Programmes

On 23 May 2025, WorkWell Leaders held its 11th CEO Dialogue around the theme “Closing the Culture Gap: Embedding Wellbeing into Leadership & Governance”. The session was generously hosted by Kee Joo Wong, CEO of HSBC Singapore and saw 30 CEOs gathering to share and learn from each other and guest speaker Ravi Menon, former head of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Chairman of Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN).

Kee Joo kicked off the session by courageously guiding everyone through a box breathing exercise to help fellow leaders ground themselves. Ravi then took the floor to share vulnerable reflections from his public service career spent as a leader transforming Singapore into a global financial hub. Some key thoughts on leadership include:

1. Employee engagement comes from the “why” you do the work, not the “what” you do for work: people stay and contribute because they believe what they do matters. The leader’s job is to cultivate and develop this purpose.
2. Middle managers must be empowered to lead cultural change: invest in managers and set a precedence for right behaviours two levels down. This takes long term consistent commitment.
3. Focus on behaviours, not just wellbeing initiatives: a culture of psychological safety comes from how we speak and act—communicating without judgment, appreciating effort even in high-pressure settings, and practicing both accountability and forgiveness.

On governance, Ravi shared the need for culture to be a significant consideration for leaders and Boards. This focuses them on not just compliance and stakeholders who need to be managed but delivering on your core rationale (e.g. customers, clients) as an organisation. Delivery is done through the behaviours, actions and principles of the team. At the same time, from a governance perspective, we need to watch out for making culture check-listable. Ask how your people are, not what you are doing for them.

Following the Q&A, leaders broke out into smaller groups for dedicated discussions on nurturing a practice of personal wellbeing and building a shared definition of leader wellbeing. Spending time to identify a range for balance – that is different for each person – was a common sentiment, although many shared that this was something they were still learning. Many attendees expressed gratitude for a safe space to share their challenges, receive inspiration from peers, and set new goals for their respective leader wellbeing journeys.

During the session, Anthea Indira Ong also shared key findings from the WorkWell Leaders Impact Measure, including that leader wellbeing is the #1 predictor of organisational wellbeing and #3 for organisational performance. Be well to lead well is now proven by science!

Many thanks again to Kee Joo and the whole team at HSBC for hosting the dialogue.