840,000 deaths each year from work-related stress

7 May
General

840,000 deaths each year from work-related stress – and the majority are preventable. Not heart attacks in the abstract. Not “burnout” as a buzzword. Deaths because of cardiac disease and suicide caused by work. It links directly to how work is designed, managed, and led. The ILO (a UN agency) just released the data. Job strain. Long hours. Bullying. Harassment. Insecurity. These aren’t HR problems. They’re leadership problems. Here’s what strikes me: the ILO says most of these deaths are preventable. The risks are known. The interventions exist. What’s missing isn’t knowledge — it’s will. In Great Leaders Care, I call this the Red Zone — the place where chronic stress tips into crisis. Leaders who wait for someone to hit the Red Zone have already waited too long. Strong care isn’t about being soft.

Tags: Leadership Resilience, Leadership Resilience Speaker. Mental Health Speaker, Psychological Safety Speaker, R U OK? Speaker, Resilience Speaker, teamresilience

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About the author

Graeme Cowan

Graeme is a keynote speaker who helps leaders build resilient and successful teams, without losing their best people to burnout. He is also a founding board director of R U OK? and host of The Caring CEO podcast – rated #2 globally in workplace mental health. His new Wiley book is "GREAT LEADER'S CARE: Developing safe, resilient, and successful teams", and he co-founded WeCARE365 which produces customised and practical eLearning, to help managers have better burnout prevention conversations.