Solving the Loneliness Crisis with Dr Michelle Lim
Dr Michelle Lim - Clinical Psychologist, Principal Research Fellow, Professor and expert on Loneliness
Dr Lim is a registered clinical psychologist and a board approved supervisor for the Psychology Board of Australia. Dr Lim co-founded and became the inaugural co-director of the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection, a coalition of organisations from 12 countries committed to ending the global problem of loneliness and social isolation.
We’re lonelier than ever, fact. So what can we do about it? And what role does the workplace play in ending loneliness?
We asked Dr Michelle Lim, one of the world’s leading experts in loneliness to help us understand the issue.
Distinctly different from being alone, socially isolated or in solitude, loneliness is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a distressing subjective experience of a lack of connection to others, along with a desire for more or more satisfying social relationships.
Workplace loneliness has become a widespread concern, with recent data showing that 27% of employees feel isolated at work. While managers may see loneliness as a personal matter outside their responsibilities, its impact on performance and productivity can be significant.
In this conversation with Dr Michelle Lim she explains what loneliness is, why we’re experiencing workplace loneliness and what we can do about this at a personal, workplace and community level. This is an episode not to miss!
Learn more about Dr Michelle Lim, and connect with her work here:
Dr Michelle Lim is CEO of Ending Loneliness Together, a national Australian network made up of universities and industry partners, and the director of the social health and wellbeing group at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.
Her work informs the Australian government, not-for-profit and corporate sectors, and she was the chief investigator of the Australian Loneliness Report
(2018) and the Young Australian Loneliness Survey (2019). Her findings noted that one in four Australians aged 12 to 89 report problematic levels of loneliness. In 2020, Dr Lim co-founded and became the inaugural co-director of the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection, a coalition of organisations from 12 countries committed to ending the global problem of loneliness and social isolation.
Dr Lim is a registered clinical psychologist and a board approved supervisor for the Psychology Board of Australia. She currently holds multiple research collaborations with Washington University in St Louis, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), the University of Melbourne, and Australian Catholic University. Dr Lim is the scientific chair and chairperson of Ending Loneliness Together, a national initiative which guides Australian charities, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations to deliver evidence-based community messaging and solutions in loneliness.
Connect with Dr Michelle Lim at Ending Loneliness Together here.
What this podcast conversation via YouTube:
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Alexis Zahner: Welcome to, we Are Human Leaders. Today we are tackling a topic that's been on our hearts and minds for a while. It's one that is rather pervasive and impacts us both personally and professionally. Sally, who and what are we talking about today?
[00:00:12] Sally Clarke: So today we're speaking with Michelle Lim, who is Principal Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, scientific chair and CEO of ending loneliness together, and that's what we're talking about ending loneliness.
[00:00:28] As you alluded to, Alexis, this is really an issue that is front of mind and heart for both of us, and it's such an exciting opportunity to understand not just what loneliness is for us as individuals, but why it's so important that we actively look at it in our workplaces and as a society.
[00:00:44] Alexis Zahner: That's right Sal.
[00:00:45] So today's conversation, Michelle, is gonna help us unpack loneliness, both at a very granular level, what it is, why it's important that we're talking about that, and then she's gonna leave us with some very practical tips and ideas around how we can actually look to combat this in our workplace as well.
[00:01:00] So, without further ado, this conversation on loneliness is with Michelle Lim.
[00:01:04] Sally Clarke: Let's Delve, delve in.
[00:01:05] Dr Michelle Lim: So I'm a clinical psychologist by training. And as a student, I, I was kind of working in a. Very highly intensive psychological service actually in public mental health. And as we all know, definitely in Australia, public mental health is a place where we take care of people with, you know, significant health issues who are often very impaired.
[00:01:27] And to the point that, you know, we were seeing people two to three times a day sometimes really just to monitor medication, for example. What really struck me as a student and a young psychologist working in that area, was that despite us seeing people every day, multiple times a day them living with carers with other people, the most common complaint that they did have was that they were lonely.
