Leading for wellbeing in today’s workplace.
What does good leadership mean to you? One thing’s for sure, we’ve come a long way from the ‘great man’ style of leadership (although not all of them got the memo). Leaders can make or break an employees’ experience, and their spirit too. You only have to look at employer review site Glassdoor to see this in action. Workplace wellbeing is declining, with only 22% of employees thriving in their roles¹. Burnout is rising. We have previously explored how to get happier at work, in this article we’ll look at the role of leaders in wellbeing, and the impact they can have on team resilience and performance.
I’m Emma, I’m a Business Psychologist, Lecturer and qualified Executive Coach, with a special interest in the psychology of leadership, coaching and wellbeing. If you lead people, this article is for you. And even if you don’t have formal leadership responsibility, you’ll still find plenty here to support your own wellbeing.
Let’s tackle the elephant in the room
One of the most frequent things that comes up time and time again in my work with teams and leaders that affects performance and ultimately wellbeing, is a sense of disconnect. “They’re very nice, but they just don’t get it” someone said to me last week about their head of service, frustrated about their boss’ inability to see the realities faced by teams on the corporate front line. Employees want to perform, they want to do a good job and feel satisfied, but they are also thwarted by obstacles which leave them feeling exhausted and depleted (more on this later). We are working in increasingly complex environments with rising pressures and diminishing resources. It’s tough for leaders, there’s no two ways about it. The danger is, they can close in on themselves. They fear disappointment so they stop hearing information that runs counter to their plan and try to control and structure their challenges to guarantee outcomes. This is an understandable but ultimately unworkable strategy, and the longer it continues, the more people suffer, burnout or leave. Do not let that be you! Read on to look at what can be done.
It’s a marathon not a sprint.
Do feel like you spend your time going from one meeting to the next, constantly dealing with emails, tasks and other demands on your time? Whilst it can feel invigorating and motivating in the short term, high stress states triggers cortisol and adrenalin, meaning prolonged exposure makes it harder to stay focused, steady and optimistic. It also dampens down our feel-good hormones of serotonin and dopamine. What’s more, as leader people will look to you as an example of how they should use their time. Multi-tasking may feel like you’re being hyper-productive but research shows that what you’re actually doing is just task switching really quickly. Why is that bad? Well, I hate to break it to you but research carried out by Dr Glenn Wilson at the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London found that constant interruptions led to a 10-point drop in IQ; a greater decrease than smoking marijuana.² I’ll just leave that alarming statistic there for you and quietly move on.…
In his seminal book, thinking fast and slow, Daniel Kahneman explains the two way we make choices; fast intuitive thinking and slow reasoned thinking, and how we can be tripped up by these mental shortcuts. As Kahneman says, solving complicated problems takes mental work, so our brains cut corners when we get tired or stressed, leaving our judgement coloured. The solution? Accept that there is always too much to do and the challenges are complex. Slow down. Pace your work. Trust that people (including you) will have solutions and ideas if you offer reflective thinking space. Encourage ways to unlock fresh possibilities and mindsets, by asking yourself and your teams for feedback, including how you can pace workloads to prevent overwhelm. Make it a regular standing item on your team meeting agenda if you can.
Be a steward of people’s time
Speaking of meetings, if you do one thing this week (as well as reading this article of course), I highly recommend you check out the Google talk, ‘the surprising science of meetings’ with Dr Steven Rogelburg. He has some fascinating insights into how to use the science of meetings (yes, that is a thing), including standing meetings and quiet brainstorming time to generate more innovative and creative ideas, and ultimately spend less time in meetings, which can only be a good thing. I’ll share with you this one piece of research which really highlights the impact on wellbeing of poor meetings: Over a week, the research team asked employees to rate how many meetings they had that day, and to score how they felt at the end of that day. The (perhaps unsurprising) correlation revealed that on the meeting heavy days, employees went home feeling fatigued, drained, they had a low sense of accomplishment AND that they now had more work to do. And this was happening for their best employees! If you recognise this scenario from your own workplace, as the meeting leader, can you be more intentional with people’s time? As the meeting host, can you bring good energy, set the tone and check on people’s wellbeing? Check out Rogelburg’s talk³ for practical tips if you’re keen to learn more.
