180: Human-Centered Leadership, with Chase Sterling

We sit down with Chase Sterling, workplace well-being expert and founder of the Wellbeing Think Tank, to get honest about what support actually looks like when someone is stressed, grieving, or barely holding it together. The throughline is resilience—a human process that requires time, space, and genuine psychological safety at work.

We talk human-centered leadership in practical terms: focusing on the human so performance follows, recognizing that people bring invisible burdens into meetings, and building cultures of belonging that do not depend on fake cheerfulness. 

Chase shares why non-toxic positivity matters, how leaders can hold space instead of trying to fix emotions, and why transparency beats polished messaging. We also talk about feedback, accountability, and giving people a clear chance to change.

Then we zoom out to the systems level: employee retention, turnover cost, healthcare costs, and the future of work. Chase challenges the current moment of record profits paired with layoffs, calls out when greed drives decisions, and argues that AI is a useful automation tool but not a replacement for critical thinking, creativity, and humane judgment. 

If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a manager or teammate, and leave a review. 

What is one thing a leader has said or done that made you feel genuinely supported at work?

Chase Sterling, MA, is a speaker and the founder and executive director of Wellbeing Think Tank known for amplifying experts over influencers and providing educational events that support individual and organizational wellbeing.

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Transcript

Why Society Feels Unwell

Chase Sterling 0:01

We are not very well as a society. And it is an individual issue, but it is also the systems we live in. So work doesn't need to be your nanny and control everything, but within the four walls of the workplace, how can the workplace at least not make you any worse and in an ideal world make you better?

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Manya Chylinski 0:22

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Chase Sterling. She's a workplace well-being expert and the founder and executive director of the Wellbeing Think Tank, which is a nonprofit dedicated to helping employers create cultures where people and organizations can thrive. We talked about resilience and human-centered leadership. Like what does it mean to lead an organization where you're supporting people and the performance of the organization? It was a fabulous conversation. I hope you enjoy. Chase, welcome. I'm so excited we're talking on the podcast today.

Chase Sterling 1:08

I know. Thank you, Manya. I am so excited to be here with you and with your community

The Worst Enemy Book Title

Chase Sterling 1:12

today.

Manya Chylinski 1:12

All right. To get us started, what would the title of a book about you be if your worst enemy wrote it?

Chase Sterling 1:23

So you sent me this question in advance, and I actually texted it to some of my friends and just said, you know, if you were my enemy, because your friends, you know, you're good friends, we'll be honest with you. I did get some interesting responses, which was just like, eats a lot of candy. Or I think she said someone said salty and sweet, because I love sweets, but I can be very salty in my work. I think my enemy would probably call it talks too much. So I do, I am a yapper. I love to, I love to chat. So probably talks too much.

Manya Chylinski 2:00

Okay. So Chase, I have to tell you something. All three of those apply to me as well. I feel like we must have been separated at birth because I think those things are very true about me. But okay, that's interesting. You know, it is hard to think what would somebody who who doesn't like me think about me. I mean, that's a really challenging thought experiment.

Chase Sterling 2:26

It is, but you know, I do a lot of presenting in my work. And when you present, people either love you or they hate you. And my personality, I have a big personality, and people either are drawn to it and they feel energized by it, or they find me really annoying and my energy is too much for them. And that's okay. My focus is did I teach you anything? Was I able to share any education and impart any anything that's going to be beneficial? Like, I don't care about me, I care about the work. Um, so if you don't like me personally, that's cool. But if I can help you with something, that's great. And whenever I'm working with other presenters, I always like to equate it to I used to be a group exercise instructor. And you could take two fitness classes and love one and not like the other. So, and they're both great. It's just different vibes, different personalities. So I think throughout my life, I've learned to let things roll off. I just, that doesn't bother me. Um, if I can improve, but I can't change who I am. You know, I am who I am, but if I can deliver something better, I can always work on my knowledge, skills, and abilities. But and I can't be a better person, but I mean, my personality is what it is. I'm with me, you know, it's like all I can do is be me.

