Let me tell you about a man I once knew at work.
He was the kind of guy everyone wanted on their team. Showed up early, stayed late. Never complained. Cracked jokes in the toughest meetings. Held it together when projects fell apart. His manager loved him. His peers admired him. And for years, he was quietly drowning.
He told me this only after he'd finally gotten help — therapy, a doctor's visit, an honest conversation with his wife. He said the hardest part wasn't the depression itself. It was the years he spent convincing himself that what he was feeling didn't count.
"Men don't do this," he told himself.
"Toughen up."
"Other people have real problems."
Sound familiar?
This Month Is for You
June is Men's Mental Health Awareness Month. And before you scroll past this thinking it doesn't apply to you — that's exactly why I'm writing it.
Because the men who need to read this most are the ones who will assume they don't.
The numbers are stark. Men are significantly less likely to seek mental health support than women, yet are disproportionately represented in suicide statistics worldwide. In many countries, suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50. Not heart disease. Not accidents. Men are silently choosing to leave rather than ask for help.
This is not a personal failing. This is a cultural one — and it's one we in HR and people leadership have a role in changing.
What We've Taught Men to Be
From childhood, many men absorb a simple, suffocating curriculum:
Be strong. Provide. Don't cry. Handle it. Don't be a burden. Figure it out yourself.
It's not that anyone sat down and said, "Here's how to suppress everything you feel." It happened in quieter ways. The teasing when a boy cried too much. The praise for gritting through pain. The cultural scripts — films, sports, workplaces — that celebrated stoicism and mocked vulnerability.
By the time a man lands in your organisation, he may have spent 20, 30, 40 years perfecting the art of seeming fine.
And here's the workplace complication: the same behaviours that signal struggle in other contexts — withdrawal, irritability, presenteeism, declining performance, aggressive outbursts — are often misread in men as attitude problems, or simply as "how he is."
We deal with the symptom. We miss the person.
To Every Man Reading This
I want to speak directly to you now.
What you're carrying is real. The stress of providing for people you love. The pressure to appear invincible when you're exhausted. The grief you haven't named yet. The anxiety that visits you at 3am. The feeling that you're somehow failing, even when the spreadsheets say otherwise.
That is real. And it deserves real attention.
Asking for help is not weakness. It is, in fact, the most sophisticated skill a human being can develop — the ability to accurately assess what you need and go get it. That's not weakness. That is competence at the highest level.
The men who have made some of the world's greatest contributions — athletes, leaders, creatives, soldiers — many of them have spoken openly about therapy, medication, hitting rock bottom and rebuilding. Not as confessions of failure. As evidence of resilience.
You are allowed to not be okay. You are also allowed to do something about it.
What Good Looks Like at Work
For those of us in HR and leadership, this month is a call to audit ourselves:
Do our men know that support exists — and believe they're actually allowed to use it? Having an EAP on paper means nothing if the unspoken culture is "that's for other people."
Are we training managers to spot the signs of struggle in men specifically? Irritability. Increased alcohol talk. Overworking as avoidance. Physical complaints with no medical explanation. Disengagement from a formerly enthusiastic employee.
Do we celebrate vulnerability when we see it? When a man on your team says, "I'm struggling with something right now", — what happens next? Quietly, over time, people are watching that.
Are our wellness offerings genuinely accessible to men? Mindfulness apps and yoga sessions are wonderful. But many men won't touch them. Peer support programs, physical activity, purpose-led initiatives, and frank conversations with trusted managers often reach them better.
One Thing You Can Do Today
If you're a man reading this: just notice. Notice how you're actually doing — not the answer you'd give in a meeting, but the real one. If the honest answer gives you pause, please consider talking to someone. A GP. A therapist. A trusted friend. The EAP. Your partner. Someone.
You don't have to have a crisis to deserve support. You're allowed to get help before you hit the wall.
If you're a leader or HR professional, this month, have one real conversation. Check in on the quiet ones. Create one moment of psychological safety that wasn't there before.
Small things accumulate into culture.
The Man in My Story
He's still at his company. His manager told me recently he's the best he's ever been — more present, more creative, more patient with his team. He coaches junior staff now and is known, quietly, as the person you can go to when things are hard.
He found his way through. But he lost years before he did.
Let's not waste more of them.
Happy Friday. Check in on your people. Check in on yourself.
You matter — not just for what you produce, but for who you are.
Radio Africa Group HR Manager, Jemima Ngode CHRP (K)
