Every May, organizations observe Mental Health Awareness Month through initiatives promoting employee well-being, from educational content to employee retreats and wellness challenges. As organizations focus on what they can offer teams and employees as part of their mental health programs, some lose sense of the why behind these efforts. Why do teams need to be not just physically, but mentally healthy if they are to succeed? Why does organizational leadership need to support and model transformation? And why is ignoring well-being and care a recipe for fractures?
We asked Prentis Hemphill (they/them), the author of What It Takes To Heal, an embodiment teacher, and former Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter Global Network, about the (new) skills they think leaders should add to their toolbox as they work to support employee well-being and engagement, strengthen organizational culture, and build resilience in the face of constant change.
Move Beyond Individual Well-Being
Meditation apps, therapy benefits, online yoga vouchers—organizations are offering their teams and employees resources to protect their mental health. But, as Prentis told us, the challenge with this approach is two-fold: It puts the focus on individual self-care and responsibility rather than collective well-being and structural change, and it relegates healing work to the sidelines, and off the clock. “It’s like Severance,” Prentis says, referencing the hit streaming series. “I think our organizational cultures are taking apart the person and focusing on abstract metrics that are not centered on human beings.”
Having been in leadership roles in many non-profit organizations, Prentis underlines that while having goals is absolutely critical, organizations and people can only truly have an impact if they are feeling solidly embodied and present in themselves. “An organization has the responsibility to create spaces where repair can happen between people, where people can receive and share real feedback, and where people can show care for each other,” Prentis explains. Instead of placing the burden on employees to “fix” their mental health, organizations need to examine their culture, leadership dynamics, and systemic structures to foster a mentally healthy workplace.
Rethinking Corporate Culture for Collective Wellbeing
One of the standout points Prentis makes in their work, is about organizational integrity. “If an organization is able to say ‘what we do is what we mean to do’ then this builds integrity,” Prentis explains. “And to me, integrity is the only thing worth pursuing.”
Prentis argues that organizations must align their actions with their stated mission to build trust and integrity among their staff, their teams, their clients, and even their future employees. This alignment creates a sense of congruence that is crucial for both individuals and organizations. “When we are being simply transactional and then wonder why the culture is falling apart, it’s because people don’t care. If an organization is being clear about their culture—why they’ve decided to do what they do and how they built their organization to do what it is that they do—then the people that join bring a kind of full-bodied yes to their role,” Prentis elaborates.
Asked about how organizations can uphold their mission and culture in the face of constant change, Prentis explains: “There is a lot happening in the world and while every organization has its mission, it cannot address every issue in the world. What it can do is decide how to face what is happening in the outside world.” Prentis underlines that organizations ask themselves: “Do we just take on and mirror the problematic behavior that we see in the external world? Do we just absorb what we are given? Or do we create a culture outside of that, that is more human and humane?”
Emotions and the professionalism trap
“Emotions are always happening,” says Prentis, and can’t just be left at home. On the contrary, according to neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, emotions are in fact integral to decision-making. Emotions help us feel what we care about and, as Prentis highlights, “care compels us to do things in the world.”
Many workplaces prize “professionalism” over authenticity, but that often leads to detachment, burnout, and disengagement. Instead, creating spaces for emotional expression and processing is crucial in order to build a more humane work culture.
“For a long time, organizational cultures made no room for emotions—it just wasn’t a thing that you did, and so people coped in all these other ways,” Prentis explains. “And still today, we normalize coping habits—like scrolling endlessly—which create emotional reactions and stress in the body. And at some point, it’s going to take a toll.”
Reimagining the Transformative Power of Leaders
In their work, Prentis has introduced the concept of transformational characters, individuals who “can change, want to change, and can create change in their teams and organizations.” They go on to illustrate: “Transformational characters are people working on themselves not as something they do outside of work—because the separation is part of the problem— but as something that will have an impact on them as leaders and their team members.”
When organizations hire people who are on a path of personal transformation, it leads to a healthier work environment where complexity and conflict can be navigated more effectively. As Prentis says: “The superpower of a transformational character is that it is someone who can navigate complexity.”
Prentis elaborates on two key components of authentic leadership to support organizational well-being:
1 Leadership is not about exerting power over people; it is about people offering you their trust. “If my team says to me, ‘we are going to offer you trust to lead us this way’, that is a deep relational move,” Prentis explains. “There are always going to be power differentials, you are always going to navigate power, whether explicitly or implicitly. But to me, part of leadership is exposing that and saying, ‘do you trust me in this moment to make these sets of decisions?’”
2. Don’t hold on too tightly to your “leader” identity. “Know that you are not the leader of everything and always. You do not lead in every aspect of your life,” Prentis explains. “Because if you hold on to that identity too tightly, you lose a little bit of your own humanity. Think about the desperation of the kind of leadership that is always grasping, looking, and trying to hold on to power. You can’t trust the people that are with you, you can’t trust yourself, it is just so shaky and desperate. You must shift from control to care.”
On Learning from Social Justice Movements
Prentis’ work is deeply rooted in social justice and advocating for the integration of healing principles into social movements. They have played key roles in national movements, including the Black Lives Matter Global Network and Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), a group dedicated to rebuilding Black movement infrastructure. What unites these movements, (perhaps all movements), is a deeply held belief that, as Prentis wrote in their book, “something else is possible for oneself and the world.”
In closing out our conversation with Prentis, this begged the question: What can social movements teach organizations about resilience in the face of change and self-care?
Prentis brings it down to two skills: Having a vision and not being afraid of change.
“Having a vision compels people to take risks, to think strategically, to take action, and to stay the course,” Prentis summarizes. “I think vision is so, so critical. And social movements have known that over time. When we can see what’s ahead of us as people, what we are working toward, then the challenges that are in between the place where we are and the place where we are going, are no longer the focus.”
And learn how to embrace change. “I think social movements begin with change,” Prentis explains. Having been a part of many change management processes, Prentis recognizes that organizations can get stuck in sameness and the pursuit of stability. But as Prentis says, “we need to have a stomach for the turbulence of shaking off old habits. That may not be pretty all the time, but it brings people and organizations into deeper alignment. Prentis succinctly summarizes: “Change management is the reality of building systems with people.” And if an organization doesn’t show care for its teams and employees, “that is a recipe for fractures.”
Prentis’ perspective on well-being and transformation is not just theoretical but practical. “Healing work cannot be only didactic, it has to have people feel their investment in caring for each other, it has to recruit people into a new way of being as people. When we are simply teaching people lessons, I think it won’t penetrate the body in the way that it needs to for anything to actually change.”
This Mental Health Awareness Month, and beyond, organizations should aspire to support employees as they align being a human being in the world with the core of their work. “They need to show they care,” Prentis says. “When we have aligned cares, we can practice trust together, we can practice repair, we can do conflict more skillfully, we can do feedback more skillfully. We can also make the impact we intend to make in a way that people can really feel it.”
Prentis Hemphill (they/them) is a political organizer and was the Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter Global Network. They are the author of What It Takes To Heal (paperback release on June 10, 2025) and an expert embodiment practitioner who has partnered with Brené Brown and Esther Perel, among others. With a deep understanding of intersectionality, Hemphill has a remarkable ability to connect with diverse audiences and has worked with individuals and organizations to navigate leadership transitions, support community accountability, and inspire transformation.