Hello KSKOers
This week, I went to the launch of the Global Workplace Happiness Report 2026, by The Happiness Index at Google Head office in London.
I left with my head buzzing from all of the insights and ideas shares. During the day, it became very apparent that there was a lot of overlap in their findings and my model of self-aware leadership, specifically, the 9 behaviours of my compass. So, here’s a review of how my model overlaps with what the data is telling us about workplace happiness.
Looking forward to joining you on your learning journey!
As I listened to the themes of the presentations, authenticity, trust and listening were coming out loud and clear. I had one of those moments of realisation – my model of self-aware leadership and the findings about workplace happiness were overlapping. They are three of the nine points on my Self-Aware Leadership Compass.
Since then, I’ve been reflecting on the Report and my own model, and it’s clear: the same relational dynamics that sit at the heart of self-aware leadership, are central to the discussion about workplace happiness.
My model sets out the behaviours which we need to work towards in order to be self-aware leaders and the Report generates the findings that corroborate my view that these are indeed the behaviours that make for effective and happy workplaces.
Care
If you take the superhighway of CARE, you are heading on a journey of empathy and respect, appreciating the human aspects of the lives of your colleagues whilst not shying away from having difficult conversations.
In the compass, care is about empathy, respect and the courage to engage honestly with others. It’s not fluffy, it’s courageous and it’s as much about bing kind as it is about having difficult conversation when they need to be had.
Friction isn’t the enemy. It’s where the work happens. The role of leadership is not to remove it entirely, but to create the conditions where people can move through it together and come out the other end feeling………
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