As we navigate through November, I'm focusing on a crucial topic for every leader: cultivating high-trust teams to support wellbeing and performance. In today's dynamic work environment, leaders often grapple with how best to support team wellbeing and high performance. It's common for leaders to feel overwhelmed and ill-equipped to have meaningful wellbeing conversations with their team members and forget the vital link between wellbeing and performance. But what if we could transform this challenge into an opportunity for growth and success? Let's explore how.
The Era of Wellbeing Intelligence
You may have heard about "Wellbeing Intelligence,"1 a concept introduced by Thomas Roulet and Kiran Bhatti. They describe it as an essential skill set for today's leaders, encompassing three key areas: self, teams, and organisation. Let's unpack these areas with practical strategies and powerful questions for you along the way.
Self: The Leader's Journey
Leading with Wellbeing Intelligence starts with you. As leaders, you must do your own work and cultivate awareness about your wellbeing. This isn't just about setting a good example; it's about ensuring you have the energy and resilience to support your team effectively.
Start by reflecting on your wellbeing. How are you doing? Use LifeStar's five foundation activities: move, stop, care, connect, and achieve to consider this question. Having a dynamic balance and blend across these five activity areas naturally builds your energy reserves and resilience—all essential for your wellbeing.
Ask yourself, how can I better integrate a mix of these five LifeStar activity areas into my existing routine? What is one self-care practice I can commit to daily? Reflecting on these questions can guide you towards creating a personalised wellbeing plan that fits seamlessly into your life.
Teams: Fostering a High-Trust Environment will enhance team wellbeing
Once you are better aware of your well-being, it will become easier to understand, build awareness and inquire about the wellbeing of others on the team. To move beyond anonymised surveys to meaningful 1-1 and team conversations about well-being requires trust. High-trust teams thrive on open communication and regular check-ins. So what helps build a high-trust team? Let's look at the seven elements of trust that emerged from Dr Brené Brown's research.2 She came up with the acronym 'BRAVING.'
Boundaries - what's OK and not OK. You respect your own and others' boundaries. When you're not clear about others' boundaries, you ask. Boundaries about your wellbeing, for other members of your team and the whole team make for powerful conversations. For example, what are the agreed boundaries for sending emails outside of work hours?
Reliability - Do what you say you are going to do. In the wellbeing space, this means that if you agree to an action that supports team wellbeing, you need to follow through. Say for example you agree to changing the way that work is allocated. You will build trust if you follow through, and you will break trust if you don't.
Accountability: If you mess up, own up, apologise and fix it. Don't undersestimate the power of doing this. You will also be setting a great example for the rest of the team to do the same.
Vault: You don't share others people's stories. If you are told something in confidence, keep that confidence. Especially when you are hearing from a team member about their wellbeing.
Integrity: Choose courage over comfort. Practice your values rather than simply say them. As a leader this could mean stepping up to influence wider organisational change. For example, addressing managment communication styles or attitudes towards sick days.
Nonjudgement: We can ask for what we need without judgement. Imagine what it would feel like for you and your team if there was no judgement when talking about wellbeing. Imagine the level of trust that would create and the ability of the team to self manage, innovate and overcome wellbeing and performance roadblocks.
Where trust is concerned, small moments matter, recognition and appreciation matter. Ask yourself, how can I create higher trust for my team to discuss their wellbeing concerns? What is one action I can take to improve our team's dynamics?
Organisation: Culture Change for the Better
Broader support for wellbeing at the organisational level is essential for sustainable change. This includes providing training, resources, and clear guidance about preventing, addressing and overcoming wellbeing issues to all teams. But where to start?
Reflect on this; what is one policy change that could significantly improve wellbeing in our organization? How can we better utilise our resources to support employee wellbeing? These questions can guide you towards creating meaningful change at the organisational level.
Overcoming Common Challenges
Leading with wellbeing and performance in mind isn't without its challenges. And, with the right strategies and questions, you can overcome these obstacles. Here's my LifeStar centric suggestions for you.
If you're struggling with a lack of structure for conversations, try using LifeStar's five foundation points and the LifeStar scan 3 as a starting point. It's a whole health approach to wellbeing so the stigma that often accompanies wellbeing conversations is absent.
If inadequate knowledge is a concern, consider organising lunch-and-learn sessions. Invite me to introduce you and your team to the five foundation points of LifeStar and the LifeStar scan. This will not only educate your team, it will give you a common language and structure to discuss wellbeing.
Consistency is key when it comes to wellbeing initiatives. To ensure your efforts are consistent and impactful, try scheduling monthly wellbeing themes. You are more than welcome to use my monthly blog topics as a starting point.
Embracing Wellbeing Intelligence
By embracing wellbeing intelligence, we can lead our teams to thrive. It's not just about performance; it's about creating a culture where everyone feels valued, supported, and empowered to do their best work.
Join me in this journey towards thriving teams. Let's lead with wellbeing and performance in mind, and together, we can create a workplace where everyone can flourish.
1. Wellbeing Intelligence: A Skill Set for the New World of Work. Thomas Roulet, Kiran Bhatti. MITSloan Management Review, 2023.
2. Dr. Brené Brown. Dare to Lead. Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts. Random House, 2018.
3. Download LifeStar app to do free LifeStar scan ( It's in Welcome to LifeStar/2.All things LifeStar/2.3 Do your first LIfeStar scan)