E5 - Full Episode: The Leadership Effect - How Behavior Becomes Culture

Why do employees disengage at work?
How does leadership behaviour shape workplace culture?
And why do wellbeing initiatives fail when the real problem is the system itself?

In Episode 5 of With All Due Respect by Kass & Zena, we speak with Jocelyne Elias about leadership, workplace culture, employee disengagement, burnout, psychological safety, emotional intelligence, self awareness, and the human side of work.

This is a leadership and workplace culture conversation for founders, CEOs, HR professionals, recruiters, hiring managers, people leaders, and employees who want to understand what is really happening inside organisations today.

We discuss why people disconnect from work, how leadership behaviour affects trust and performance, why teams can feel when leaders are disengaged or performative, and why real culture change takes more than wellbeing apps, workshops, or motivational posters.

This episode covers:

• Why employee disengagement often starts with leadership
• How leadership behaviour creates trust, fear, motivation, or disconnection
• Why assumptions, bias, and poor self awareness damage workplace culture
• The difference between pressure, burnout, stress, and true disengagement
• Why wellbeing budgets, mental health apps, and hotlines cannot fix broken culture alone
• Why organisations sometimes blame individuals instead of addressing systemic issues
• How psychological safety affects performance, communication, and employee retention
• Why leaders need emotional intelligence and inner work, not only technical skills
• How performative leadership impacts trust within teams
• Why lasting behaviour change takes time and cannot come from one workshop
• Why career success can still feel empty when it does not align with values
• How AI, automation, and technology are changing the future of work
• Why the future of work still needs human leadership, genuine care, and better hiring

Whether you work in leadership, HR, recruitment, talent acquisition, organisational development, people and culture, or simply want to understand why workplace culture feels broken in many companies, this conversation will make you think differently.

With All Due Respect is a Dubai based podcast by Kass and Zena, speaking honestly about leadership, hiring, careers, workplace culture, human behaviour, and the things people think but rarely say out loud across the UAE, the Middle East, and beyond.

This is leadership truth.
This is workplace reality.
This is what people feel but rarely say out loud.

Subscribe and stay with us. New episodes released regularly.

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Connect with us on LinkedIn:

Co Hosts:
Kassem Zaiter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kassem-zaiter-71b620121/
Zena Kassab: http://linkedin.com/in/zena-kassab-b63bb411

Guest:
Jocelyne Elias: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelyneelias/

#Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeEngagement #EmployeeDisengagement #Burnout #PsychologicalSafety #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfAwareness #LeadershipDevelopment #FutureOfWork #EmployeeWellbeing #HRLeadership #PeopleAndCulture #DubaiPodcast #MiddleEastCareers #WithAllDueRespect #viral #trending #fypシ

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In part one, we spoke about hiring and how it sets the tone.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

No one wakes up decides to be uh toxic. Behavior is a symptom, not a sack. Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will keep directing your life and you will call it fate. It's not supposed to be like that. Their success is not meaningful anymore. Not all growth is in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Now let's talk about what happens after the hire because once a leader is in the seat, that's when real impact happens.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

So leadership is a daily experience we all go through every day at work. Disengagement is often framed as an employee issue most of the times. But how much of this engagement is actually shaped by leadership behavior?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

In fact, disengagement has to do more with the influence of leadership because the disconnect and also what data is showing us is that they influence around 70% of the variants on the influence on employees and their engagement or the lack of it. Theoretically or academically, or how whatever we know from what is surfacing in research, no, they do have the highest influence on the employee engagement. It's not an issue of motivation, laziness, or disinterest. It's uh deeper than that when we dig into what drives engagement in genuine one, not just um what what we've seen before, just the reward or you know, the carrot at the end of the there are many elements that do uh participate in engagement, and the biggest influence comes from leaders, which is why organizations that want to make fast impact and change must start with that layer, but that doesn't mean that we leave the employees on the side.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Thank you for highlighting that. And in many conversations you've had with Kasim before, I particularly remember that you said behavior is a symptom, not a fact.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

What are leaders misinterpreting when they label people as disengaged or predominantly difficult?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Organizations probably conventionally are taught to read behavior as a fact, not a symptom, and they do analyze it from that lens. So this is what I'm seeing, this is what it is. But beneath the behavior, actually, we don't know what is happening or what is driving that behavior, which is why self-awareness, whether for leadership or for employees, is a big tool, but not just like help them become self-aware as in like on a surface level, because awareness is just part of change, but in fact, it's empowering them on what helps them change. This takes time because we need to work with the nature of the brain and the nature of the psyche. So what drives behavior goes into many things that go below the level of uh conscious awareness. And this is what we want to help both leaders and employees with. But when you work on both levels, of course, in different tools, different methods, you uplift the culture, the business, and everything all at once.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Of course, if there is the intention to do so, and I believe that's a journey for organizations depending on where they are.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