[00:01:54] And that really made me feel helpless, even as a, a young psychologist thinking, well. Shouldn't I be able to assist this, this, this population who was incredibly vulnerable? I thought I was skilled to assist them, you know? But in fact, I, the services that I was working within really had these boundaries and constraints, which meant that I really could not offer them what they really wanted.
[00:02:21] And what they did really want is friendship. Right. And so our care industry and our, our service industry for mental health really does not account very well for the social needs or the people that we help. And increasingly now we know that social needs are just as important as mental health needs, for example, and physical needs.
[00:02:45] We often kind of talk about, you know, these biopsychosocial approaches, but really we just leave the social out of things. So I think a lot of what I do now is really trying to advocate for bringing that social care into systems, into our community and for us to think about. Being addressing loneliness more broadly.
[00:03:10] Sally Clarke: Incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that, Michelle. When you say addressing loneliness more broadly, I'd love to unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by that?
[00:03:19] Dr Michelle Lim: Loneliness is traditionally considered a personal matter. You know, it's something that, it's, your problem is a you problem, right? And if you're lonely, there's something wrong with you.
[00:03:29] It's because perhaps, you know, you're not social enough or you are strange or you're a loser. You know, those are the kind of terms that people assign to you if you, if you say you're lonely. But now we know that actually loneliness itself is not very different to feeling thirsty. In fact, if anything, you're normal to feel lonely.
[00:03:51] You're if you're hungry again. Very much innate need for you to signal to eat. Same with feeling thirsty and loneliness is your sign to connect, and that's how we actually traditionally thrive as a community. As humans. The way we are designed is to be social, but somewhere along the line, we've decided that loneliness is a thing that we cannot be and it's a bad thing to be and that we have to conceal it and we have to hide.
[00:04:23] That feeling. And while it is extremely normal to feel lonely, what's happening is that we have, because of the stigma we have now become persistently lonely because we don't address it, we don't talk to other people about it. We feel disempowered to actually seek the help that we need. So we need. We need to live in a world that helps us meaningfully connect with others and not just meaningfully healthily connect with others because we do know sometimes we are connected to people who might not be good for us.
[00:04:59] So we need to think about solutions that could help each and everyone live in a world where we can find that meaningful social connection easily.
[00:05:10] Alexis Zahner: That's fascinating, Michelle. And can you help us understand how exactly does loneliness differ from things like solitude or isolation?
[00:05:18] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah, that's a fantastic question because that's actually the crux of why this issue has really been misunderstood for a very long time.
[00:05:28] So, loneliness itself is a subjective feeling. It comes up and you can't, you can't really observe it in someone. You have to ask them, you know. Because in fact, you know when I, an example going back to when I was working as a, a psychologist in the system you know, when you ask other colleagues of mine, oh, is that person, do you think that person could potentially be lonely?
[00:05:50] They'll often say, oh, they're not lonely. They're living with mom and dad. Right? But that really doesn't mean anything that you know, and that is actually that what she's really trying to say or what they're trying to say is they're not socially isolated 'cause they're living with other people, but.
[00:06:04] There's still potential to be lonely, right? So loneliness is subjective. You just can't tell unless you ask someone. And in fact, we, we probably have evidence now, is that there's so much stigma about being lonely. People also deny being lonely or they actively conceal it. We, we do know that, that's different from, you know living alone, something I can see, something that's observable to you and me.
[00:06:29] The number of interactions we have. Maybe if we are living in a more remote rural area, we see fewer people that would be considered more social isolation or if you're unemployed so you don't have people around you at work. Right? I guess remote working kind of does fall into that as well. I wish that you are considered technically more socially isolated.
[00:06:51] Exactly. And then of course you have that other term solitude. And solitude is often kind of described as actually more of a, a desired state that you want to be by yourself and it brings your peace and you recharge yourself. So loneliness is, is an undesired state. It's something that we. It's aversive, it's distressing.
[00:07:12] We don't want it.