Focus on service
There are some truly horrendous things happening around the world. I have to be honest with you and tell you that writing this article took me twice as long as it usually would as I was so caught up and distressed by the latest atrocities in Gaza. I sat and stared blankly at my screen for the longest time, not knowing what to write. My heart felt heavy. What do we do? It took me back to the start of the Ukraine war, and joining an online senior leadership meeting the morning after watching the Russian tanks roll into Ukraine. The mood was quiet on the call. The Executive Director leading the meeting made a couple of bizarre and inappropriate quips about football then, when colleagues spoke up to verbalise their distress (some having family in the region), they were effectively reprimanded and told to get on with it. It was astonishing. The leader missed the mood entirely. It would have taken nothing to acknowledge the emotion in the room, which would have allowed for some collective support and empathy. Resilience is a team support – our strength is in the bonds that lie between us, not within us.
A sense of overwhelm or lack of power can flip us into a state psychologists call ‘functional freeze’, where it feels hard think properly or indeed to get motivated to do anything at all. Servant leadership can help. The main premise of servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1970) is behaving ethically and with morality. There are four elements which are empowerment, building relationships, setting vision and stewardship. This model helpfully reminds us that leadership is something that you do, not that you are. It is a verb not a noun. Tim Daley, director general of the BBC has spoken a lot of stewardship lately, in light of the recent controversies to hit the organisation. When leaders do this well, they set the tone for a kind, inclusive culture. The actions are simple. You know them already. Get to know your team, understand what they care about and what motivates them. Be available. You won’t always get things right but you will be creating the right conditions for strong resilience and high performance. Most of all, do not miss the mood. Discuss honestly how you feel about your work, even negative feelings and frustration?
Make space for Active Recovery
Stress and burnout are the biggest issues in modern workplaces. It’s not realistic to expect people to give consistently peak performance. Whilst we know this, our delivery schedules frequently expect something different. Build in time to cycle back around. Aim to manage people’s energy, as well as time. Don’t let them hit the wall and burn out. Athletes are familiar with this concept, they do it because it makes them stronger. The same principles can be applied to work. What makes it even more brilliant is that active recovery typically engages a different part of your brain, firing up creativity and spark. Active recovery is purposeful and restorative, even strategic. You’re still working but dialled down.
Here’s how to do it. Firstly, ask yourself, ‘what am I recovering from?’ Whatever you do next should be a lighter form of that activity. If you’ve worked on a project (perhaps quality improvement or implementing new systems) can you offer some mentoring to a different part of the business going through the same? Sharing your experience with your people and most importantly offering them the same opportunity will more than likely add value in new and different ways, and revitalise your energy in the process.
In short…
It’s not easy being a leader. You have a responsibility for the psychological wellbeing of your people, which I know you don’t take lightly. Traditional leadership theories had us all looking up (usually in awe) at The Leader (great man theory again) for all of the answers. Happily, there is a lot of excellent research that shows us this is not the best form of leadership for today’s complex and challenging workplaces. High performance and bounceback-ability is a team sport. We need compassionate stewards of people’s time and energy. Leaders who can set a vision, let people play to their strengths and allow them to thrive in their role.
I’ll close with this final thought. I am sure you are aware of the success of the British Cycling team, but you may not know the backstory. Before 2002 the team had almost no record of success. The thought of aiming for the podium was just too much so newly appointed Head Coach, Sir Dave Brailsford, inspired by his MBA studies and process-based improvement techniques, set out to think, not big, but small. The smaller the better in fact. Together with his team, they broke down the components of everything they could think of that goes into competing on the bike, then aimed to improve each component by 1%. Within five years, at the Beijing Olympics, the team won 70% of the medals available, and went on to match the achievement at the London Olympics. Isn’t that reassuring? They started with the smallest goal imaginable then, boom! Of course, I am oversimplifying for narrative purposes but the takeaway is this: Forget about perfection; focus on progression, and compound the improvements. So, what little changes could you start for both you and the people you lead this week?
References
¹ Indeed’s Global Work Wellbeing Report 2024: Indeed’s Global Work Wellbeing Report 2024
² Info-overload harms concentration more than marijuana: ‘Info-mania’ dents IQ more than marijuana | New Scientist
³ The Surprising Science of Meetings, Dr. Steven Rogelberg: The Surprising Science of Meetings | Dr. Steven Rogelberg | Talks at Google (youtube.com)