Why Leaders matter

“When a manager is thriving in wellbeing, their direct reports are 15% more likely to have thriving wellbeing. Yet so often managers experience high levels of stress and burnout.”

Why Leaders matter: Evolving Life in Work

Professional & Personal Development
Leadership for Wellbeing
Team Psychological Safety
Emerging Leaders
Professionally Emotional
Communiccation
Trust
Relationship Dynamics

40%

C-Suite say they will likely quit within the year due to work-related stress

Source: Deloitte 2023

Employees with strong mental fitness take 30% fewer annual sick days

69%

of employees say their manager impacts their mental health as much as their partner

Source: CIPD 2023

High stress in managers correlates with increased burnout in teams, reducing collaboratin and innovation

64%

managers consider quitting for jobs that better support wellbeing

Deloitte 2023

The Disproportionate Impact of Leadership wellbeing

Leadership wellbeing is one of the most powerful drivers of engagement, psychological safety and performance within organisations.

The quality of their presence, character, communication, capabilities, and behaviours as well as the norms and values they role model set the tone and shapes the climate of a team. This ripples out through the employee experience, across an organisation’s culture and shows up in customer and client experiences. For better or worse this influence is reflected in the organisation’s achievements.

The influence of leaders and managers of teams should not be underestimated:

Gallup’s research is consistent and clear – “Managers — more than any other factor — influence team engagement and performance. That’s not an exaggeration: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.”
The Workforce Institute at UKG found that 69% of employees say their manager affects their mental health as much as their partner and more than their doctor or therapist.

“Spending time with their manager is the worst part of the day for employees” is the sobering finding from data collected using the National Time Accounting method. This approach tracks people’s moment‑by‑moment feelings to map which daily activities produce better or worse wellbeing.

Negative impacts are not solely corelated with overtly negative, inappropriate or abusive leadership behaviour either. In Wellbeing at Work – How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams (2021) Gallup reported that “Indifferent, uninvolved managers are problematic too. They cause emotional exhaustion and higher rates of active disengagement among their employees.”

The Weight of Modern Leadership: The Impact on Wellbeing

Modern leaders and managers are constantly navigating change and face a fast-shifting mix of (sometimes almost contradictory) short and longer-term priorities and pressures. People and performance, relationships and results, wellbeing and work outcomes, creativity and continuity, development and delivery, meaning and metrics, progress for tomorrow and profit for today.

Constantly striving to shape positive daily Life in Work experiences for their people whilst cultivating a team climate that is socially connected, collaborative, creative and when necessary, constructively challenging.

People look to them for psychological safety and reassurance. Expecting them to show up with clarity, composure, compassion and confidence whilst juggling their way through the weighty, multi-faceted realities of their roles. Making decisions whilst navigating organisational structures and systems they do not fully control against an economic, societal and global systemic backdrop that is unpredictable and volatile.

In short, every day they are nurturing or nullifying the essential nutrients that compound into sustainable wellbeing, engagement, performance and retention. Creating conditions where their people willingly engage their best qualities, want to contribute meaningfully and plan to stick around.

The Human Cost When Leadership Wellbeing Is Unsupported

Behind every leadership and management job title is a human doing their best under complex, competing circumstances and pressures. They too only have 24 hours a day. Many operate under chronic psychological, emotional and physical overload — while navigating blurred boundaries or conflicts between work and home. They too need supporting.

This overload can creep into detachment, distancing and disengagement. Chronic stress, anxiety and burnout are often not too far behind.

The LHH 2025 Views from the C-Suite Report reflects this growing strain: “External pressures like inflation and trade wars, coupled with rapid AI adoption, have created unprecedented stress for today’s executives. Leadership burnout has risen to 56% (up from 52% in 2023), with Gen X and Millennial leaders most affected.”

Unsupported, the resources and resilience of a leader or manager who was once striving and succeeding can rapidly run low. Draining their capacity to bring themselves and their best qualities to their work and their team. (Learn more). Risking deterioration into burnout or poor mental and physical health. Limiting their potential to thrive professionally and personally. With significant costs for the individual as well as consequences that filter throughout their team.

Beyond Titles: The Human Story of Leadership Understanding

the unseen forces that connect, influence, and sustain the people who lead

The Contagion Effect

Emotions are contagious — especially from those in positions of influence. Neuroscience and social psychology both show that humans unconsciously mirror the mood, tone and behaviours of people around them. This means a leader’s state of mind and nervous system regulation can either calm or activate those they lead.

This social contagion effect within teams is no small thing. Gallup research suggests that “when a manager is thriving in wellbeing, their direct reports are 15% more likely to have thriving wellbeing.” Another finding is that every member of the team plays their part. “Thriving individuals are 20% more likely to have thriving team members.”

A finding that resonates with Connected Ape. We believe that all employees have agency and a responsibility to improve experiences of Life in Work for all. As a social species, everyone has skin in this high stakes game. This is key to cultivating sustainable and systemic wellbeing, engagement and performance across an organisation’s ecosystem.

Leaders set the emotional tone of a workplace. When they are resourced, self-aware and supported, their presence anchors stability and safety — creating space for others to think clearly, connect openly and perform sustainably. This principle underpins our Coaching and Leadership Workshops, which help leaders cultivate self-awareness, emotional regulation and clarity that ripple through teams and outcomes alike.

The Evolutionary Lens

From an evolutionary perspective, humans have always looked to leaders for safety. Our nervous systems are wired to scan for cues of calm or threat in those who hold authority or responsibility. A leader’s body language, voice tone and emotional presence signal whether the environment is safe enough to think, create and take risks.

When leaders model regulation, compassion and confidence, they naturally down-regulate fear responses across their teams. Our Neuro-Somatic Coaching and Breath Training for Wellbeing, Resilience and Performance programmes translate this science into practice — equipping leaders with micro-skills to steady the nervous system, access clarity under pressure and communicate from calm authority.

Modern workplaces may look different from early tribes, but the biology remains. Understanding leadership through this evolutionary and neurobiological lens reminds us that effective leadership starts with internal steadiness. Safety is the foundation of performance — and it can be trained.

Supporting Sustainable Leadership

How leaders understand and regulate their stress and emotions, how they refuel and recovery as well as how they manage their resources of focus, attention, energy and resilience directly shapes the climate and the experience of their team. Supporting the human behind the job title is not indulgence; it’s a strategic investment that protects people, performance, purpose, profit and planet.

Deloitte (2023) reported that 64% of managers considered leaving their job to protect their wellbeing, while Mental Health UK’s Burnout Report (2025) found that:

34% of managers experience high or extreme stress “always” or “often”;
21% needed time off work due to mental health issues caused by pressure;
29% believe better support and training could prevent burnout.

These figures reveal both the scale of the issue and the opportunity. Investing in leadership wellbeing is a direct investment in performance, retention and culture.

Sustainable leadership is about supporting the human system within the organisational system. When leaders thrive, the ripple effects reach teams, customers, communities and culture. Sustaining leadership starts by sustaining the leader — because wellbeing, engagement and performance are inseparable.