What Workplace Wellness Really Means for Leaders

Part 1 of our 4-part conversation on embracing wellness as a part of leadership..

Workplace wellness is more than perks, programs, or posters on the wall. In this episode, host Russel Lolacher explores how leaders can define wellness with clarity alongside executive coach and author Stephen Kohler. Together they look at why wellness requires alignment with your values, your relationships, and your community — and how clear definitions can shape healthier workplaces and stronger cultures.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today we have Stephen Kohler and here is why he is awesome. He's an author, certified executive coach, keynote speaker and composer performer.

That's music to those, that, those words don't mean anything to. He's the founder and CEO of Audira. Apparently it's something in Latin, Audira Labs. To listen, I've been told. LLC. Helping leaders, teams and organizations amplified their leadership potential through transformative executive coaching and experiential team effectiveness workshops. And he's released a book that covers his two loves of leadership and music. The book, The Leadership Anthem, How Listening Like a Musician Creates Strong Performances. And we get to chat with him. Hello Stephen.

Stephen Kohler: Hey my friend. Russel, thank you so much for having me today. I'm really grateful to be here.

Russel Lolacher: I am excited to talk about wellness today to, it's, it's, it's almost a loaded topic for a lot of people of what it means, what it doesn't mean, but we have so much to dig into. Before we get to any of that though, Stephen, I've gotta ask the most important question. I don't even know if it's the most important, but it certainly sets the, the, the mood, the tone. What's your best or worst employee experience, sir?

Stephen Kohler: I, I love the question, and if I may, I'm gonna answer both of the, the questions. The best and worst. I'll start with the worst. 

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, absolutely. '

Stephen Kohler: Cause it's very poignant. I was about halfway through my career, I had. Just gotten outta grad school and all names will remain confidential. I had found myself hired into for the, for the role that I was in.

I was in marketing in the Chicago area. One of the most prestigious organizations that one could do marketing in, or at least everybody told me. To make a long story short, the culture was toxic and the manager was just awful. And I felt very, just unsupported. And it was, I will say as painful as it was, it was also very illustrative for many of the things I think we'll talk about today.

And it taught me a lot of lessons about what good leadership looks like, what bad leadership looks like, and frankly, a lot of lessons that I would carry with me of what not to do as a leader. The best leader, the best kind of workplace example was the complete opposite, where a couple years after that, I felt incredibly supported by my manager.

And there again, it was, it was interesting to, to be able to compare both almost, you know, back to back and then carry that forward as a leader where I started to be able to support others later in my career as a manager and a, a coach and a mentor.

Russel Lolacher: How did you approach job searching differently after both those experiences because the first outta the gate, everybody and anybody's telling you this is, it's prestigious. It's got a, it's got a serious brand to it, but then you go in and it's a minefield and vice versa to go to a place that's very different.

But what's the pre-work you may be doing differently based on those experiences?

Stephen Kohler: Thank you, Russel. The biggest lesson I learned, which, which I had failed to do prior, was listen to my gut. What I learned about myself, Russel, that I think a lot of your viewers and listeners may, may know and, and I didn't give enough credence to this, is I did not trust my gut, my intuition. In, in, in the world I'm in now in leadership, we talk about core values.

So what I did differently is I started listening to that whisper that I had about whether, for example, I felt good and in alignment with the people I was surrounded with, with the work I was doing, with the impact I was having. And ever since then, whenever I have that kind of voice in the back of my head, I listen to it in a way that I hadn't prior.

Russel Lolacher: I think it speaks to a lot of people that do values exercises, and then just look at it like a checkbox list and go, look, I got a fancy list of words, but they don't operationalize it. They don't actually connect themselves to the words so that they can make more informed decisions of are they making the right decision?

Are they stepping out into this unease that they maybe shouldn't be doing? And it means as much as it does being in an organization be how you lead, but also in the environments you wanna put yourself in.

Stephen Kohler: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And, and I love what you highlighted, which is that we all talk about values. It can be a very easy intellectual exercise, and yet a very different thing to actually put into action, particularly when we're having to make a hard decision with some kind of uncomfortable outcome.

Like we're disappointing somebody, we're saying no to something that might be lucrative. That's where values really come into play, in my opinion.

Russel Lolacher: And then we get into that compromise area where it's like, and you feel icky out of the, out of it going, but I guess that's what I have to do as a leader. I'm like, no, you're not leading yourself in that situation.

Stephen Kohler: It's so true, and it's a perfect segue probably to what we're gonna discuss. I mean, wellness what a, what a perfect, you know, context, right?