It's a journey, it's a decision, it's an awareness of uh probably having organizations paused and like what interventions do we need to uh change, especially when it comes to well-being um interventions and mental health, whether they provide uh psychological first aid, let's say workshop awareness, etc., on mental health, people are still misdiagnosing themselves. This is also what we know from data, just because someone experienced, let's say, chronic stress or under so many, so much pressure, etc., with the fatigue that they are uh experiencing, or especially negative emotions, those are being diagnosed as like I'm not mentally well. No, mental health is a totally different issue if we want to classify it under how categorically this is classified. But these are uh capacity and resilience and metacognition, and sometimes it's structural, sometimes truly the employee is overloaded, but mostly what we're seeing today burnout is coming from role mismatch, from lack of meaning and purpose and growth. And unfortunately, today they still consider growth as in just like career uh paths, movements, and learning is very much attached to skills learning and or L and D. Those are important, but this is not uh what really expands, I would say, the employee or help them give meaningful growth into their roles.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

What about boundaries and people who have more ownership versus others where then they are overloaded more than than others?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

This relates to work design also, um whether an organization is willing to bring another FTE or support, or so many things come into play. And we need to look at the overall picture. Is is the person like um having trouble, let's say, or is is is he or she truly overloaded with uh because today also look at the job descriptions, yeah, and uh you see um um one role no one role that literally has five roles or three roles in it, and this is uh coming down to uh I don't know uh organizations being economical, yeah uh and this is it it's not working, and they must look at these aspects because it's not working and it's impacting the business. This is the root one of the root causes of burnout and also disengagement. People are stretched without enough recovery time for the nervous system, let alone the cognitive overload in and of itself is a huge obstacle, I would say, to how to to performance and to creativity, which are levers, I would say, for the business.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Okay. Okay, but then why do we assume that leaders are self-aware just because they're senior? Is self-awareness actually common in leaders, or we just hope uh is?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, again, I think last time I mentioned some data and like from organizational psychologist uh research, we know um maximum 15% uh are self-aware. Actually, I think it's a human thing. We like to think that we are aware, and we we like to think we know what we are thinking about, and our decisions are like very conscious, but when it comes to uh patterns repeating themselves, we discover that we are not really uh conscious. And this is also a psychological um um fact, yeah, and a neuroscientific fact, we operate mostly from the layers that are below the conscious awareness. And um the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung uh said it unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will keep directing your life and you will call it fate. So we psychologically we know that. Uh on a human level, no, we like to think we know what we are thinking. I've heard that uh we cannot change character. That's wrong, actually. Personalities are very fluid, and this is what we need to focus on, but it it also boils down to which layer are you touching within the um within the leader that is helping them change or not. And I've mentioned also that emotions and we need to work with the nature of the brain and the psyche because those are what also bring emotions. Emotions don't surface on on an of their own, they are byproducts of our thinking, and since our thinking is mostly below the level of conscious awareness, emotions have b become more um an unconscious reaction. Uh this is where impulsive behaviors or sometimes when we look at people and say people make decisions based on emotions anyway. Yes, but provided we are really emotionally intelligent, and I think very few people are taught to how to process emotions or assimilate emotions on a deeper level where decisions are coming from the right intuitive, I would say, emotions. Emotions are important in decision making, but when they are not understood, they can dilute a lot of decisions and it becomes very personal rather than objective, and what helps the collective, I would say, and business decisions.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

So and on that point, you know, unprocessed emotions, anyway, they don't they don't just disappear, you know, they show up somewhere. But that leads me to my point. So how does the emotions normally show up when a person is running a team? And what type of damage can one emotion, the unaware leader, do?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

When emotions are suppressed, yeah, they don't go away, you know, they are like bottled, they're they're they're like a volcano.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