[00:07:13] Sally Clarke: I really love that you've highlighted that. It's something that we actually have to ask about in order to determine if another person is actually feeling lonely. And even then they may deny it because they don't wanna admit it to themselves. But I think this idea that we have, that we can simply see from the outside.
[00:07:28] Well, that person is surrounded by people or they seem very social, but we can't actually ever tell unless we ask. And also perhaps hold some space for them to be able to share it.
[00:07:38] Dr Michelle Lim: That's right. That's right. And
[00:07:38] Sally Clarke: I'd, I'd love to understand a little bit more about what stops us, what is this? What is this stigma that we have around where do it come from?
[00:07:47] And I, I guess the further question is then how can we overcome it? But is it, is it shame? Because I think often for me, it feels like there's inherently some kind of shame associated with acknowledging I. That I'm lonely.
[00:07:58] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah. And it, it boils down back to what we, what we think loneliness is as well, isn't it?
[00:08:03] And unfortunately, you know, media and social media has really compounded and, and given us different understandings of what being alone versus lonely is. And you know, in our state of the Nation report that we did two years ago, for example, you know, we asked, you know, around 4,000 Australians, about you know, their loneliness. And a lot of them were saying things like one in two Australians were saying things like they would actually actively conceal their loneliness. So if they actively hide it, they were ashamed, of course, and, and too embarrassed to talk about it. And it's something, again, it's not that loneliness is a bad thing.
[00:08:42] If, if anything, it's really seen as a mechanism to keep us thriving. But because of that shame, because of all our misconceptions about what it is, we're treating it as something that's that we don't want and we need to hide. So I, I was training as a psychologist 20, 21 years ago, and back then we were talking about depression.
[00:09:03] Like it's a made up thing. And this is kind of where we're out to loneliness, you know, is that now, now we talk about mental health, you know, in a, in a way that's healthier. There's still some stigma around it. But all workplaces need some sort of mental health policy, right? But loneliness is, is not really, people don't understand it, people don't really put it on the agenda.
[00:09:25] But we've got about 20 over years of research now that says this is just as important as your physical health in your mental health. So the World Health Organization is has launched their three year commission to this issue. Really trying to reposition this issue not as a soft issue, not just as a personal matter.
[00:09:46] This is everybody's issue. This is, and if I feel lonely, even in the context of within my family and my friends, it doesn't mean anything about you. It doesn't mean anything about the people that you love and care about. What it means is that we're living in a world that really doesn't cater to our social needs anymore.
[00:10:03] Alexis Zahner: We've spoken a little bit about solitude, isolation and some of the things that loneliness isn't. Can you tell us in a nutshell, how exactly do we define loneliness? Is it the absence of quality connection or what is
[00:10:13] Dr Michelle Lim: it in a nutshell? It is really an absence of of the kinds of connections you want. So if you feel your current relationships actually do not meet your social needs, be it quality sometimes for young people, quantity I.
[00:10:27] So for young people, they very much favor more, not always deeper. As we age, we favor deeper relationships. But if you feel they're not quite giving you what you really require, then you are more likely to experience loneliness.
[00:10:42] Alexis Zahner: So it's that feeling at the end of the day, perhaps I've interacted with 10 people or family or whatever it is, but something just doesn't feel fulfilling.
[00:10:49] That's right. Perhaps I didn't get a chance to express authentically or something like
[00:10:53] Dr Michelle Lim: this. That's right. You might feel like. Misunderstood, for example, by others, or you feel like you don't have anyone to turn to or talk to despite being around other people so you don't feel like you could trust people to, to have that conversation.
[00:11:06] Sally Clarke: Something that's really interesting for me, Michelle. I think over the years, starting to become more honest with myself about when I'm feeling lonely and certainly acknowledging that there's some shame that I think sort of kept that at bay. But I've recently moved back to Australia from overseas and I'm living in a new area and it's been really interesting to be able to.
