The Intersection of Well-Being and Leadership
An employee's well-being—defined as judging one's life positively and feeling good—is directly related to their job performance. When an employee is thriving, the company sees higher job performance, but when an employee is suffering, that affects the company’s performance. Therefore, understanding the different aspects of well-being, and how to cultivate them, is critical to becoming a great team leader.
The 5 common elements included when assessing well-being are:
- Career Well-being: An individual likes what they do in their professional arena.
- Social Well-being: An individual has meaningful and strong relationships in their life.
- Financial Well-being: An individual manages their money well.
- Physical Well-being: An individual has good health and energy to get things done.
- Community Well-being: An individual likes where they live and engages and supports their community.
For those in leadership roles and managing people, Sikora recommended these tips to help promote a team’s well-being:
- Communicate transparently, authentically and frequently with your team.
- Check-in regularly with your team and ask/address their needs.
- Encourage your team to plan and/or attend social events.
- Support the creation of community groups to overcome feelings of isolation.
- Address any concerns that your team might have on the company’s financials/state.
- Share resources and employee benefits that help to reduce financial burden to employees.
- Champion a culture of physical activities by promoting exercise breaks during the workday.
- Promote healthy eating initiatives with your team by offering healthy options for lunch meetings.
- Distribute information on events where employees can give back to the community.
- Provide some time for your employees to give back to community events.
By incorporating some of these techniques into leadership practices, one can help build a thriving team.