They explode.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

At one point they have to explode. But emotions also are not just the results of what is happening currently within the workplace. This also depends very much on the emotional uh blueprint, I would say, of the person, how much they seem composed, but all of a sudden they seem like they flip to be another person. This is complex in action where it becomes autonomous. People cannot control when uh emotions are not processed in a healthy, conscious way, I would say. And this is not something to be taught in a workshop, whether it's one day or three days. When I work with the leaders, when they come to work with me on a personal level, they come feeling empty, let's say from their success is not meaningful anymore.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Because they've done what they need to do. They had a goal, they're not looking beyond their goal.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah, but then the success becomes empty because success needs to be looked at from both two sides, external but also internal. And when those have been suppressed for many years or decades, I would say, because nobody really taught us how to uh unpack success personally on a on a even health-wise, on um personal level, meaningful level, what does success look to you? No, we've we've become um very much um externally oriented, uh obsessed with productivity, and we've attached productivity to our self-worth, and then all of a sudden some people wake up and find that, uh no, this is not what I signed up for, or this is not what I want. People have difficulty addressing or pointing to what's the inner conflicts that are causing those emotions, whether it's beliefs, whether it's let's say unresolved uh perception, trauma, unhealed trauma, unhealed wounds, the all of those add to the emotional buildup. Despite decades of emotional intelligence, uh look at people today, they are struggling processing emotions, they are struggling in the age of neuroscience, people are losing their minds. There is something amiss, and this goes back to the at what layer are we helping people, at what depth? Because so much we've been touching on the symptoms rather than the root causes and the drivers of those, whether emotions or um reactivity, so as they show up in in the organizations, it's not separate from the things that are leading to this engagement. It's okay to be pressured or it's it's normal, this is the cost of success. No, we've got success wrong, and then we've got also human behavior wrong in this case.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Now, touching on many key points you just mentioned, I'm curious what is your take on how depleted psychological uh energy look like, and how does it cascade down or funnel to one's team or peers, etc.?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Disconnection, presenteism, people are just sitting there to fill a seat until they find something better. Some of them know the grass is not greener any elsewhere. It's yeah, but they're still they still look and they still stay in their positions, doing the bare minimum. Um but it's impacting them personally and it's impacting the business performance. The bottom line, they need to bring interventions on a totally different level to help people. So when we're helping people on the on mental and cognitive level, yes, we're benefiting both the person on a personal level, but also the business. And this is what a human-centric approach, I would say, is.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

And if we don't do that, the negative ripple effect it has to their teams becomes a little bit uh dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

It it it is. I mean, like the figures are already there, that the results are already there. Today, uh the wellness and well-being spends that are skyrocketing since COVID.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

I mean, the spending is more than ever.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

And the results are worse more than ever.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

People are still exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

So here there is the mismatch, and this is where we need to pause and ask different questions.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

But then that the point, why do people are still exhausted?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Because, like, what are we doing to help this? Today, if organizations are providing pizza Fridays and kale and smoothies.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

1 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

pizza and uh uh fitness or uh headspace uh meditation and yoga, desk yoga, those are not helpful. People have those on YouTube for free or in a course. So it's the understanding of what wellness and well-being is about. And what's missing, because the pioneers of those two movements, of course, physiological health is is important, yeah, but also we need to teach more about the mind-body connection and what stress does and how the neurobiology is shaped by our thinking, by our lifestyle as well. And this is not this cannot be changed by surface level or perks, I would say wellness. Yes, aesthetics, and this is this is this has been addressed in Harvard Business Review article. This is what has been termed as well-being carewashing, and this is the theatrics of well-being at certain times of the year, uh, instead of being a program. Now, there are many well-being formulas, I would say, and um combinations. Physiology is one of them, but I was saying uh the fathers of wellness and well-being, which is Abraham Maslow, he's the father of well-being, the psychology of being, and Halbert Dunn, who is the father of the wellness movement, both of them pointed to the fact that well-being and wellness should lead the person into their highest potential. Potential if it's limited to just a career ladder or path, then this is one point, a blind spot, I would say. Also addressing the basic needs and the gross needs of the person, this is what makes uh well-being more comprehensive. Potential is not static, it's it's constantly moving. As multidimensional beings, we need to address well-being from different angles and work with the nature of the brain and the psyche. We know from Europlasticity that it takes the mind between the brain between 65 to 254 days, depending on what we are changing, uh for change to take roots, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

And uh, this is how the brain changes, and whenever there isn't a physical change in the brain, there is no behavioral change. So this goes back to the fact that at what level are we addressing the behavior? Awareness is not enough, uh, information is not enough. Today people are uh saturated with information. They have we have knowledge about psychology, about uh neuroscience more than ever before, and yet our psyche or psychological states are deteriorating.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

So we people put a lot of pressure on them, you know, because they want to ch they want the change to happen straight away.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, but uh the brain is not a light switch where or neither emotions like uh okay, I became aware of this. And there is a biochemical reaction that takes place between the mind and the body, and this conditions the body as well to be in a state of being that is equal to the pressure or to the uh um negative psychological state that a person is in. And when we want to change the mind and we give one workshop or I don't know, uh every now and then well first it's information, and information is not transformation. And uh on the on the other hand, the body where the nervous system is apparently regulating businesses or af impacting businesses, it doesn't go as fast as the mind would like to go. So we may think we have changed, but no, it takes uh some time to embed certain habits or change certain behaviors, and awareness is not enough.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Now you've mentioned awareness, you've mentioned blind spots, and it's also basically assumptions. So how do assumptions and cognitive distortions quietly break or erode trust and psychological safety?