[00:11:24] Acknowledge to myself when I'm feeling lonely and take action on that. And sort of, sort of, you know, notice perhaps that reservation that I have about acknowledging it, but overcoming that and taking action as a result and feeling the desired social connection that you alluded to. And I think it's such a it's a real reframe for me and I'm really still grappling with, I think being sort of honest in the moment about it.
[00:11:47] It often takes some time for me to see then in retrospect that I've actually been lonely for a little while.
[00:11:51] Dr Michelle Lim: Yes.
[00:11:52] Sally Clarke: But I'm curious sort of as individuals, if when we start to build that, I guess that awareness and that honesty with ourselves, that we are getting that signal with thi hunger, loneliness.
[00:12:03] When we're feeling lonely, what can we do to perhaps firstly build our skills in becoming aware and then shift that into taking action to resolve it? Yeah,
[00:12:12] Dr Michelle Lim: I love that question because there's, there's quite a few things we can do and I think that the main thing is really to adopt healthy perspectives on relationships.
[00:12:20] And I think people often kind of. Want a quick fix. And it, it usually isn't a quick fix. And we know as psychologists, it's usually, if anything, we always we always discourage people from those, you know, big actions. You know, what we really wanna do is kind of taking little actions that are feasible along the way so that you're actually taking the time to say hi and have a conversation with someone.
[00:12:42] You, you're changing a stranger into an acquaintance. You're not having to make a new best friend right away, right? So. And I dunno about you, but as you get older, it's much more difficult to make friends, you know? And in this world it's very difficult to find good friends and it's usually, you know, people don't have time, which is the enemy of, you know, of, of, of of what, where we're at, you know, where we're at at the moment.
[00:13:05] And, but we can. Bake things into our routine, that means that we protect ourselves from the persistent loneliness. Again, as you say, I think sadly, it's really good for you to kind of be aware of it, you know, and not be ashamed of it, but then to feel empowered to take action, right? So I, I want people really by the end of this, go, well, I'm thirsty.
[00:13:27] I'm just gonna have a drink. If I'm lonely, I'm, I'm going to, you know, do what I need to, to connect, but I, I'm not gonna feel ashamed by doing that 'cause I'm not ashamed of having a drink. You know? So we need to really de-stigmatize and really have, you know, my, my dream is that, you know, I, I'm gonna talk myself out a job, you know, that we are really talking about, you know, in 10, 20 years that things are being built into our system where we can easily find a connection that we need.
[00:13:56] Mm-hmm.
[00:13:58] Alexis Zahner: And you know, interestingly Sal, your experience of moving recently is one that is quite obvious. You're in a new town where you dunno yet I had an interesting experience through covid and transitioning then to full-time remote work. So I have an office in Sydney, but I work predominantly from a different destination and.
[00:14:16] I feel now in retrospect, I can recognize that there were definitely moments where I was lonely, but it didn't seem immediately obvious because I think the transition was happening for everyone, but also happened slowly. And I wonder, Michelle, can you tell us, are there any sort of less obvious signs that we might be experiencing?
[00:14:35] Loneliness for me, for example. I just started to feel sometimes my mood was a little bit down through the day and I couldn't quite pinpoint where that might be coming from.
[00:14:44] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah, yeah. I think, I think a lot of the guess the science behind loneliness is that it, it's very much driven by the brain, you know, and, and really the social neurosciences of loneliness has been really well studied for the last 30 years at University of Chicago, for example, that they have an awesome team there that looked at.
[00:15:01] The brains are people who are lonely, and what they do note is that people who feel lonely are more hypervigilant to social interactions. They're just more wary. They're really looking out to protect themselves from rejection. And so they might not approach social situations quickly. And now those, these are kind of more subtle signs.
[00:15:22] Yeah. They might be less cooperative or less pro-social. They might just. Engage in activities much more likely, they're not really meaningfully engaging. So those are very subtle signs, you know, those are, and, and things like, you know, low mood. Again, nobody's gonna know on this. They are, they are, they ask.
