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Ex-Military Leadership Trainer Who Hit Mental Health Crisis Launches Programme to Transform Team Performance

An accredited high-performance coach and Master Trainer, who served 23 years in the Royal Air Force before depression and anxiety brought him to his knees, has turned that experience into a mission to give construction, engineering, and manufacturing businesses the tools to genuinely support their people and do what he believes decades of traditional leadership training has failed to do for these industries:- make workplaces a place people actually want to be.

Andy Nisevic, 46, from Lincoln, believes his down-to-earth approach, which strips back the buzzwords and surface-level psychology and focuses on building real connections between teams, is exactly what these industries need and he has launched a new arm of his business to service them.

Having seen a manufacturing client celebrate 34% growth in a single year, after eight years of averaging just 4%, after a shift in how the team understood and supported each other, he knew he was onto something - but when a client got in touch six months after working together to tell Andy he was alive because of him, because he had been planning to take his own life when his employer put him forward for wellbeing coaching - the power of his work was confirmed.

The need has never been more urgent. According to the Health and Safety Executive, 776,000 workers in Great Britain reported work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2023/24, costing 16.4 million lost working days. In construction, male workers in low-skilled roles face a suicide risk around three times the national male average, rising to 3.7 times in the highest-risk groups and In manufacturing, production and shift-based roles carry elevated risk. These are the industries Andy has specifically made it his mission to change.

Building on his work with these sectors Andy has now launched the Team Performance Improvement Programme, a structured, ongoing intervention for construction, engineering, and manufacturing businesses with more than 50 employees.

“This programme is designed to build the kind of genuine team understanding and accountability that compounds over time rather than fading within weeks of a one-day workshop”, Andy said.

"My mission is simple: reduce workplace stress, improve performance, and make the world a slightly happier place. When we make the workplace a fulfilling and engaging place, people's wellbeing improves - inside work and outside it."

For most of his RAF career, Andy looked every inch the high-performing leader. He rose to Warrant Officer, deployed to some of the military's most demanding environments, and was trusted to deliver the RAF's own leadership training. From the outside, he had made it but internally, it was a different picture.

"Despite my success, what I was thinking was: 'No one likes you', 'you're pointless', 'you're lazy', 'you're weak', 'you're an idiot'. If you're saying and thinking negative things about yourself, your subconscious mind believes it. For me, this led to me turning into a toxic leader, unapproachable and cut off - which then led to depression and burnout."

It took a quiet question from his commanding officer, while on operations, after needing to discipline someone, to break through. Andy had known something was wrong for years but had been, in his words, 'being the typical bloke' and carrying on. He hopes to be able to support others before it gets to this stage with his new programme.

"After I broke down and accepted I needed help everything changed” he said. Relationships that were once tense eased. Achievement went through the roof. We went from a high-performing squadron to an unbelievably high-performing one - once I started taking care of myself."

Andy was sent home early for treatment, and has spoken openly about the long road back through therapy, coaching, and hypnotherapy. He now describes his mental wellbeing as a non-negotiable, written into his cashflow forecasting above his own salary.

After leaving the RAF and turning down offers from training providers who wanted him to simply deliver online courses and tick boxes, he started his own business, One Degree Training & Coaching, where he incorporated all he’d learnt  across  psychology, mindset, and how people behave under pressure.

Andy is an accredited coach in Personal Performance, High Team Performance, Wellbeing, and Holistic Techniques. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Leadership and Management and a Degree in Organisational Capability Development. He is a Master Trainer and Master Mentor with over 20 years of experience in complex, high-pressure environments.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chocolate PR .