Leader and Employee Well-Being: Identifying Strategies and Overcoming Barriers

Supporting employee well-being is increasingly critical not only for attracting and retaining employees, but also for encouraging performance. Yet, many leaders and organizations are ill-equipped to effectively foster well-being. This symposium brings together stellar junior and senior academics who will present novel research insights on how to promote and support workplace well-being. Specifically, the set of papers included in the symposium challenge erroneous assumptions about well-being, such as whether and how disclosure of mental health challenges backfires, or whether employees should be solely responsible for maintaining their well-being. Moreover, the papers explore a critical yet often overlooked challenge around workplace well-being, namely, how the well-being of leaders is as, if not more important for supporting the well-being of those they lead. Taken together, this symposium underscores the importance of overcoming barriers to workplace well-being and offers research-driven solutions for protecting the well-being of both leaders and employees.