In today’s workplaces, psychosocial risks—those that impact mental and emotional wellbeing—are being increasingly recognised as serious hazards. These include everything from burnout, stress, and anxiety to more severe psychological injury.
While managing these risks is a shared responsibility, managers and leaders are uniquely positioned to create meaningful change. With the right support they can become powerful agents for psychosocial safety.
Why Psychosocial Risk Matters
Unlike physical hazards, psychosocial risks are often hidden within culture, systems, or leadership behaviours, making them harder to detect until harm occurs. Yet their impacts are real: mental health conditions now account for 9% of serious workplace injury claims in Australia (WorkSafe, 2024), and burnout is rising across industries.
Common psychosocial hazards include:
- High emotional demands or workload
- Low job control or unclear roles
- Bullying, harassment, or unresolved conflict
- Lack of recognition or leadership support
- Poor organisational change practices.
Left unaddressed, these issues lead to low productivity, absenteeism, high turnover, and long-term mental health impacts—posing legal, ethical, and business risks in addition to the obvious personal costs to an injured worker.
Managers: A Frontline Defence
Managers play a critical role in shaping safe, supportive team environments. They’re responsible for setting expectations, structuring roles, resolving conflict, and ensuring people are treated fairly. But many managers, particularly if new to people leadership or in an already emotionally demanding role, feel under-equipped to identify and manage psychological risks—especially when they’re dealing with emotionally complex situations.
Rather than seeing unwell staff as “problems,” managers can learn to recognise them, just like the canary in the coal mine, as important signals – early warnings of deeper systemic issues. When someone shows signs of distress, it’s a cue to ask: Is the workload too high? Are expectations unclear? Is the team culture healthy?
How Coaching Can Support Managers?
Coaching can help equip managers with the awareness, tools, and confidence to effectively prevent, identify and reduce psychosocial risk. Here are four possible areas you might relate to:
- Raising Awareness
Coaches help managers step back and identify hidden risks in their team dynamics—such as unresolved tension or unclear responsibilities—before they escalate. - Building Skills
Many managers avoid emotional or interpersonal issues due to discomfort. Coaching develops their confidence and communication skills to address concerns early and effectively. One leader, for example, learned through coaching to confront a long-standing team conflict that had been eroding trust and morale. - Encouraging Strategic Thinking
Rather than reacting to issues as they arise, coaching supports long-term planning. For example, during organisational change, a leader was coached to build better consultation and feedback processes that reduced stress and confusion. - Shaping Culture
Coaching helps managers create psychological safety and model healthy behaviours—setting boundaries, encouraging breaks, and resisting an “always-on” culture. These visible actions show teams that wellbeing is not just encouraged but expected.
From Individual Fixes to Organisational Responsibility
Often, organisations place the burden of managing stress on individual workers—offering resilience training, fruit bowls or wellbeing apps. While helpful, these don’t address the root causes of harm.
At an organisational level, People and Culture teams can help identify where risks exist across teams, job clusters or geographical locations. This data enables smarter strategic decisions like redesigning roles, skill development for leaders, or improving support systems.
But it’s my belief that true change starts with leadership. Coaching empowers managers to take responsibility for the things they can influence—team dynamics, role clarity, communication, and culture, thereby embedding psychosocial safety from the ground up.
If we want to reduce psychological harm at work, we need to support the people who shape workplace culture every day—our leaders and managers.
If you’re a manager, ask yourself:
- Do I know what psychosocial risks exist in my team?
- Can I influence the conditions causing them?
- Do I have the skills to intervene early?
- Am I creating a culture that supports wellbeing?
If any of these give you pause to reflect, coaching might be the next step.
Coaching provides a confidential, practical space for leaders to develop the awareness, skills, and strategies needed to create psychologically safe environments, supporting them to shift from reactive problem solving to leading proactively with intention.
If you’d like to explore how coaching could support you or your team, please get in touch to arrange a complimentary virtual coffee – I’d love to connect.