[00:15:40] But definitely social anxiety again, is another co-occurring symptom that people experience. In fact, when I look at some of the studies that we've done in young people specifically. When we screen someone who might be highly lonely, they are almost 33 to 50% also likely to experience social anxiety disorder.
[00:16:03] So there's, there's some literature around, is this the same thing? You know, because it's, when you're lonely, you're also more likely to be socially anxious and you're socially anxious, you're also more likely to be lonely and they feed into each other. You know, even if we didn't have a clinical diagnosis of social anxiety disorder, we didn't see an.
[00:16:20] Large longitudinal studies that we did in the US longer. Loneliness predicts social anxiety and social anxiety predicts loneliness back across a six month period. And so we do know that the brain of someone who feels lonely becomes much more socially anxious, much more withdrawn less cooperative.
[00:16:40] They might actually show signs that are what we call negative effects, so they're less likely to smile, they're less likely to give you eye contact. Of course when you see someone like that, you're not gonna think let's go to, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:54] Sally Clarke: There's a lot of the language that you've just used, Michelle, that really is about this kind of withdrawal almost, or almost like there's an energetic sort of cutoff that people experience in loneliness and I guess also in social anxiety disorder, where it's almost a, I dunno if it's a fear, but this un unwillingness to be vulnerable perhaps.
[00:17:13] Oh, no. It might be just this kind of. Fear of putting ourselves out there. And I sometimes, I don't want to say necessarily that this is necessarily getting worse, and I'd be curious to hear what the research says about that. But is that something that we can intervene in as individuals? Can we kind of start to work on that for ourselves?
[00:17:31] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah, and I think that, you know, setting kind of different kinds of expectations is really important. So we shouldn't be thinking about making that new best friend. Also little actions and, and people will feel lonely, might be scared of rejection, but really if you're doing things that are hard to reject, for example there's an experimental study, I think it was potentially by profess in Alden who look at acts of kindness, you know, and how that might be, actually, no, that's not the order study, but scrap, scrap, scrap that.
[00:18:02] But that there are studies that look at the effects of kindness, for example, on loneliness. So, and we do know in people socially anxious, you know, traditionally we would do things like exposure therapy, but doing EXO will comparable to exposure therapy so that, you know, people, when people are kind, they're, they're not likely to worry that they're gonna get rejected because it's kind of unlikely or a low chance if you're being kind to someone that you're gonna get a negative response.
[00:18:32] Mm-hmm. So those sorts of things and kind of, framing your behavior in a way that makes sense to other people can help.
[00:18:39] Alexis Zahner: It sounds like almost, you know, social anxiety and loneliness. Sounds like they could be quite introspective experiences. What I feel like I'm hearing you say, Michelle, is that if we focus our attention, our attention outwards on others, on helping others on perhaps being of service, maybe to one individual, to our neighbor in our community, that helps sort of, for lack of a better term, get out of our own head and actually sort of.
[00:19:03] Proactively take some steps to create that.
[00:19:06] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah. And, and, and for people who are not currently feeling distressingly lonely, it is a, a way of protecting themselves from the onset of persistent loneliness. But I think this is where we, we go back to the issue of this is everybody's problem. Yeah.
[00:19:23] Because the truth is that we might not feel lonely now, but we will. At some point, like I almost guarantee that.
[00:19:30] Sally Clarke: And, and also the, if the people are around us are experiencing loneliness or we don't see it, that impact us as well. Right? Yeah. It does as individuals, does as families.
[00:19:37] Dr Michelle Lim: And you'll be wondering why are they withdraw?
[00:19:39] Why are they saying no to things? Why are they not meaningfully engaging with us? Yeah. And, and, and again, that concealment factor Yeah. Is happening all the, all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:49] Sally Clarke: When we think about the workplace, Michelle, I would love to unpack like how can we. Use work or is it potential, is it potential for us to use work as almost a sort of experimental zone where we can take action to combat loneliness?