Manya Chylinski 3:43

That's so true. And I appreciate you sharing that. I remember early on when I was speaking, reading through the comments that an organizer had sent me and looking for how can I improve, what worked, what didn't work. And somebody basically said, I don't even know why she was here. Why was she even talking to us? And for some reason that really hurt, but a friend of mine reframed it and said, This is just proof of why it's important that you're saying what you're saying. So it's it was such a lesson in how to hear what somebody else is saying to you.

Chase Sterling 4:25

I resonate with that so much. And you know, our brains have that negativity bias. So they cling on to the one negative comment and we just ignore the good ones that happened. But years ago, I was presenting and I was telling my own burnout story, and I had had a TIA, so a transient ischemic attack, which is like a mini stroke. And there were a couple of comments of, I can't believe you let this unwell person come in and

Handling Criticism And Negativity Bias

Chase Sterling 4:50

talk to us about well-being. Or I've shared things about my background before. And I remember, I don't know if I can use a curse word, but someone said, um, she thinks she's hot S because she's like a veteran. And I was like, no, I just share that I'm a veteran because like I like to connect with other veterans who might be there and stuff, but I'm like, I know I'm not. Like, I'm like, that was just a job I had. But yeah, you can't change people's perceptions of you. It's like people are gonna have a perception, and our we do that. We all do that. We see someone, we make a snap judgment, and it's how do we challenge our own biases, our own brains, and confront your own brain and be like, okay, brain, you're thinking this about this person, but are you really being open to it? We all make those judgments about each other, we're all very judgmental. And it's how do we, though, just challenge ourselves to be open and to challenge what our brains are doing. And so, yeah, yeah. And I think that just shows I remember the organizer saying, you know, are you okay when I saw those comments? And I said, Well, that just shows me we have more work to do.

Manya Chylinski 5:56

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, thank you. I'm glad to know again, I feel like um we've had the same experience. We're almost the same person. And it ties into resilience, right? It's exactly resilient. Everyone has had a moment that changes how they think about leadership or about how they think about taking care of other people. What was one of those moments for you?

Chase Sterling 6:26

Oh my gosh, I have so many. I have so many. Something that instantly comes to mind is years ago, I was working at a very large global, like top 10 company. And I remember someone like running up to me and he was holding his tooth. And I think his crown had fallen off or his tooth had broken. And he was just like, oh my gosh, this just happened. Like, I need to leave work. I need to go to the dentist, like, I need to go get this taken care of. And I was like, Yeah, of course you do. Like, of course, no big deal, we'll figure it out. Like, you just broke your tooth. Like, yeah, of course, guy, you gotta, you gotta go. And, you know, just how grateful he was for just a something really basic. And something I've been talking about a lot, which I think resonates with a lot of the work you do, is I started talking a lot about non-toxic positivity last year. And that happened because of an interaction I had with a supervisor. And this, my boss at that time, we had really a great relationship, good psychological safety. Like, and I know that they meant well, but I had been having one of those horrible, no good, like very bad months were going on in the world. Like, I lost my 19-year-old cat. I got norovirus, my rent went up by 10%, like all these, just it everything was compounding. And I was really struggling, and I was still coming in. I had a glass like fishbowl office, and I would just close my door. And historically, I would always keep my door open. I was the person everyone comes in to get like hugs from. But she noticed and said, Hey, I noticed, you know, you've been really kind of like isolating yourself and great. She noticed that. And I said, Yeah, well, here's everything going on. Again, we had a great relationship. And she said, Well, now, Chase, if you were up on stage giving one of your talks, what would you tell the audience? Like, how would you get them to snap out of it? And I said, Well, I wouldn't tell them to snap out of it. I was like, we live in this culture where we don't let people grieve or we don't let people sit with their feelings. And you can't, you need time to process emotion. And we all experience trauma in life and you can't compare, you know, comparing leads to suffering. But we all experience hardships. Uh, life is hard, it's challenging. And when we're going through these difficult times, the goal is to move through it. And sometimes moving through it deeply changes us as well. But we need to be allowed to be in that space. And I said, you know, I'm still doing my job, I'm still doing everything, I'm prioritizing my well-being. I don't have any more to give right now because I really I'm working on all these things. But I, yeah, I wouldn't tell them to buck up. I would tell them it's okay to feel that way and that the goal is to move through it. And when someone shares that they're going through a difficult time and we care about them, we want to help. And so we're uncomfortable with what they're saying. So we try to make it better, but then that doesn't always help the other person. And I'm guilty of doing that. We're all guilty of doing it. So it's it's how do we all be a little bit more mindful and be able to hold that space and just ask someone, you know, gosh, I have no idea how that that might be. You know, I'm never gonna experience that. How can I support you during this time? What would be helpful? It's like, how can we support you while while you're going through this? And it's just a different way of reframing. But those two instances, I think, of one, me being told to just fuck up. And I was like, no. And then just the humanity. Like we all go through something weird happening, a health issue, or something happens at home. You know, your kid gets in an accident, you gotta hurry up and leave work. And you know what? It's just work, it's gonna be