Russel Lolacher: Absolutely. So this is where I put you in the hot seat, right outta the gate, sir. What the hell is wellness? Like, let's,

let's define what it is first before we dig a little too deeper into it.

Stephen Kohler: I love it. And for the, for the benefit of the listeners and the viewers, you and I touched on this real briefly before we started hitting record. In my mind it's imagine three concentric circles that are all overlapping, and this is my definition of wellness. Number one is the circle that says kind of me or I.

Am I in alignment with myself, my core values? Am I leading whether it's at home, in work, the community, am I leading in accordance to my values? Number two, the next kind of ring is, am I leading kind of in harmony? I'm a musician, for those of you that see my camera am I leading in harmony with others?

My partner at home, my, my kids my work colleagues, right? And then the third concentric circle is I leading kind of in harmony with the community that I'm in. When those three things are all in harmony and overlapping, I'm, I am quote. And so often now you might say, what the hell does this have to do with real life?

A lot of the folks I support Russel as a coach are stressed, they're anxious, they're overwhelmed because one or more of those circles that I just described is out of alignment and they're not well. They're not taking care of their bodies or they're not in alignment with somebody they're working with.

There's conflict or they're not in alignment with their community that they're in, right? And so all of this kind of adds up to stress and, and health issues and distraction, right? Or not being happy with the career they're in. So, you know, that's a long answer to your question.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah. So when you say community, just to touch on that one, are you talking the work environment? Are you talking at home or all of it? 

Stephen Kohler: I to, to beg the question, I would say community can be whatever you define it, but immediately to me, I think in three forms. One is let's say the community let's say that I have with myself. The next would be kind of a work community, however you define that. And then the third would be kind of the, the community outside of let's say your home.

So that could be friends, family, the, the literally town or city you're in or the, or the people you're connected with. For example, I'm a musician, so I would say one of my communities, the music community where I live here in Chicago. My wife is part of a, kind of our, our town council. So she's a big part of that community.

And I, and I think part of wellness, frankly, is identifying and finding that tribe or that community. Finding your tribe, finding your community. And I know that since I've found that I feel much more well.

Russel Lolacher: So what are we getting wrong about this when it comes to workplaces? Because wellness has become a bit of a buzzword. It's become something that some group in the organization, usually HR is responsible for. So what? What is failing for, for wellness in the workplace?

Stephen Kohler: I love this. You and I, I think, had a, a quick discussion about this kind of when we got to know each other. Here's the first thing. When I was first introduced to the word wellness, it was, if I can be very candid, it was kind of a, a check the box thing. Coming out of a an HR department that was saying, we, we believe in workplace balance.

We believe in wellness, and it was this, unfortunately, it was well intended but not very pragmatic. It was this idea that frankly, because people were being overworked and not feeling very well, they had to then institute this idea, this check the box idea that we had to find balance. And it became kind of a check the box exercise.

I feel when you, when you've gotten to that place in a culture and organization, you kinda lost. So, I think finding wellness is very much about being a place where you're in alignment with yourself. You're not feeling overwhelmed, you're, you're frankly, you're able to, fulfill the things that are important to you, whether it's spending time at home with loved ones or family or hobbies and not and not work so much in these other things where you're, you're, you're finding yourself drained.

Russel Lolacher: So, and, and this speaks to our, our previous conversation that we had, we got into, let's dig into one specific problem I think when we come to wellness, which is around the idea of work-life balance.

It is something that we still, I hear quite a bit in workplaces that this is something that's important and we need to prioritize it.

I'm like, yeah, but is it fixing a symptom or is it fixing a disease? So, so when, when we talked before, you said, this isn't a program, so what should we be talking about when we talk about work-life balance?

Stephen Kohler: I think it's about being, it, you've got, you've got at least two or three constituents in this conversation. One is, let's call it the employee. We're, let's say we're talking about it kind of a professional context, right? Whether it's for-profit, non-for-profit, whatever. You have the employee. And the employee being able to have the freedom and flexibility, frankly, to be able to not only do the work that's expected, but also be able to have the time and the balance for themselves so that they can get the sleep they need and have time with friends and family they need. And so you could say, okay, what does that mean, pragmatically? Simple things that the organization can do.

Like, institute policies, like, we're not gonna have emails sent after 5:00 PM or we're, we're gonna have institute, you know, we're not gonna have managers emailing people over the weekends. I'll give you a great example, practical example. I was once part of a nameless organization, the CEO, very successful organization. I swear, Russel, he had this explicit policy. He said, I don't know. I don't care where you are, meaning the employee, or when I email you or text you, but I expect a, a response within one hour. And that was the tone that was set in the culture. So everybody, it didn't matter if it was two, you know, 2:00 AM it didn't matter if you were with somebody, a loved one over the weekend, you, you felt this pressure, I have to respond.

