Top Takeaways Tuesday: Unpacking Workplace Happiness
The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast, Ep. 62 with Richard Clarke
Hello KSKOers
I spoke to in episode 62 and we had an excellent conversation about leadership and workplace happiness, creating a sense of human connection and community, self-awareness and personal happiness. Here are my top takeaways from our conversation:
1. Creating a Happy Work Environment: Leading a team to happiness in the workplace is not about making people happy, but rather it's about cultivating an environment where happiness can organically flourish. Richard emphasises the role of leaders in establishing trust, safety, and a sense of community to foster happiness among employees. This approach recognises the diverse needs of individuals and translates across different sectors and different industries
Reflection question: What things could you do to create an environment that nurtures happiness and well-being among your team?
“I don't think it's the responsibility of leaders to make people happy… but what you can do is you can create an environment where you maximise the chances of them being happy in your workspace”
2. The Importance of Self-Awareness: Self-awareness plays a crucial role in understanding the drivers of personal happiness in the workplace. Richard highlights the significance of recognising and comprehending our own needs and goals. When we do this it can lead us to a better understanding of what happiness means for us and consequently a better understanding of workplace happiness.
Reflection question: What do you do to reflect on your own work related needs and goals and what steps can you take to enhance your self-awareness to better understand these things?
3. Leadership, Coaching, and Mentoring: The lack of formal management training for new managers is a challenge and Richard spotted this as a gap in his company, prompting him to do something about it. Richard said that he recognises the importance of coaching and mentoring in developing managers' relational skills, which is why he ensured an effective training programme was put in place for his employees. You might have already read the section in my book that talks about ‘accidental managers’: some people fall into roles by accident without training or support.
Reflection question: How could you contribute to the coaching and mentoring of budding managers and new managers in your organisation?
4. Embracing Technological Advances and Human Connection: We talked about the need for balance between technological requirements and humanisation in the workplace, emphasising the significance of human connection. We discussed the challenge workplaces have in integrating technology while maintaining that human connection which we all crave. The potential impact on mental well-being of employees when we don’t create that environment for connection was exemplified by the isolation and social distancing during covid.
Reflection question: How can your workplace leverage technology to enhance human connections and support the mental health of its workforce?
“The biggest driver of happiness in the workplace is a feeling of belonging to a company.”
5. Striving for Personal Purpose and Happiness: Richard shares his journey in pursuing work that aligns with his passion for making people happier in the workplace. His emphasis on doing what makes him and those around him happy serves as an inspiration for reflecting on personal purpose. Like me, Richard was influenced by Simon Sinek’s ‘Start with Why’, which certainly helped me to uncover my purpose which is, ‘to nurture the things that make us shine bright do that we can touch the stars’.
Reflection question: What is your purpose?
You can also watch our conversation on YouTube…
How can you use these top takeaways and reflection questions (TTRQ)?
Pick one of the TTRQs
Share it with you team
Ask for their thoughts and views. Reflect, discuss and debate
Get to know your own thoughts better. Help others to know their thoughts better. Get to know each other better.
Share your thoughts here with us on what you’ve discovered and learned.
Hope you enjoy the episode and find that these TTRQs generate interesting and awareness raising discussions!
Looking forward to having you on my learning journey!
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Nia is an expert leader who talks the talk and walks the walk. She is an academically awarded thought leader in self-aware leadership and practices self-aware leadership every single day in her role as a Director in a Children’s Charity.
Creating a space for worker contentment is crucial to good leadership, and I appreciate the point that leaders can only offer the opportunity for workers to find happiness.
Great summary!
Can't agree more around the point that most new managers don't get the formal management training they need. Would continue that into most managers don't get the leadership training they need.