Resilience Moments That Changed Leadership

Chase Sterling 10:10

there. Like most of us are not in life and death critical situations. Right. How can we just, yeah, like be a little bit more relaxed? Yeah, of course you can have the time off. Is it gonna cause a problem? Maybe, maybe we'll be short-staffed, maybe we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.

Manya Chylinski 10:25

You know, when you said snap out of it, we have all, I think, in our lives heard some version of that when we're when we're feeling something. And I saw this social media post similar to that, which I love. And it said something along the lines in the whole history of the world, nobody has ever calmed down from someone looking at them and saying, calm down.

Chase Sterling 10:48

Very, very, very true. Yeah. Like maybe if we're able to intervene and be like, hey, you know, could we maybe let's do some breathing together? Would you like to like do some box breathing with me? You know, or it's like, see, you're really you would you like to go for a walk? Right. How can I help? But yeah, calm down. Like it's such a it's not gonna, I agree with you. It's not gonna help.

Manya Chylinski 11:11

It I think it often makes them a little bit angry at you for not seeing what is what is really happening with them and not seeing them. And what we're talking about is human-centered leadership, right? We're so what does human-centered leadership mean to you? And what does it mean to lead, especially if we're talking about you know, workplaces, to be thinking about the human and be caring about the performance and the and the business itself?

Chase Sterling 11:40

Oh, I love this. Um, so I talk a lot about too about focusing on the human and all else will follow. And years ago, I did, I did work at a very large company. I worked at Google, and one of their sayings is focus on the user and all else will follow. Very much a tech thing. And I think in the workplace, if we focus on the human, everything else will fall into place. That's human-centered leadership. I look at Maslow's hierarchy a lot and I've mapped like what can the workplace do that equates to Maslow's hierarchy. So I think it's human-centered organizations and human-centered leaders. So we can have human-centered leaders who are focused on creating spaces of belonging, really helping you be your best self at work. But if the organization isn't structured in a way that supports that, so there's work for the actual entity of the workplace to do, and then there's work for us to do as individuals. So I think human-centered leadership is really just recognizing, I like to say we're all a bunch of trauma bags in the workplace. We're all carrying a lot of different things with us, and oftentimes we don't know what those things are. So, how do we just try to be a decent human and try to not cause additional harm? Again, life is hard enough. I don't think work needs to make it any harder. We're all just trying to get through this crazy thing called life. Work is part of the society we we live in and we can contribute to. And I think work can also be a conduit for good. I think work can be a place that gives us things like connection and feeling accomplished. I think work can just be a place for good instead of this place that brings us down. And I think there was like a second part to your question, but that's how I would kind of define human-centered leadership and human-centered organizations.

Manya Chylinski 13:29

What do you think it is for organizations that are still maybe resistant to this idea? And the I spoke to somebody once and they said, Hey, what you're doing is great. Love it. You go, girl. My company will never hire you. We just churn through people, that's the way they do it, and there's never going to be anything different. And that made me sad for the people who work in that company. But you know, what is that barrier to the recognition that the human matters?

