Programmes

At the WorkWell Leaders 7th CEO Dialogue held this morning, 34 leaders spent a few hours in a closed-door session discussing Culture and Strategy: Empowering the Middle. It may be a cliché that “people leave managers, not companies” (according to a Gallup survey, 75% of people have quit their job to “get away from their manager” at some point in their career), yet only about 50% of managers know what’s expected of them in their role. Empowering and training managers to effectively coach, develop and care for their teams is often the critical missing ingredient in getting the balance right between doing and managing. What’s more, the tolerance of toxic behaviour in the workplace highlights the need for CEOs and their leadership teams to tap into their managers consistently as coaches. A study by Robert Walters in 2022 cited that a worrying 41% of professionals in Singapore had experienced workplace bullying, while 61% had witnessed it happening to someone else.  

Guest speaker at the CEO Dialogue, Dr Jim Harter, Chief Scientist, Workplace Management and Wellbeing at Gallup who has led more than 1,000 studies on workplace effectiveness, commented, “While leaders set the direction and tone for their organization’s culture, managers build the culture every day. Managers are in the best position to know the various unique work and life situations inside your workforce. Great managers coach and inspire collaboration, innovation, and value to customers. The responsibility of managing others has never been more difficult – and more important – in the newly changed workplace. It is essential to reskill managers so that they are equipped to bring continuous clarity to their employees and help them see the impact of their work on the overall purpose of the organization.”  

Leaders discussed ideas to better engage with and enable managers to become the fulcrum of a healthy workplace culture, including how KPIs can be better geared towards behaviours and of note how organisations should support teams across all dimensions of wellbeing as being predictive of mental health: Career (you like what you do every day), Social (you have meaningful friendships in your life), Financial (you manage your money well), Physical (you have energy to get things done) and Community (you like where you live).  

It was an inspiring Friday morning for sure. And many thanks to Schroders and the team for hosting the 7th CEO Dialogue.