[00:20:03] And I guess this is both for the person perhaps who's experiencing loneliness, what they could do in a workplace situation, but also what, how leaders can think about how we work to ensure that we are doing whatever we can to foster that social connection in our work. S
[00:20:19] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah. And I love, I love how how you're bringing back to the workplace.
[00:20:22] 'cause you know, the. There's also other related concepts like workplace loneliness that's emerging. And my friend, associate professor Sarah Wright has, is really well versed in, in this area. But what we do know about the literature as well is that that those relationships at work are important to offer chance to connect with other people.
[00:20:41] They will, we have to talk about remote working as well as, as something that has, you know, obviously come up as a, as a, a trend post in the post covid world. But I think that workplaces really offer an opportunity for people to make different relationships they otherwise wouldn't within their own community.
[00:21:00] 'cause work, work is a place where different kinds of people come together. Right. But I do see work as a place that offers a different kind of friendship and also the opportunity to practice your skills as well. Yeah.
[00:21:13] Alexis Zahner: And you mentioned a term earlier, Michelle, meaningfulness and fulfillment. Is this coming together in a workplace setting pursuit of something that feels quite meaningful to us?
[00:21:23] Does that feel like it'd be a natural way to combat that?
[00:21:26] Dr Michelle Lim: Yes. Yes. And that is, if two people are obviously holding very similar values or shared mission, or or or purpose. Purpose, and that's where people have a reason to come together.
[00:21:35] Alexis Zahner: Yep.
[00:21:35] Dr Michelle Lim: So I think work does very much offer the opportunity for that connection.
[00:21:39] Alexis Zahner: What points or tips might you have for a leader who's. Perhaps managing a team that's either hybrid, a combination of work from home and work from the office, or solely remote. What, how can we create connection in those kinds of environments?
[00:21:52] Dr Michelle Lim: Well, fir first thing to, to kind of even take a step back is I, I guess the, the biggest, uh.
[00:21:57] I guess advice I do have for leaders is that don't assume that just because you take care of mental health, you will take care of loneliness. Mm. Okay. So lonelier often what people think is that, and especially if, if they, they have HR perspective, they think, oh, but I don't have the just loneliness because I've already got mental health wellbeing program.
[00:22:15] I can tell you as a psychologist, not much is going to be tackled. For loneliness in those programs because I've seen those programs and I as, as a, like a psychologist, I know that I wasn't even trained in understanding what loneliness is right to this day. Like, this is not, this is not an issue that is really even taught to our clinicians or our, our doctors and, you know, in the community.
[00:22:40] So I think it's really to, to understand that there's actually a space to start to learn about it Again, it is not. You can have no mental health issue, but still feel lonely, right? And if anything, ironically, loneliness has got quite also robust evidence towards things like physical health. So it is just a health and social issue.
[00:23:02] So to really learn about what, what it is and what it's not and then to recognize how your team might be, your team members might be experiencing loneliness or what that looks like, but also how to address it in a meaningful way. How to address, address it so that people don't feel disrespected.
[00:23:21] Sally Clarke: Yeah. Can you give an example of what that might look like to sort of be able to, perhaps if you sense that someone's feeling a little bit lonely. Yeah. How would you perhaps broach that in a respectful way?
[00:23:32] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah. I would actually ask what I can do. Yeah. Because that, that really removes the assumption of.
[00:23:39] That you know the answer because remember, it's subjective, right? Mm-hmm. So for examples you, all of us here sitting at this table, we have very different social needs and different preferences for connecting. If, if I then go to you and say, oh, you know, you have to do X, and you're like, no, no, I don't, you know, it feels disrespectful, like, oh, you don't understand me, and that actually could.
[00:23:58] Drive that relationship more apart. Interesting. Yep. So if you actually come with the perspective of what, what is it that I can do to help, you know, and, and also for the person who's helping not to see it as something about them, because often they're like, well, I'm your friend. Like, why do you feel that way?
[00:24:13] And that really just puts the attention back on, you know, the person who's helping again. Like, it's, it's not helpful. And people will feel that way often. Say, I don't understand how it became their issue all of a sudden, or, I don't understand, you know. Why are they asking me to do X? I know it, it feels like they just disrespected me or I don't feel like, you know, they're helping.