Chase Sterling 14:05

It kind of brings me back to what you did say before, which now I'm remembering because you were talking about the balance. And when I talk about workplace well-being, it is this balance of organizations need to perform, you know, they need to be profitable. So that way we can all hopefully share in those profits. You know, we're employed. Um I think from a business perspective, organizations need to understand that prioritizing the human does positively impact their bottom line. And there's a lot of different ways we can look at this cost savings. We can always look at attrition cost. So simply turn over, you know, a frontline employee. We say it's about one and a half times their salary to replace more experience. We get up into the two, three, four, five times their salary. So we have that. Obviously, another huge cost center to organizations outside of payroll is also healthcare cost. So it's how are we really prioritizing the health and well-being of our workforce and creating an environment that's not actively making them more sick? We are not very well as a society. And it is an individual issue, but it is also the systems we live in. So work doesn't need to be your nanny and control everything, but within the four walls of the workplace, how can the workplace at least not make you any worse and in an ideal world make you better? So I think organizations really need to understand one from a financial perspective, and that tends to be what we focus on. And when you're in that executive leadership, it's the profitability and sustainability of an organization. So we have to look at that bottom line. But prioritizing your human labor is what does it. We're in this challenging time right now because we are in an AI bubble, and I am definitely call gonna call it a bubble as well.

Non Toxic Positivity And Holding Space

Chase Sterling 15:50

I know there's different lines of thought, but it's a tool. I view it as like kind of an automation tool. We've had automation tools for a long time. AI cannot replace, though, humans. It cannot replace human thinking, critical thinking, human creativity, innovation. We always want to be innovating and iterating in business. And AI cannot replace that. I think a tool like that can help with maybe some efficiencies. I will say I use it to organize documents because I am not good at that. Or I'm not known for being concise. So it can help me get my wordiness down sometimes and some editing. But I think we're not there yet. I think things, unfortunately, I think we're gonna continue to get a little worse. I think we're on a downward spiral and I don't think we've hit bottom. And there is gonna be a reckoning. And then I'm hoping we're constantly shifting from an employer market to an employee market, and it's kind of like ebbed and flow. But recently it's been much sharper. So, and that's not sustainable. Where we're at right now is not sustainable. So I do think a reckoning is happening, it is already happening, and organizations are gonna have to approach work different for future of work. How we're working now is not sustainable. It's not working for organizations, it's not working for the worker, and it needs to change. But it truly takes just good people wanting to see that impact. I think when you can show an organization that you have all these lives under you that you're contributing to the their life, and you can have a positive impact. You could really make a difference in all of these individuals' lives, and that carries over to our communities and society as a whole. So that has to be a motivation. It can't, it has to be this balance of like people plan at profit. And I feel like in 2019, we were so focused on things like conscious capitalism and B Corps, and then we've kind of fallen. We've been in this downward, downward cycle for a little bit. And I can't wait for us to get on back on the upswing. I'm still there, I'm still cheering for all of those things throughout these these difficult times. But it is, it's challenging. It's really hard to see an organization with record breaking profits, then laying off their staff or saying they don't have money for certain things when they do. And we have to be honest, it does just come down to greed. And it doesn't need to be this way. There's enough, there's enough for all of us. And I'm hoping we see more employee-owned organizations, more reorganizing of how corporations are really ran. And I would like to see some more regulation

Defining Human Centered Leadership

Chase Sterling 18:40

because I think that's the only thing that will force employers to make hard decisions, like the CEO wage gap, putting a limit on the percentage more than you know, your highest wage worker to your lowest wage worker. That was a lot. I went in so many different directions, but gosh, those are such big issues we're talking about right now.

Manya Chylinski 19:02

They are big issues. And I think about that too, the the record profits, and also we're gonna lay a bunch of people off. But I, as the CEO, am not going to take a pay cut or am going to take a pay cut that is not even really a pay cut if you look at it. And I think a lot about companies where the employees want to unionize. And whatever you may feel about unions, that is the clear message that you are not treating us like real human beings. And then that let's quash. You can't even, you can't do a union or what have you. And I see those things through that lens of you don't want to work with humans. You just want to make money. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money, but not at the cost of the humans who are working with you.

