opinion

While not so long ago mention of wellbeing barely occurred in business conversations, let alone in discussions round Board tables, now it’s encompassed in commercial conversations and is finding its way onto the agendas of meetings at the highest strategic levels.

What does wellbeing mean?

Ask ten senior leaders what they understand by building wellbeing in their organisations and you’re likely to get ten different answers. For some organisations it’s about providing free, or low-cost, health insurance. For others it will be about making fruit available or about encouraging people to walk up the stairs instead of taking the lift. For such organisations wellbeing is equivalent to a minimum level of physical health.

For yet others it’s about respecting health and safety provisions or about encouraging work-life balance, which is often interpreted as not working an excessive number of hours.

Little stress and a lot of contentment

Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University, talks about wellbeing at work as having little stress and a lot of satisfaction and contentment, in organisations which are positive and which give hope. It seems to me that this goes some of the way to a robust definition, but it fails to acknowledge the role of achievement and fulfilment (for which a minimal level of stress might be a useful lever), feeling valued, a sense of belonging and connection, finding meaning and purpose, and having nourishing, constructive relationships with line managers and colleagues. The role of resilience also needs acknowledging (see more on resilience here ).

Mental health

Relatively rarely do leaders talk about mental health. To the extent that they do, they tend to talk about stress – but many employers are wary of even mentioning the word for fear of putting ideas into people’s heads or becoming known for the stress in their workforces. The numbers of employees with depression, or at risk of depression or other issues around mental health are rarely known, articulated or addressed in employers’ wellbeing strategies. I notice too that wellbeing is sometimes subsumed under Corporate Social Responsibility, which might suggest that demonstrating concern for wellbeing is seen as a responsibility rather than a normal human concern or an issue that contributes to the bottom line.

The ROI – the Return on Investment

And here’s the rub: measuring the ROI of a workforce that has high levels of wellbeing is notoriously difficult. Wellbeing can be seen (but is not necessarily a factor) in high retention rates and discretionary effort, and can be felt or sensed in the climate in an office. It is closely, but not simply, linked to engagement levels (see more on the benefits here). Much easier is to observe the impact of low levels of wellbeing: low engagement and productivity levels, low rates of discretionary effort, high rates of turnover and absenteeism, high rates of employees ‘pulling sickies’.

What does building wellbeing mean for senior leaders?

A meaningful approach to wellbeing will go significantly beyond tactics and process – beyond the free hairdressing and the availability of salad in the cafeteria, beyond the free gym membership and even beyond the Employee Assistance Programmes. All these have their place but they are not enough.

Building and nurturing wellbeing has to be a way of being (albeit complemented by a set of actions) if it is to bring any significant results. It is being a manager or a leader who listens to their people, who enables the development of their strengths and the release of their potential, who recognises that who their employees are must come before demanding or requiring anything of them, who behaves with respect and integrity, who cares about the experience their people are having at work and who can marry this to the achievement of the business strategy. It is being a manager or leader who builds trust in their team or organisation and is trustworthy.

Who is responsible for building wellbeing?

Organisations which develop and implement wellbeing strategies need to consider who is responsible for wellbeing. Is it an HR responsibility, an occupational health responsibility, a health and safety responsibility, a compensation and benefits responsibility? The answer is that it is the responsibility of all these functions and more: it is the responsibility of all leaders, managers and peers. It is part of the organisational culture – how people are with each other. Wellbeing is everyone’s issue: it is systemic.

Wellbeing coaching

Coaching for wellbeing is valuable not only to release the potential of those who appear to have no wellbeing challenges – but need to work out how to maintain their wellbeing – but also to facilitate those to thrive who may be struggling with physical or mental or emotional challenges. The latter may need to learn how to take appropriate responsibility for their challenges, how to ask for help (especially difficult in organisations where such issues are brushed under the carpet) – and, critically, how to thrive despite those challenges.

Photo by kstenqnen via Compfight

Building organisational wellbeing

A meaningful approach to organisational wellbeing will go significantly beyond tactics and process. Building and nurturing wellbeing has to be a way of being (albeit complemented by a set of actions) if it is to bring any significant results. It is part of the organisational culture – how people are with each other. Wellbeing is everyone’s issue: it is systemic.

The challenge of leadership: what’s needed now?

The recent Sadler Heath event 'What's Needed Now?' - focused on an 'exploration of listening for the right thing to do' - highlighted big themes for me in relation to the role of leadership, responsibility, dialogue, and connection with the system.

Wellbeing: a direct impact on the bottom line

Organisations with high levels of wellbeing retain their people and in many other ways too, profitability, efficiency and effectiveness increase as wellbeing increases. Positivity breeds positivity. A sense of purpose – which gives meaning to an organisation’s work and the work of its employees – is a critical factor in the building and sustaining of wellbeing.

Leading across Cultures

To work effectively with difference, the starting point is to understand and be aware of oneself: behaviours, emotions, interpretations, assumptions, and the impact of assumptions. It means taking a holistic view, being curious, and holding back from making judgments of the worth of this or that person, or from jumping to conclusions. Leaders who are culturally aware create sub-cultures of greater trust, more effective communication, healthier relationships and leadership that releases infinitely more potential.

Factors in managing the executive career

Executives who have taken their careers in hand in a holistic sense, thinking ‘whole-life’ rather than simply in terms of the next apparently logical step on the ladder, are more likely to enjoy career longevity and deliver the fullest value for themselves and their organisations. The Wittenberg Career Coaching Model weaves together multiple factors within multiple perspectives to take account of this ‘whole-life’ approach.

Your personal brand: a marketable identity

Your personal brand conveys what makes you compelling, memorable and interesting, and becomes increasingly important the more senior the roles you take on. Expressing your personal brand relates to your passions and the sources of your personal fulfilment, your values and your achievement, your strengths and your reputation, your personal vision and your thought leadership.

Leadership coaching

Leaders who embrace the process of learning and raising their levels of self-awareness, self-understanding, understanding of others and understanding of the systems and contexts they operate within stand to gain the most from leadership coaching. On their coaching journeys they learn to listen to themselves and see themselves as others see them. They become more authentic, they see more clearly what kind of leaders they want to be, and they discover how to make that happen. They learn how to respond rather than react, in a fuller awareness of the choices they make.

Managing yourself to lead others

The leader who builds on, and develops, their self-awareness in such a way that they can step back emotionally from situations to put their own thinking on hold, and empathise with the players in those situations, will find that they are more connected with their people, and that higher levels of trust, performance, engagement and discretionary effort – rather than obedience or compliance (and the corresponding ‘jobsworth’ mentality) – are the order of the day.

Diversity: making more of difference

In order to work effectively with difference, the first two steps for the leader are, first, to understand and be aware of their own thinking, emotional processes and place in their systems, and, second, to adopt a stance of acceptance, humility and celebration of diversity. If the prevailing culture in their team, division or organisation doesn’t acknowledge or value diversity, then the leader needs to change their relationship to that culture (and the relationships within it) rather than try to change it from the outside.

Leadership development

Leadership development means embracing the challenges and being courageous enough to be open to learning, whether that learning is unpalatable or affirming. It means being curious, vulnerable and invested in understanding the systemic factors that shape beliefs, behaviours and relationships. It means learning that can’t simply be learnt from a textbook. It means the leader raising their self-awareness to gain insight into their drivers, strengths, and purpose – and into what inhibits them from achieving the outcomes they really want.

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