Fewer than 4 in 10 people say they are blooming in work and life. More than half of non-leaders are 'running on empty.'
Hello, Jackson Browne. (Hold that thought.)
The chart below comes from the Global Work-Life Assessment Survey I ran for "Work-Life Bloom." I analyzed nearly 10,000 sets of responses from people in Canada, the U.S.A., the U.K., Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, India, and South Korea, among other countries.
Overall, less than 40 percent self-reported as blooming. (i.e. when work and life are thriving for an individual)
Sadly, 38.2 percent of all employees landed in the renewal persona, the group in need of refreshing most of their work and life factors.
Then I split leaders from non-leaders.
→ Blooming: 47.7 percent of leaders versus 26.6 percent of non-leaders.
→ Renewal: 32.7 percent of leaders versus a shocking 51 percent of non-leaders.
Gulp.
Half of the people who do not lead a team are in renewal. That means work and life are not going very well for them.
Meanwhile, nearly half of the people who lead them are blooming.
That gap is the story.
A large portion of leaders are doing fine, and they are looking at their teams through a window that flatters the view.
But an equally large portion of leaders are not doing fine.
I wrote "Work-Life Bloom" because roughly 60 percent of all employees need some form of assistance. Whether it's work, life, or both, things are still rough out there.
The fix is rarely another wellness webinar or AI coach.
It starts with a leader asking a few honest questions:
→ Do you feel safe to speak your mind at work?
→ Do you feel valued here?
→ Does our strategy make your job easier or harder?
→ Is there anything I can do to make things better?
Back to Jackson Browne. There is a set of lyrics in that fantastic song that you might want to pay attention to:
"Lookin' out at the road rushin' under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Lookin' into their eyes, I see them runnin' too."
Feels ever more relevant for today's team members.
From "Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes" (Chapter II, Bloom or Bust).