Chase Sterling 19:55

100%. Yeah, you couldn't have said it any better. That that's exactly it. You can have a successful organization and you can have thriving, successful humans. And I think the more you prioritize your human workforce, the more they'll take good care of you. Now, I as a leader fail all the time. I like to say I fail up. I try not to make the same mistakes. There are people I've, you know, been their supervisor who will tell you I was like the worst manager, and some people who will tell you like I was the best. And I still keep in touch, though, with many people that have been under me. And one of my good friends, Gina, we worked together over 15 years ago. And then I was able to bring her into another organization I worked at, and we worked together again. And she's seen me grow and evolve for over 15 years. And she's told me, Chase, even when you messed up, even when you, you know, you did these things, you always cared about us. And that was the one thing we all knew. Like it's hard to teach that. Um, I don't know if you can, you can teach someone to maybe mirror it, but it's hard to teach that genuine compassion and care. And I just genuinely care about people. And it shows even my past military experience. Just last night, I was texting with my forper sergeant in the military, who was over me. And I mean, I've been out of the military over 20 years and we still talk. I lost someone in Iraq and I still talk to his dad. And it's been over 20 years, and that's human-centered leadership is like you care about the person first, and then the work is just layered on top.

Manya Chylinski 21:32

And you said something really important that you can't fake, you know, genuinely caring about people. And the other side of that is most people can tell. They can tell when you are faking it, they can tell when you're lying to them about what you know or what you don't know. And there's it seems that there can be this fear among man. Managers and leaders of transparency and honesty. But in fact, that's what most of us are craving.

Chase Sterling 22:08

I think I'm transparent to a fault. Um, and I could definitely do things differently sometimes. Obviously, I can always say things better, but I'd rather be honest. And I think I use the example of return to office a lot when that's kind of horrible that started to happen. When, oh gosh, it's been so bad. Even if the reason why you're asking

The Business Case And The AI Bubble

Chase Sterling 22:30

people to be in the office is because you have a million-dollar lease, people aren't gonna like that answer. But I think they would rather you just say, we want you to be here because we're spending all this money on this building. So, you know what? That's really why we want you here. Even though you're still not gonna like it, I think at least you'd be like, Well, at least you're not telling me it's for team building and I'm coming in and I'm sitting on video conference all day. So I think being honest goes a long way. And I have seen it transform. I I worked with an organization once and the C-suite, you know, they had a town hall, and I saw two of the senior leadership get up on that stage and say, we've made mistakes and we've probably said things, and you know, we're trying, but we need you to correct us. Like we we need you to tell us because if we're doing something wrong, we we probably aren't doing it intentionally. And so we can't change our behavior if you don't let us know what the behavior is. And after that town hall, an employee went into their office and they had like a whole cry moment because there were some things leadership was doing that was really impacting this person, and this person spoke up and they spoke for other employees, and they were able to talk it about it and hash it out, and they were able to address their behavior. And that's happened to all of us. That's I think we get scared of correcting someone, and we need to do that. I remember years ago working somewhere, and then all of a sudden one day they sat down and gave me like this two-page thing of everything. Well, you've been doing all these things wrong. And I was like, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me you didn't want me to do these things? I was like, until now, now you've been like, you're so frustrated, but I didn't know I was doing anything wrong. I was like, so you're really frustrated. You're telling me you're upset that I've been doing these things, but you never told me not to do them. So now I'm upset. And I was like, I can change, but you have like I didn't know to change. And they kind of had that realization, they're like, oh, you're right. They're like, I was like, yeah, give me the opportunity to make the change. And I think that's something too. We need to give people grace and we need to give them an opportunity to change. We need to give them education, understanding, redirect. And if they can't evolve, then maybe it's time. But we need to give someone a chance to change their behavior.

Manya Chylinski 24:57

I got fired one time from a job and they said it's because I had done something wrong. And it was a while ago, and they couldn't really tell me exactly what it was, but somebody else told them that it was wrong when I did it. And I said, Well, can you give me some more information? Can you help me understand what I did wrong? And apparently not, because that person never spoke to me again. And I next heard from HR saying, it with an email saying, Here's how to return your computer. And I remember thinking, if you would have at least known what you were firing me for, or known, could have explained to me what I did wrong, whether or not you wanted to give me a chance to fix it. But now I just have no idea. I can't change, I can't understand anything. And now I'm glad not to be working for you if this is how you're behaving.

