African founders and their dance with the thin line of mental well-being
The life of a startup founder may appear glamorous in Hollywood-backed shows like WeWork and Super Pumped — however, the realities of running a startup paint a different picture. Regardless of size and available capital, starting a company is a stressful endeavour that requires grit and resilience. Not many people can handle the rigours of keeping a business afloat.
According to Atomico’s State of European Tech Report, many surveyed founders revealed that feeling lonely at the top was one of their greatest challenges, with 44% of surveyed founders struggling to find a reasonable balance between their work and personal lives. Startup culture is notoriously fast-paced, typified by the “move fast and break things” motto embraced by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg in the mid-to-late 2000s when he was building Facebook.
This attitude arguably became so ingrained in startup culture that it required a black swan event — the COVID-19 pandemic — to really force founders and founding teams to take a step back and change their way of work because they had to. While greater awareness of work-life balance was on the rise prior to the pandemic, the shifts that happened during and after it have led to greater recognition by founders and their employees that work-life balance is important. Startups are making more time for personal hobbies, mental health days, and family activities.
Yet, unlike other movements that have flowed through the global tech ecosystem, Africa’s founders haven’t necessarily cherry-picked the best of the work-life balance wave.
African founders are finding it harder to slow down
I’ve been working with founders in different shapes and forms for almost eight years. In that time, I’ve seen how African founders are subjected to an even higher degree of stress versus their US or European counterparts due to economic uncertainties in their home countries. But as a new wave of young employees flocks to startups and tech, it’s time for founders to know when to slow down and prioritise their mental wellness without feeling guilty.
Furthermore, it’s incumbent on founders to admit that working painfully long hours and hardly taking breaks promotes toxic startup culture and unhealthy working conditions for their employees. Decision-makers at the top influence how their employees think and behave. Suppose a founder openly ridicules people for taking entitled sick days. If that happens, a few staff members might think twice before requesting a day off to recuperate, not only harming themselves but the startup, increasing the risk of sub-standard work or mistakes because they are not at their best.
For many entrepreneurs, asking for help is the difficult first step they need to take to improve their mental well-being at work. Some first-time founders don’t ask for help to avoid coming off as weak or incompetent to investors, peers, and staff members. In a recently released report by Startup Snapshot, researchers discovered that 81% of the 400 early-stage startup founders they surveyed do not openly share their stress, fears, and challenges.
In fact, instead of eroding their prestige within the business, founders that ask for help strengthen their position within the organisation by strengthening bonds and leveraging the startup’s full well of knowledge. People thrive best when they cooperate with one another. Asking questions isn’t easy, but by asking for help, founders acknowledge they are human, not undefeatable superheroes. Knowing how to ask for help is a vital leadership skill. To become an effective CEO, you have to learn how to delegate tasks and clear some much-needed space in your mind. Founders who juggle many responsibilities will eventually burn out and feel disconnected from their businesses.
The thin line between positive stress and negative stress
The contradictory nature of stress is that it can positively and negatively affect a person’s physical and mental well-being. According to clinical psychiatrist Dr Michael Genovese, positive stress, or eustress, keeps people motivated and helps them feel good about their lives. An example of eustress for founders at work is setting ambitious goals with reasonable deadlines or working on a product expansion that requires learning a new skill or refining an existing skill. In a scenario where founders find themselves struggling to multitask or forcefully meet unrealistic deadlines, eustress morphs into distress.
“It is easy to tell when a founder isn’t taking care of their mental health,” says Toun Tunde-Anjous, founder of People Practice. “Their bodies start to break down, and you’ll hear complaints about headaches, migraines, and twitches. You’ll also find out that startup employees are afraid to approach stressed-out founders because they are likely to get yelled at or rudely dismissed. Finally, a distressed founder is easily frustrated or angered by things like putting together an investors’ report or interviewing a new hire.”
As a founder, Tunde-Anjous uses recreational activities like swims and long walks to combat the adverse effects of stress on her body. “I would also recommend that founders share their responsibilities with co-founders or senior management. Taking on too much work will only add to a founder’s mental pressure.”
Common causes of negative stress and how startup founders can manage distress at Work
“Overthinking, fear of failure, and imposter syndrome are three common causes of negative stress,” says Joshua Koya. Koya is the CEO of Nguvu Health, a teletherapy platform for Africans at home and in the diaspora.
“Founders have to work with things in and out of their control. Sometimes the experience of building a startup or product feels surreal, and founders often feel like they are not good enough for the job or their business will end up on the ‘failed startup’ list.”
Social isolation also contributes to the breaking down of a founder’s mental well-being because entrepreneurship can very much be a journey of one. But Koya believes the feeling of loneliness is a myth that founders must address in safe spaces.
“It only feels lonely at the top because founders feel responsible for staying on top of everything. One way to tackle social isolation is to create a supportive community of other founders or like-minded peers. When founders openly share their business challenges, they will discover they are not alone in the struggle.” Koya concludes.
One vital remedy to stress and poor mental health is founders getting enough sleep, which at times can feel impossible. Founders should prioritise getting over 3 hours of quality rest every workday in addition to sleep and feeding their physical and spiritual well-being by meditating, stretching regularly, and taking short mental breaks during workdays.
As the internet and digital universe expand and change occurs almost daily, it is up to founders and their employees to find harmony between working hard and caring for their minds — an intellectual place that houses their most innovative ideas and dreams — so they can deliver on their vision to the best degree possible.
Koromone Koroye is a writer, storyteller, and communications specialist who has covered and interacted with the African tech ecosystem over the course of her career.
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