SPEAKER_01 20:32

I mean, like this is the first thing I teach about because um cognitive bias is I would say one of the underrated and unaddressed um point when it comes to um what shapes the culture because people are not self-aware and because we think we know what we are thinking and our our uh opinions are really neutral, objective, there is no subjectivity and this definitely erodes trust. There is this also concept we call projection. So sometimes person is projecting or assuming and like they don't have the full picture, and we know uh I mean like fifty fifty percent or more of what we call I I remember or the memory is is wrong. I mean like this is proven scientifically, so you cannot rely on memory. Um emotions are also influence how um how um feedback or uh statement is given, etc. So no assumptions um and um biases I would say they are the uh one of the fastest uh things that erode. Trust, culture, relational intelligence, etc. And this is where the education of um before we start giving any um more skills learning is to help the uh expand the capacity, whether of the leaders, the managers, the employees, so that you free psychological, emotional energy and they are able to uh reflect, they are able to pause and not project or give assumptions or opinions, I would say. And and it also helps the uh level of fatigue and depletion and relationships within the culture change within the organization. You would see more collaboration, coherence probably laughs because now they understand where their behaviors are stemming or how did they behave like it was unconsciously um let's say happened. Yeah. They didn't intend. No one wakes up and like decides to be uh toxic or some do. Yes, I mean like uh and this uh I mean I also should sh uh can be addressed if there are no power uh dynamics and politics, of course.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

But can then well-being budgets compensate behaviors or we're just basically treating symptoms rather than fixing the root cause?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

We're treating symptoms because if we were fixing or working on the root causes, the the figures would change. So when well-being is taken just on a physiological level, and like hey, here uh is a mental health app or um uh uh psych uh chatbot psychologist or uh you know, I mean like hotline. Those are those are important, but we need to work on the deeper level, like set the foundation, re-engineer the inner architecture, help them understand what's happening, how the mind functions, how emotions um happen, so that at least like the the foundation becomes strong and then like everything else follows.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Now, what happens when organizations treat systematic issues with individual coping tools?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

The leadership either they are intentionally um not addressing it and like they want to blame someone or put the blame on someone, someone has to be the black sheep, or they have uh um systems uh myopia, I would say, into uh the structure or um the diagnostic tools that they are using. So they're they're either missing the point that there is a system uh systems issue or structural issue, or intentionally. So we cannot, I mean, like we cannot know every organization again depends on their maturity, depends on um the culture. Yeah, is it genuine or not?

SPEAKER_02 25:12

They do blame the black sheep, and the black sheep changes or is moved, etc., because they don't want to address the root cause or acknowledge that there is a fundamental uh issue. So then people unfortunately get burned sometimes in that process.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

True, true. And and it depends on which pain is easier, what's costing them less? Uh you know, like blaming someone costs less than changing a systems issue. So most deficits, it's all control, power dynamics, and also um blind spots, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

You touched point earlier about people losing their meaning. How does that show up? Does it turn into, like, say, control, egos, disengagement?

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Um, meaningful growth or being connected to um meaningful success, it shows in in in many ways, yes, they are not fulfilled, yeah, and it becomes more like uh existential crisis or midlife crisis, and they start questioning the meaning of life or the the like why am I here? And we see this a lot actually, and it's it's uh psychological, but this is not the the um same meaning at work or or meaningful growth, because this is also it it has to do with their own personal yeah uh what fills them up, whether their talents are being expanded, stretched. Um so it's not it's not about whether the organization has a better vision or uh higher values, etc. It's it's a mix.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

When leaders feel empty, you know, on top, how does that feel uh uh cascade through the organization then?