Chase Sterling 25:50

Absolutely. And I mean, it changes from person to person too. This is such a silly thing. But I had a supervisor once who like literally counseled me because we we primarily would meet over video chat because we were in different parts of the country. And you can't see me right now, but I'm, I mean, our audience can, but you can see me. And I tend to nod when like people like, you know, you kind of nod as like, oh, I yeah, I'm listening, I'm hearing you. That infuriated them. They were like, I you sit there and you nod during this meeting, and they're like, I don't understand why you're nodding. They're like, it's so, is it like they it in and then I would literally have to focus on not moving in meetings because I also am someone with chronic pain and I tend to move and fidget a lot because I'm in significant pain all the time. And I can work, like I've I've I manage it, but I I don't even realize it. And I've also been counseled for that. I'm like, you're too fidgety in meetings, you're moving around too much. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, I'm like, I don't even know I'm doing it. I'm in pain. And then I have been like, okay, I can't move. And then I can't even

Transparency Feedback And Giving Grace

Chase Sterling 27:00

be present because I'm so focused on like controlling my body. It's super so some things like it's like, is this a need or a want? Do you really need me to stop nodding my head, or do you just want me to? Like it's it might be irritating to you, but that's just your preference. And so personal preferences and the work being done are kind of two different things. It's like I say you don't have to like your coworkers, you have to be respectful. We need to be able to come in and work together every day, be pleasant. Hello, good morning. How are you? Yes, thank you, please. And you might not vibe, and that's cool. You don't have to hang out, but you need to be just a decent human being. And we've we've lost a lot of that decency. And it's cool if we don't get along and we believe in different things. Like, but hey, here in the four walls of the workplace, I just need to work with you. And some of those people I'll be friends with outside, and some I will not.

Manya Chylinski 27:57

Exactly. And listeners, I have to tell you, as soon as she started telling that story, I realized I also nod to say I'm listening. And so as she was telling that whole story, I was nodding along with, yes, yes, I see that. Um, I've not yet had anybody tell me that was too much. So we will see, we'll see when that happens. Um, Chase, I could talk to you for a lot longer than this, but we are close to the end of our time. So to wrap up, please tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and what you do.

Chase Sterling 28:30

Sure. So my background's in organizational psychology and occupational health psychology. I also have a background in community health and exercise science. I started my career in community health. I pivoted into workplace well-being. And I like to say when it comes to well-being at work, all you need to do is everything because everything's impacting our well-being at work. It's leadership, it's policies, it's the environment, it's programs. Um, I started a nonprofit well-being think tank. We're a 501c3 public charity, and I'm really focused on providing evidence-based accessible education on how do we create cultures of well-being at work. And again, all you need to do is everything. So we dive into a lot of different topics and really try to help people understand what you can do as an individual for yourself. Um, and also what are individual interventions we can help people with. Also, how do we change the system? How as how can workplaces look in the mirror and really do that organizational change? And then we have think tank meetings where we get together, we have a community of practice, we have these discussions. Now, my day-to-day, I spend my time. I'm the executive director, I lead our board, and I do a lot of presenting. I'm really fortunate to do something like this, to come on and you know, share with your podcast. I get to speak at conferences. I do some advising still. I used to do that more full-time. After I started the nonprofit, I'm really just passionate about how do we

The Wellbeing Think Tank And Closing

Chase Sterling 30:00

empower more people with these skills. Um, I have a great skill set. I want to pass on to more people. And that's part of our logo. Our logo is like these two flowers together, and it's individual and organizational well-being. It's also about those of us with wisdom and experience sharing that with our younger generation. And also, we're connected to our younger generation. It's listening to them, listening to their ideas and their thoughts and their fresh perspective and how do we grow together. And it also stands for joy, which is one of our core values to bring a little bit, I think we could all use some more joy in our life. So that's kind of me and my work in a nutshell.

Manya Chylinski 30:39

Oh, it's wonderful. And you know, I'm such a big fan of the wellbeing think tank and the work that you do. So I'm so pleased to have had a chance to talk to you. Thank you again, Chase.

Chase Sterling 30:49

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate you letting me be on today.

Manya Chylinski 30:52

Sure. And hey, thanks to our listeners for checking out this episode. And we will see you next time.