Question

Have you made leadership about changing the world? Explain. Did you ever experience a "lollipop" moment or tell someone responsible for that moment how they made a difference in your life? Why, or why not?

Answer 1

Sure, one happy person won’t change the world—but one manager can do his or her part to encourage that sense of well-being and engagement.

Step 1: Reflect

Now is the time to reconnect with the reasons you built your company, went for that promotion, or accepted this management position. How do you want to be remembered as a leader? How do you want to make a difference? How can you lead in a way that’ll improve the lives of your employees?

Analyze your performance to date—what’s been effective and what hasn’t? How can your leadership foster a culture of happiness, respect, and gratitude? Set goals for yourself that are aligned with your overall well-being goals, incorporate them into your personal development plan, and make them as important as your other targets.

Step 2: Announce, Audit, and Formalize

After you’ve self-assessed, begin by formally announcing your commitment to strengthening your own team’s engagement and well-being. Clearly define your goals and your reasoning behind the launch of the program. This is the time to be authentic and open with the people who work under you.

Ask yourself: Why is employee well-being important to you? How would you like your organization to impact your community, your country, and the world? Then share your honest answers with your staff.

It’s critical that you’re visibly involved. Identify employees, regardless of position, who are naturally passionate about this type of work and invite them to join a well-being committee. You can give them the opportunity to self-identify or ask for nominations. The purpose of the group is to bring together diverse perspectives so that you have a better, more honest understanding of how it’s going and what steps make sense to take next.

Step 3: Create Team Values

The first task for your committee should be creating values for your team. Many organizations already have values, but they typically are designed to formalize processes and high-level philosophies (i.e., “We embrace bold thinking”). So you want to develop a few that are specific to what your people do.

Include statements that are directly aligned with your well-being goals. If you want to create a culture that prioritizes kindness and compassion, for example, you should back it up with a formal, stated value.

Step 4: Enable (and Require) Positive Change

Your values will never translate into actual employee behavior unless you create an environment that encourages and facilitates acting in accordance with them. It’s critical that people have the appropriate resources and opportunities to pursue any new initiatives.

Let’s say you want each person to feel a sense of purpose in his or her work: How will you enable that? Will you allow employees to explore alternate pathways if they’re dissatisfied? Will you help each person see how his or her work fits into the bigger picture? Will you advocate for more flexible work-from-home policies? There’s no right answer here—but each value must be backed up by processes and programs.

Likewise, it’s important to clearly condemn behavior that’s not in alignment with your new direction. For example, if one of your goals is to promote a healthy work-life balance and you see someone working 12-hour days, you’ll need to address that behavior immediately. (And, of course, any behavior that clearly damages employee well-being—discrimination, sexism, homophobia—shouldn’t be tolerated.)

Step 5: Institutionalize, Measure, and Evangelize

Though the speed at which you can make changes will be dictated by available budget and resources, you should do more than write your culture goals on a whiteboard. If possible, include well-being as a component in your team’s performance reviews. Think about developing an accountability system that will track and measure employee happiness, as well as empower your culture committee with the time and tools they need.