Cultivating A Thriving Company Culture: Strategies For Mindful Leaders

Fostering employee wellbeing and engagement through empathetic leadership and psychological safety is vital for building resilient, innovative teams

This article covers:

  • The importance of positive company culture for success in the digital age, and high employee disengagement levels 
  • Advice on cultivating a thriving culture through self-awareness, empathy, clear expectations, psychological safety, and continuous review 
  • The need for purpose-driven, human-centric leadership prioritizing values over profits, with examples of visionary leaders

In today’s volatile and rapidly changing business landscape, a positive company culture is increasingly recognized as a critical driver of resilience, innovation, and overall organizational success. 

Indeed, according to Crowe Global’s Art of Smart content methodology, boldness, and innovation are two of the four pillars on which smarter decisions are founded. Top decision-makers must be bold and innovative to triumph in the 21st century because old working methods are inadequate and outdated for the digital era.

However, even the most well-intentioned leaders can inadvertently allow toxic behaviors and assumptions to take root, choking the growth of their teams and business as a whole. This statement is especially true in the digital age and post-pandemic world of remote and hybrid work, where problematic dynamics can fester undetected for longer.

Alarmingly, Gallup’s most recent State of the Global Workplace report, published in June 2024, found that 77 percent of the global workforce is disengaged at work—meaning over three-quarters of employees worldwide are emotionally disconnected from work and less likely to be productive. By comparison, at “best-practice organizations,” 70 percent of workers are engaged. Meanwhile, active disengagement alone is estimated to cost the global economy $8.9 trillion annually.

Notably, the 23 percent of actively engaged workers in the latest report—gleaned from data from more than 183,000 business units across 53 industries and 90 countries—is the same figure as the previous year. Yet that was a record high since Gallup started publishing this annual research in 2009. There is, then, a huge opportunity for organizations to improve their connections with their staff and achieve a win-win scenario.

Unsurprisingly, the Gallup study highlights strong evidence that reducing the number of disengaged workers drives positive outcomes (customer loyalty, sales, productivity, wellbeing, profitability, and organizational citizenship) and decreases negative outcomes (absenteeism, theft, quality defects, and accidents) within businesses. So, how can companies improve worker engagement and culture?