And that created a certain culture. So wellness, I think starts with a relationship between the organization, its values, what it wants to create, and then frankly, also the employees setting boundaries. One of, one of the things I do a lot as a coach is help employees set boundaries for themselves and with the organization about where to cut that line off and say, look I've, I've got a soccer team or a soccer game to take my child to at 4:30 PM and 5:00 PM and that's important to me.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna turn off my, my computer then, right? I will get back to you. But, but these boundaries are important.

Russel Lolacher: You reminded me of a story. I remember talking to an executive once who was bragging, literally bragging that they liked to call staff off hours and judge them based on whether they responded or not.

So they would call 'em at 11 o'clock at night and if they responded, great, if they didn't, they were having a talking to the next day.

So they were cultivating this fear in the culture and thinking that was the way to lead. When I'm thinking of a wellness perspective going, you're not only disrupting their wellness in the workplace, you're making it bleed into their home life.

And how, what are you, what are you getting from that employee when they come in the next day? Like, what is the quality of of their life and of their work experience?

Stephen Kohler: A hundred percent. One of the things, I may have touched on this earlier. I, I think. One of the biggest things that has going to the theme of today's discussion about wellness that impacted in a positive way, the, the collective dialogue around wellness is, is the pandemic. Now, why do I say that?

Because coming out of the pandemic, as I'm sure you know, and a lot of the listeners and watchers of this podcast know we as a, we as a species, generally, many of us realize that life is too short. As we dis, you know, and we had the, the, the great resignation and people are like, life's too short to work in jobs and, and roles that are not fulfilling.

And what that allowed us to do is start redefining the relationship that we individually had about wellness and also with our employers. And we started being as a, as a population, employees, started to be able to tell their employees, look I expect to be able to do work that's meaningful, purposeful.

I expect to have a reasonable work-life balance. Oh, by the way if that's not in alignment with the organization, I'm look for, I'm gonna look for an organization that will do that. There's been obviously a big push on hybrid opportunities for employees. I know that pendulum is starting to swing, at least for the U.S., The pen pendulum is swinging back a little bit given the labor economy.

I still believe as a leadership coach, the best, most progressive organizations will say, look talent or people are our greatest asset. We're gonna, we're gonna do whatever it takes to get that great talent and we're gonna create flexible work environments and work-life balance so we can attract that talent, so we can attract, develop, and retain.

If you are in East Asia, awesome. If you are in central U.S., awesome. If you're in Canada, awesome. What's it gonna take to bring you on board because we don't care where you are. So I think the definition of wellness has, has, has changed dramatically in a way that was not true, say 20 or 30 years ago.

Russel Lolacher: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna get right to where I know a few people are probably thinking going, wellness. Yeah, it sounds great, but it's this nebulous thing. I know Stephen's kind of explaining it a bit, but, and getting to the point. What's the ROI? ROI me, Stephen. Like what's the ROI of wellness? How can I put that in a strategic plan?

Stephen Kohler: I love it and I am glad you asked that because I always, one of the things I like to do is speak to the skeptic, particularly the what I'll call the left brain analytics, particularly the CEOs who look at dollar signs, right? So what's the ROI of wellness? The first thing I'll tell you is productivity.

You talk to any economist, you talk to any, for the organizations that have metrics around this, the first thing you'll see around wellness is productivity for your employees. Productivity the amount of output per, per hour, depending on how you quantify, that's a real thing. If workers are, are burned out or they're feeling drained or they're feeling stressed, by definition, they're not gonna have as high of productive output.

The second thing you may care about as a skeptic or if you're looking at quantifiable ROI is turnover. Organizations, any HR, CHRO will tell you one of the first things they're looking at is turnover. Turnover affects the bottom line as many of your listeners and viewers will tell you there's a powerful metric that talks about the cost of turnover.

So if you, you know, whatever your salary is for an employee. Can anybody guess what the, you know, the cost of losing that employee is? It's at least double their salary to recruit, hire, train, and onboard the next employee, the replacement. And it's probably, frankly, it's probably three times now. And then there's the qualitative aspect.

Those two are quantitative. The the third part is cultural. And you get work life satisfaction. You get job whatever metric you wanna look like. Employee satisfaction, right? You ask an employee on a, on an employee survey you know, how likely would you be to refer a friend to work at this organization?

And you get to things like Glassdoor. All of these things about wellness turn into dollars and cents very quickly. And why does that matter? Because the best organizations are available to attract, develop and retain employees, which then leads to dollars and cents and bottom line outcomes.