caring for associates.” – Liz Davila, Benefits Manager, Capital Group
Taking Action for the Future
The report reveals that employers that invest in leadership support for mental health can be a force multiplier. Organizations that recognize the importance of leadership support and engagement in mental health efforts are positioned to more effectively support their people through times of uncertainty and change.
This report offers data-driven insights from the Mental Health at Work IndexTM, real-world examples from best-practice organizations, and actionable strategies to help you harness leadership potential across the organization and embed mental health into your culture, operations, and performance metrics.
Download the Full Report
Click here to download “Mental Health Leadership at All Levels”.
About the Mental Health at Work Index
The Mental Health at Work Index is a self-assessment tool for business leaders who are committed to being data-driven when it comes to workforce mental health. Using the Index, organizations establish the baseline maturity of their mental health programs, pinpoint priority areas that will accelerate the impact of their efforts, and tap into evidence-based resources for optimizing their programs to achieve better outcomes, both for their employees and for their organization.
Developed collaboratively by One Mind at Work, Columbia University’s Mental Health + Work Design Lab and Ethisphere, the Mental Health at Work Index landed One Mind on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list and the winner in the workplace category for World Changing Ideas.
For more information about the Mental Health at Work Index, visit www.mentalhealthindex.org.
About One Mind at Work
One Mind at Work is a non-profit organization leading a global movement to improve workplace mental health. Our mission is to translate science to build workplace best practices that drive measurable impact on workforce mental health, leading to better outcomes for individuals and organizations. With science and data as our cornerstone, we partner with employers around the world who recognize that a healthy workforce is at the heart of a high-performing organization. We provide our members with guidance and recommendations built on decades of scientific, clinical, and translational mental health work on a global scale.
Contact
pr@onemind.org