“I felt like the 51 percent of Māori business leaders feeling less mentally healthy than normal was lower than I thought, because in society as whole I am seeing a lot of exhaustion, people struggling and tension,” Ms Potae said.
“There are a whole lot of tired people out there, and I almost feel like as a nation we all need a big holiday. We have had lockdowns, but those aren't holidays, those are stressful times for everyone.”
Among those who feel less mentally well than normal, 56 percent said the impacts of Covid-19 had caused them to feel this way.
Business risks that leaders feel unable to control ranked second (34 percent), followed by employee performance or conflict (32 percent) and external economic and political factors (30 percent).
Business system and technology challenges also scored highly at 28 percent — a reflection of poor connectivity in the regions, where many Māori businesses are located.
The survey also adopted the World Health Organisation's internationally recognised “WHO-5” wellbeing index to take a snapshot of wellbeing among New Zealand business owners.
The WHO-5 asks respondents to rate how they have been feeling in the past two weeks across five key statements, and calculates a score ranging from 0, representing the worst possible wellbeing, to 100, representing the best possible wellbeing.
The WHO-5 score for Māori business owners and leaders was 73 out of 100, 4 points above the whole-of-business average.
This suggests that, despite feeling the strain over the past six months, there is potentially a degree of resilience among Māori business leaders.
Ms Potae says with the borders opening, people with the ability to do so will be able to visit other places in the world and have time to disconnect from Aotearoa for a little bit.
“Take a break from our society and local issues and go somewhere else. Go refresh and see what is going on in the rest of the world,” Ms Potae said.
With this information, what can people do to relax?
Ms Potae admits it can be hard to relax when you are a Māori business leader.
“You are always involved, often taking work home, you're quite hands-on. Then you have to balance the whānau commitments and all that comes with it.”
One thing she has found to help is taking five minutes a day to meditate and relax her brain.
“I do work with business coaches, and they often use meditation. Being able to take time and pause, breathe, and give the brain a rest, which is my version of meditation, does wonders.
Another good idea is to have technology-free days, Ms Potae said.
“Technology-free days are good — it gives you a chance to stay away from everything online, and just spend time in different ways.
“We cannot run a marathon every day.”
■ To view the full report along with sector-specific insights, please check out the following link here:
