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Amanda Owen MBE for detailed how we are all on a journey and understanding where we are and where we need to be. Amanda also illustrated the importance of supporting leaders before we expect them to support others, reflected in the aviation phrase ""put your own oxygen mask on before helping others"". Amanda mentioned that it is not just about leaders, it is also about organisational factors and indivuduals and all 3 elements must work together.
Pen Le Kelly described the impact that leaders can have on entire teams and discussed how managers can have as much of an impact on wellbeing at an individuals partner can. This evidenced the need to upskill our leaders and managers and feed information and support from the top down. Pen hihglighted the importance of asking leaders to input and understand a wellbeing strategy before launching it, how can leaders support wellbeing if they don't understand it?
Kevin Hard focused on the culture of care that we all need to create and improve within our businesses. Organisations as a whole may not be doing well with regard to wellbeing but smaller departments succeed because of empowered leaders. Kevin highlighted the difference between wellbeing and being well, wellbeing isn't all about free fruit and yoga. For Kevin, honestyy, integrit and consistency are 3 key things that make an empowered leader.
Some key takeaways from the session:
• We and our leaders should habitualise wellbeing and make employees feel safe.
• A leader must not only consider their team as a whole but the individual person too.
• All organisations are at different stages of their wellbeing journey so empowering leaders looks different for everyone.
• Language is key to wellbeing, employees tend to recall how they have been spoken to.
• We must shine a mirror on our managers and support them to improve.
• Empathy and listening skills are key, you can't fix everything but you can still support.
• Caring for your people not only improves quality of work, it improves retention, recruitment, sustainability and more.
• Emotional intelligence is more important than general intelligence, we must hae a sense of how our team are doing.
• It's not about just talking to your people, its about really listening.