[00:24:36] Yeah. See me. Exactly. So I, I just, you know, and this is, I guess it's almost a one-on-one psychology skill, right? It's like you just never assume and what is it that works for you? You know, it's another one or has worked for you in the past, you know, is there something that we can do to help you feel more empowered to kind of activate those things again, you know, so.
[00:24:58] And sometimes this is really sad, but sometimes it's, there are things that, you know, someone might be going through grief or loss, you know, it's really, sometimes you can't do much about it and you can just really provide a listening ear, you know, and that's really, maybe that's what they need.
[00:25:14] Sally Clarke: So, and I think sometimes even just someone saying, I'm here for you if you need me.
[00:25:19] Even if you don't act on that. But just that knowledge can also, I think, potentially shift from, you know, the level of loneliness that we're experiencing. Yes. Because, you know, someone cares.
[00:25:27] Dr Michelle Lim: Yes, yes. But I would also recommend that you act on it if you do say that. You know, sure do, do do also yeah, provide the listening ear, you know, and I think that people who are lonely are looking for that meaningful, authentic connection.
[00:25:43] And if it's not authentic, and I think that. You know things that we put in place for some in the workplaces, like if it's just seen as something tokenistic, I think people can see through that very quickly. But the simple things and the simple little things that leaders can do to provide space to provide an activity for people to come together, but not just once off, but this is baked into your routine, into your work culture that is much more meaningful than like this big event that they throw And.
[00:26:12] Let's all go team building day and let's do that. And after that what happens, right? So it's like you get three days together, but nothing for the rest of the year. So I think it's really thinking about that team culture and that space and what we can do always in, in our routine.
[00:26:29] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Now, Michelle, you've mentioned that you feel it's extremely important that we separate the matter of loneliness from mental health, especially in the systemic way we might be organizing our workplaces.
[00:26:41] Is there one or two tips that you might be able to give leaders in terms of bringing, perhaps is it a loneliness policy into the workplace? Or what is something we can do in a more systemic way? In the workplace? Yeah.
[00:26:53] Dr Michelle Lim: I would think some sort of connection policy. Okay. You know, so you reduce loneliness is subjective construct, but also the objective construct where possible.
[00:27:03] So say if you have also kind of a remote working or hybrid kind of working policy. To see if we can on occasion, occasion or regularly bring people together on set days. So don't have people kind of coming in on days and then other people are not around. So really kind of getting people to see each other and have, have those opportunities for those what call the talks, you know, like those also organic interactions are just as important.
[00:27:30] And I think. Really, I, I think a lot of awareness around within our employees itself, why we're doing what we're doing, you know, and you know, of course that, you know, there might be a bit of a pushback I think these days around. Like people do want the flexibility, but there's also that balance of that work culture and fostering a positive work culture.
[00:27:50] And it's so, so really important to address things like bullying. You know, it's so important. I can't, and, and strong leadership. And you have leadership that's chaotic and toxic. Whatever you do is not gonna work. And it's just like, it really, it just wouldn't work. And, and how do we, how do we build that positive work culture and that that's sometimes very complicated in some organizations.
[00:28:14] Sure.
[00:28:15] Sally Clarke: Yeah. I, I love that you've highlighted that. It's, you know, there's a lot around how we lead who we are as leaders and how we lead that can really be determinative for culture, including the impact on potentially mitigating loneliness. And I imagine there's also. A role for leaders to be role models as well, to be talking about issues like loneliness or feeling, you know, or healthy forms of solitude that we experience having conversations around what our needs are.
[00:28:42] So also to sort of highlight, well, we all have different needs. Are they being met? And to sort of create space for, I think those conversations could be. Important. Yes.
[00:28:50] Dr Michelle Lim: And it's really important. I can't stress this enough 'cause I've heard of many examples where leaders want to, to, to do that and they want to show good examples, but they themselves have other, other things that they need to address.
