What’s Happening to Our Boys and Men?

Nov 10

The conversation around mental health has come a long way — but one group continues to be left behind: Our boys and men.

November, also known as Movember, is dedicated to raising awareness and support for men’s health, particularly their mental wellbeing. What’s happening to our men isn’t about resilience or grit — it’s a signal that something deeper is unraveling beneath the surface. The perfect storm is forming, and it’s affecting us all.

The question, therefore, becomes: Are our organizations truly ready to face this “perfect storm” of the challenges our men and boys are facing today?

The Perfect Storm

We don’t talk about it nearly enough, but men’s mental health is in crisis. And the numbers tell a story we can’t afford to ignore:

Suicide rates: Men die by suicide at nearly 4x the rate of women. (CDC, 2023)
Industry-specific: Male-dominated industries like construction are getting especially hit hard. You’re 5X more likely to have a death by suicide than death by accident on the job. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024)
Depression underreporting: Men are less likely to be diagnosed but are equally or more likely to experience depression symptoms. (National Institute of Health)
Treatment gap: Nearly one in four women received mental health treatment (24.7%) in the past 12 months, compared with 13.4% of men. (CDC, 2019)
Loneliness epidemic: According to the Surgeon General’s 2023 report, 61% of men report feeling “seriously lonely.”

Put simply: The men who are struggling aren’t somewhere else—they’re right here among us. They’re our colleagues, our senior leaders, our frontline workers, our friends.

If the workplace is where most men spend the majority of their waking hours, then it’s also where this crisis is quietly unfolding. Which means it’s also where the opportunity lies. Workplace culture has the power to either multiply wellbeing—or quietly erode it.

How We Got Here

Here’s the thing: While we’ve made progress in normalizing mental health conversations, we’re missing half the story.

Too often, we talk about it, and then the remedy is to put the burden right back on the very group that’s struggling. “Men just need to talk more about their feelings.” Turns out, it’s a lot more than that. A real examination looks deeper—at how our workplaces and social systems are creating the problem in the first place.

As explained by social scientist and author Richard V. Reeves (Of Boys and Men), men are navigating a world that’s changed faster than their sense of identity. It’s not “men versus women”—it’s about shifting economic, social, and institutional realities that have left many men without clear pathways or role models on what it means to thrive. This is a cultural issue, not just a personal one.

At the same time, we need to recognize that it’s not about trading off one group’s wellbeing for another’s. We can hold space for both.

What the “Perfect Storm” Looks Like at Work

What does this mean for organizations? It means our leadership models, our performance systems, and even our definitions of success may be feeding this storm.

According to Monster’s 2025 Mental Health in the Workplace survey, 80% of workers say their workplace is toxic, up from 67% last year.

So, what’s fueling this rise in stress and toxicity? The data offers a clear picture.

Toxic work culture (59%)
Bad managers (54%)
Lack of growth opportunities (47%)
Increased workload (47%)
Staffing shortages (33%)

On the flip side, for the minority who report their mental health at work as either good or great, here are some of the reasons why:

They’re allowed time off for doctors/therapy appointments (50%)
They have generous PTO policies (29%)
Their workplace has specific mental health policies (23%)

If we look at both lists above, all of these are tied to both the systems in place at work and the company culture.

Building a “Safe Harbor” for Your Teams

In many workplaces, the go-to approach to mental health focuses on providing individual resources. While well-intentioned, this often misses the root causes that lie upstream—within company culture—resulting in limited, surface-level impact.

Real change comes from building environments where people can be both strong and supported.

If you’re a manager, breaking this cycle begins with creating a “safe harbor” within your team. A safe harbor combines psychological safety with accountability—it’s a space where people can bring their best because they trust one another and feel united toward a shared goal.

You don’t need to be a mental health expert to provide a safe harbor.

Try starting with these small but powerful actions:

Nurture genuine connections.
Make every individual feel valued by fostering real, human-to-human interactions—not just in scheduled meetings, but in your everyday touchpoints as a leader.
Normalize learning from mistakes.
Innovation and growth come with failure. When you guide your team through mistakes with empathy and curiosity, you create a culture where questions and honest, healthy feedback can thrive.
Seek input with humility and openness.
Show that every voice matters by listening deeply and responding thoughtfully.
Recognize acts of support.
High-performing teams look out for one another. When someone helps a colleague, acknowledge it publicly—celebrate collaboration as much as achievement.

They may feel small, but these steps are how culture changes. When managers lead with empathy and courage, wellbeing becomes a shared way of working—not a separate initiative.

Watch my conversation with JD Schramm & Sergeant Kevin Briggs for a raw conversation around the topic of mental health and human resilience.

Laura Putnam