{"id":69283,"date":"2024-05-19T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadershipcircle.com\/beyond-engagement-the-time-has-come-for-us-to-thrive\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T09:57:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T15:57:32","slug":"beyond-engagement-the-time-has-come-for-us-to-thrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipcircle.com\/en-au\/blog\/beyond-engagement-the-time-has-come-for-us-to-thrive\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Engagement: The Time Has Come for Us to Thrive"},"content":{"rendered":"

When pressed, I think most leaders would say that people who are engaged at work produce better outcomes than people who aren\u2019t engaged. Yet, the Gallup organization, canvassing a<\/span> staggering 160 million employees worldwide<\/span><\/a>, found that if employees are engaged at work, <\/span>but<\/span><\/i> not thriving in their lives<\/span><\/i>, the organization is likely struggling.<\/span><\/p>\n

Employees who are \u201cengaged but not thriving\u201d show considerably more stress, worry, and burnout than employees who are both engaged <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> thriving. The organization bears a productivity and financial loss too; employees who aren\u2019t thriving report greater absenteeism, health challenges, and disease due to depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, chronic pain, heart attack, and diabetes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t surprised at these recent Gallup findings. For over 30 years, my teams have been guiding leaders to prioritize \u2018thriving\u2019 in their work cultures and brands, as well as in how they lead people, tasks, initiatives, and teams. Early on, we realized leaders who are perpetually overextended, tense, or depleted, are more apt to lack the stamina, clear-headedness, emotional balance, and world-centric acumen to bring about the best decisions from others or themselves. They cannot draw from the reserves of energy and wisdom that are available when they lead from a foundation of wellbeing.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is true for us all. When we aren\u2019t \u2018thriving\u2019, what are the effects? Eventually our work, organizations, and loved ones suffer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THRIVE?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve explored this kind of question with thousands of leaders across industries and am inspired every time I ask. I\u2019m curious how leaders define concepts such as \u2018thriving\u2019 and \u2018wellbeing\u2019, and in particular, what these ideas mean to their identity, values, focus, and behaviors as a leader. A few answers leaders have shared over the years are:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Thriving is about being fully human at work\u2014how we can leverage all of our innate and learned capabilities to create better organizations and to work together more effectively.<\/span><\/i> To me, it\u2019s about contributing to people\u2019s greater awareness of what allows them to lead a happy and meaningful life<\/span><\/i>.\u201d\u2014Healthcare executive<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThriving means having the tools to do your job, but also the energy.\u201d\u2014<\/span><\/i>Digital transformation executive<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>True leadership involves the ability to create that space that’s conducive to wellbeing. It’s about creating the environment that enables people to achieve and strive for their own personal wellbeing, whatever that might look like, whether it’s their family, physical health, something that they’re passionate about in the community, their career progression, a combination of all of that<\/span><\/i>.\u201d\u2014Athletic footwear and apparel executive<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about bringing the human element back into the paradigm of work as an organizing principle.\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u2014Military leader<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is about elevated human consciousness; a worldwide awakening of the social and emotional skill level of people is going to happen at work. The role of business in what\u2019s next for the human race is profound.<\/span><\/i> Anybody who is working at a corporation today should see the heroic role that they have to play in making this come about. We\u2019re finally in a place where people are recognizing that this [human thriving] is how the best work gets done…\u201d\u2014<\/span><\/i>High-tech executive<\/span><\/p>\n

These leaders point to a deeper shift in understanding their roles and themselves. Thriving is at the heart of real leadership. Enlightened leaders continually ask,\u201cHow can we create the conditions for people to bring their best selves to work, plus leave work more capable and energized than when they came?\u201d <\/span>Thriving is a natural state of human functioning\u2014a hard-wired biological capacity\u2014and as such, it is the basis of human potential, development, and optimal performance.<\/span> When faced with complexities and demands, our wisest solutions will more likely come from operating out of a sense of expansiveness and wellbeing, rather than reactivity and overstress. Why? When we internally feel well-resourced, we naturally bring more energy, adaptability, emotional balance, optimism, and wisdom to situations and relationships in our lives and work.<\/span><\/p>\n

CAN THRIVING BE MEASURED?<\/b><\/p>\n

We need a new standard of thriving to guide our organizations\u2014one <\/span>where the ability to cultivate a culture of thriving is a mark of effective leadership, and \u201cengaged <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> thriving\u201d is the norm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on our decades of work with leaders and the burgeoning insights from wellbeing sciences, in 2018 my team partnered with the Positive Organization Center at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs to produce a scalable assessment of thriving that spoke to leaders. This holistic index of thriving, <\/span>Be Well Lead Well Pulse\u00ae<\/span><\/i>, combines:<\/span><\/p>\n