[00:29:03] Right. So and employees can see, oh, that person's, you know, trying hard to foster, you know, this connection, but. On the other hand, this person, they know that the leader is bullying someone else. So it's just whatever they're doing just doesn't have any value. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't actually reach really effectively what that person wants to do.
[00:29:23] So really the leader needs to be addressing whatever they might be going through as well.
[00:29:29] Alexis Zahner: Yeah,
[00:29:29] Dr Michelle Lim: yeah.
[00:29:30] Alexis Zahner: That's such a important point, Michelle, this kind of congruence between what we say we wanna do in the workplace and the sort of culture we wanna live. Lead and then what actually happens. So I think that's such an important point to really,
[00:29:43] Dr Michelle Lim: yeah, it
[00:29:44] Alexis Zahner: seems pretty obvious.
[00:29:45] It
[00:29:45] Dr Michelle Lim: seems obvious, but it's not London. It's obvious. And you'll be very surprised. I, I, I get a lot of people come to me to talk about these sorts of things, and that happens in the workplace pretty, you know? Yeah. Quite, quite often. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:00] Sally Clarke: Now we could talk about loneliness for many more hours. I think Michelle, I would, you know, really enjoyed unpacking with you, particularly I think in the context of work, that there really is a lot of scope for us as leaders, as individuals to roach this issue, which really pervades our entire society through our work as well, and seeing workers as a potential conduit for social connection.
[00:30:23] Just as a final thought for our listeners, what would you like people to sort of know about loneliness?
[00:30:29] Dr Michelle Lim: Yeah. I think it's really to understand it and to learn it and, and make, make sure that we know that this is not just a you issue, it's an US issue. Mm. And I'm not just saying even just us as individuals, it's a community issue, a societal issue and learn about it.
[00:30:42] And, and we, we, we do run Loneliness Awareness Week because people don't understand it, you know? And. Just starting to get the language. And we, we do know the level of where Australians are at, you know, and we do know where we need to be and how we need to educate and improve our awareness around that. So I think understanding the, what it is, what it's not understanding how to help how to help others or yourself, or what you can do within our workplaces, in our schools, in our health systems.
[00:31:12] You know, kind of start reading more widely about it and understand it and. We do have lots of resources there, as well as if people do want to access them, but it's something that is an issue that we, we can't really ignore anymore. I think this is an issue that is very highly prevalent, especially in, in young, young people.
[00:31:31] And, and it's something that cannot be easily rectified because it's not just simply getting to know more people. That's not really the solution. It's we really need a much more, our systems holistic solution for this.
[00:31:44] Alexis Zahner: Thank you Michelle, and an important call to action to end our conversation today.
[00:31:49] That loneliness is something we all need to come together to help resolve. So thank you Michelle, for being with us on We are human Leaders. It's a pleasure to sit down with you.
[00:31:57] Dr Michelle Lim: Thank you. Thank you so much.
[00:31:59] Sally Clarke: Thank you so much for joining us today at We Are Human Leaders. Alexis, this has been an incredible conversation for me, for really deeply understanding that we can't just see if someone is lonely.
[00:32:10] I think for me, that was the big take takeaway, that we really need to go that step further and ask, be curious. And be a little bit vulnerable ourselves in order to break down this huge issue for us as a society right now. What was your biggest takeaway?
[00:32:23] Alexis Zahner: Oh, that, that was a big one for me as well, but also I think on a more sort of systemic level within our organizations, how we can look to separate issues like mental health from loneliness and helping us get a little more granular around what that means so we can actually tackle it in a more practical way.
[00:32:40] So if you've enjoyed this episode and you would like to learn more about Michelle Lim and her work on loneliness, check out our show notes at www dot. We are human leaders.com. And if you'd like to learn more about human leadership, you can head to the same link and find all the information about us there.
[00:32:58] So thank you for being with us on this episode of We Are Human Leaders. It's been a pleasure to have you here with us. See you get soon.