White Paper: Leaders’ Wellbeing the Most Influential Driver of Organisational Wellbeing
My quick thoughts on WorkWell Leaders Impact Measure White Paper v1.0
Hi there, this is Jing, founder of ALLSET, a company specialising in healthy ageing.
This piece is an extension of my newsletter, ALLSET Gazette, where I curate my top three healthy ageing insights each week.
WorkWell Leaders Impact Measure White Paper v1.0
WorkWell Leaders, a registered charity from Singapore, surveyed top leaders’ well-being, organisation performance, and other factors and published a Leaders Impact Measure White Paper last month.
Key Findings
Organisational wellbeing emerged as the most critical driver of organisational performance out of over 200 factors explored.
Leaders' well-being is the most influential driver of organisational well-being and the third most influential driver of organisational performance.
Leader wellbeing is 56 times more effective in shaping organisational wellbeing than stress management and resilience programmes, and 50 times more effective than wellbeing apps.
Leader wellbeing is also 11 times more effective in shaping organisational performance than employee participation in stress management or resilience programmes, and four times more effective than wellbeing apps.
Just reducing workload or time pressure is not enough.
To foster organisational wellbeing, work must be intentionally designed to be empowering.
Providing clarity around roles and responsibilities is 120 times more impactful for organisational wellbeing than simply managing workload or time
pressure.
Ensuring that employees have a chance to use a variety of skills is 119 times more effective than just keeping workloads manageable.
How Wellbeing and Performance Were Assessed
The authors applied the PERMA+4 framework, which uses self-reported questionnaires to assess leader, individual, and team well-being.
In short, the framework is an expanded version of the original PERMA model that characterised well-being in positive psychology.
P – Positive emotions
E – Engagement
R – Relationships
M – Meaning
A – Accomplishment
Four more elements were added recently to more accurately reflect well-being:
1. Physical Health
2. Mindset
3. Environment
4. Economic security
The paper analysed responses from 2,481 surveyed participants, including those from large, medium-sized, and small enterprises, with both blue-collar and white-collar employees.
Meanwhile, the paper measured organisational performance using metrics in four categories: financial, internal processes, customer, and learning and growth.
My Three Initial Thoughts
1. As the PERMA+4 framework and WorkWell Leaders Impact Measure continue to develop, it will be interesting to see how future findings correlate leaders’ well-being with organisational well-being and performance.
2. I created a Healthy CEO Club last year because I believe employee health has to start from the top, but I did not expect such an overwhelming correlation.
3. As the paper concluded, and especially with how AI transforms work, “now more than ever, well-being must transcend conventional HR initiatives and become a top-of-mind priority of leaders in every organisation. Leaders must focus on their own well-being.”
References
Donaldson, S. I., Van Zyl, L. E., & Donaldson, S. I. (2022). PERMA+4: A Framework for Work-Related Wellbeing, Performance and Positive Organizational Psychology 2.0. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.817244
WorkWell Leaders Impact Measure - WorkWell Leaders | Workplace wellbeing starts with CEOs. (2025, April 24). WorkWell Leaders | Workplace Wellbeing Starts With CEOs. https://www.workwellleaders.org/programmes/workwell-leaders-impact-measure/