SPEAKER_01 27:05

It it influences this is one of the uh fuels of this engagement. Yeah. Um if if the leader is disengaged, not interested, uh he feels uh that he's not fulfilled, how how do you expect this would show? Uh there isn't um it it also impacts the interrelationships between the leaders so they they they become more distant, disconnected, yeah, rather than like genuinely checking on um their teams, on people, interacting genuinely with them because one of the things um that was that came in research is when those interactions, well-being, all the interventions feel staged, performative, people can feel it. Yeah and it backfires rather than it helps.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

It's like a ripple effect as well. Everyone will feel the same thing and then it affects the entire organization.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yeah, but people feel that um I mean like they they whether empathy or compassion are staged, those you cannot manufacture. Yeah, you cannot stage them. So when they are performative, people feel them. People know it. And this is one of the points that lead that is leading to eroding the trust or uh genuine connection to the to their roles, to to seeing a future and also to the performance at work.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

I agree.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

So you talked a lot about um meaning uh people, senior people successful on paper that come to you feeling empty. And I guess along different stages in life, maybe we all get into that phase. Yeah. But why do you think meaning disappears over time? Or what should people going through that do to kind of not snap out of it, but to recalibrate or correct?

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Not all growth is in the right direction, and not all growth is equal. So so many people are growing in the wrong direction, or like uh because this is what um society says, this is what they've learned, this is what they know. And this this puts a huge impact. So many people are really putting so much effort, and that's why there is a mismatch between the role or what the success is is giving them and how they are feeling inside. So we we need to look at um where do you want to grow? And is it like really stretching you on an inner level? Is it expanding your capacities, your talent? Every person is talented in something. Is it um uh is it matching your values? Do you do you also do you know what your true values are, what you really care about, and what matters to you? So so many things, I mean, like we touch upon. Um besides, of course, we all have our own blind spots, we all have our own uh inner conflicts, and those those put a lot of um weight on uh whether a person like is growing meaningfully or not, or the success is meaningful to them or not.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

What does a truly uh human organization look like? Not in branding or what you see in LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

It's to learn those basic human, I would say, what we've been discussing about what was what is missing, because when when when the organizational behavior culture, everything is impacted by how people are behaving within an organization. It's time to to look at what nourishes the human, what grows them, because a culture or I mean like everyone's uh stomach starts churning, you know, on Sunday evening before going to work. And it's not supposed to be like that. And organizations need to work more environments and relationships within the organization that makes people more creative, looking forward to go to work, stretching them in a meaningful way, harnessing their talents, their strengths, um, bringing the best people. This is this is what what people are missing or at organizations and as well. This is not something difficult to do.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

It's it's one of the easiest things true if there is um awareness, awareness, but also the intention because also all of that requires time, effort, uh real care into ensuring that flows within the organization. And when we're speaking about the future of work, digitization, AI, lean, and all of that, the pressure is getting bigger and bigger. And if organizations are looking to do things more efficiently and no longer are focusing on that human element, the well-being, the true well-being, as you've mentioned, of people, the organization's culture becomes more and more toxic, more competitive and unhealthy. Which brings me to my question that if people can't really change or live unhealthy or toxic working environments, what responsibility do organizations carry if they choose to carry them? And how do you see that evolving with the future of work, with the different generations now and people being more um adamant of well-being?

SPEAKER_01 33:11

My perspective is that uh organizations, if they if they don't take responsibility uh or choose to do changes, well, it's impacting the business. And every organization, when you impact the business, again, you can you can lay off uh to a certain extent, and until everything becomes automated and AI uh uh driven, we need to pay attention or organizations uh need to prioritize this human uh aspect of work. And um we need to step a little bit out of the conventional methods and ask different questions again, if what we have been doing or if what has been available for the past uh five, ten, fifty decades? I mean, like there are topics that have been under discussion since the 1920s and still nothing changed. Yeah. So who wants to drive this uh uh change? Do we wait for a global trend, uh, someone in a uh global authority to give us what we do? Yeah, or does the organization want to truly work what's in the best interest for the business and the people? And those are inseparable. We we're seeing that today those are inseparable. So they don't take the responsibility, they have to to pay for whatever they are not taking part, responsibility for.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

You know, your touch point on organization, what do they need to do? What shift do they need to have, for example, but in a simple line, what does those HR leaders or leaders in any organization need to stop doing right now?

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Some interventions need to shift to what truly brings a shift in people so that it can be seen in um in the organization, whether on work or in culture. So we have to work on the cognitive levels and also on what's the drivers of the behaviors, not just the symptoms.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

So, with all due respect, the future of work won't be fixed by providing better tools. It will be shaped by better hiring, deeper self-awareness, leaders and people willing to do the inner work, but not just that, as you've mentioned throughout the episode, uh Jocelyn. It's about genuine care and attention to be able to make a difference. I believe our listeners will have a lot to reflect on uh uh after our discussion today.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Thanks again, Jocelyn. It's always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Thank you for having me.