"Melissa Harries" BiziNet Articles

Being in business takes a toll. The pursuit of success also requires a level of sacrifice, whether that be time lost with family and friends, less time at the gym, even the simplicity of time off work. If you are in a leadership, management or business role its unlikely that you took sick leave last time you were sick. Long term gain for short term pain right? Maybe. And if you don’t take care of your mental health then definitely wrong.

During my last deployment to Afghanistan, I was privileged to travel to four Australian patrol bases and speak with the Army search engineers midway through their deployment. These are the guys detecting the improvised explosive devices (IEDs), down on their guts in the dust with their faces just centimeters from a bomb that can kill them and their mates. It doesn’t get much tougher than that. While individual hardiness of course plays a large role, how well diggers coped with the constant exposure to threat was also impacted by how well they were led. The actions of their chain of command throughout their deployment and during critical incidents (e.g. IED blasts and small arms attacks) would impact on how soldiers coped.