In an article published in Coaching Today magazine, Ana highlights the importance of wellbeing as a foundation for all coaching work 

They discuss the significance of coaching for wellbeing and its potential to create social impact. Wellbeing should be seen as the foundation of all coaching work, integrating various dimensions of human experience rather than focusing solely on specific aspects. They discuss the importance of integrating wellbeing into all aspects of life, not as a luxury, but as an essential component of human experience.

Dr Nacif advocates for a compassionate, client-centred approach that values the client’s journey and personal experience over rigid goal-setting or quick fixes. She also warns about the dangers of commoditisation of wellbeing in the era of social media, warning against unrealistic expectations and the potential alienation of those without resources.

Read the full article here.

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Individually-led interventions make no significant difference to employees

Far too often, I find myself questioning the ethical implications of my work as a coach in organisations, especially when the topic is wellbeing. The tension between individual choices and chronic systemic issues that are often at the heart of a person’s wellbeing at work pose several difficult questions – not least, whether I’m part of the problem by condoning a system trying to shift the accountability to individuals when the root causes sit firmly within the wider context.

Research has shown repeatedly that individual interventions, which address the symptoms but not the causes of distress among employees, are not likely to have any significant results. A recent study from Oxford University looked at the data from over 46 336 employees across 233 organisations, who participated in individual‐level wellbeing interventions, including resilience training, mindfulness and the use of wellbeing apps. The study found that those who participated in these wellbeing activities were no better off than those who didn’t. In some cases, it had the opposite effect to the one intended; for example, workplace resilience and mindfulness training had a slightly negative impact on employees’ self-rated mental health.

This is because individual-level interventions do not tackle the causes of distress in the workplace, such as a culture of working long hours, back-to-back calls with no breaks, or feeling overwhelmed due to unrealistic workloads and deadlines. In some cases, processes driven by targets, excessive bureaucracy, and toxic management practices can be simultaneously a symptom and a cause of wellbeing issues.

Individual-level interventions, such as coaching, if not part of a wider organisational wellbeing strategy that engages in scrutinizing and changing harmful workplace practices, can shift the accountability (and blame) onto individuals. Recognising what is within and outside the control of individuals is crucial to avoid their further harm.

If used effectively and as part of wider initiatives throughout the organisation, coaching can influence the system and raise awareness among individuals, teams and communities. It can be used as a tool, enabling organisations to develop and implement potential solutions and/or mitigating strategies across teams or the whole organisation. For example, group and team coaching can be used to bring together leaders and managers across functions and hierarchical boundaries to discuss unhelpful work practices and changes that can positively affect the wellbeing of staff members. This includes autonomy, flexibility, psychological safety, and supportive management – and coaching can help develop these.

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Trying to improve the wellbeing of people in your organisation? Make sure you include management leadership style and workload in your wellbeing strategy.

A senior leader in a global organisation recently told me during a coaching conversation that her pace of work is so frantic that she is barely keeping her head above water, let alone making time for reflection and self-care. On top of a heavy workload, she deals with a high level of uncertainty and unpredictability, due to internal and external changes, compounded by a volatile political and economic environment. This scenario will be familiar to many leaders and managers across all sectors, and indeed, to employees at all levels. Such an intense pace of work negatively affects individuals, teams and organisations.

A high workload and poor management style are the main factors influencing employees’ wellbeing. The link between management/leadership style and the wellbeing of employees is clear. For example, a recent study found that transformational leadership has the highest overall impact on employees’ positive mental health, whereas destructive leadership has the opposite effect, significantly influencing negative mental health. Transformational leaders seek to inspire and engage with their team, whereas the destructive leadership style is associated with behaviours displayed by toxic leadership. This can be characterised by bullying, coercion and manipulation.

It is important to recognise the role environmental factors can play in shaping leaders’ behaviours and approaches. Undue pressure may push leaders into survival mode, reducing their ability to lead with intention and self-regulation. In fact, evidence shows that leaders who receive support for stress and wellbeing are more likely to relieve employees’ stress and positively influence wellbeing. On the other hand, if they feel unable to cope, they can become ‘absent’, by effectively checking out of their leadership duties and activities. Absentee leadership is one of the most common types of destructive leadership styles, leaving teams with insufficient support, direction, engagement and lack of psychological safety. In my coaching practice, this seems to be a common phenomenon over the past year, as organisations navigate a turbulent and uncertain environment. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a silver lining attached to this scenario. Leaders end up feeling exhausted and teams feel neglected and stressed.

Despite the evidence, not all organisations factor leadership style (and other systemic issues, such as heavy workloads) into their wellbeing strategies. According to CIPD data, organisations tend to prioritise mental health and stress management. Undoubtedly, these are important issues but, in some instances, it can be a case of ‘shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted’.

A strategic approach would allow organisations to address some of the fundamental factors influencing employees’ wellbeing whilst widening the scope of leadership and management development. It would also consider the employee lifecycle, providing a more personalised offer in recognition of the fact that stress and workload concerns impact people differently. Working parents, carers, people living with long-term conditions, women and men in various life stages will have specific wellbeing needs which, if met, will allow them to flourish in the workplace. Organisations will benefit from having better leaders, better managers, and better teams.

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Recently, I was invited to be a guest panellist on the AoEC (Academy of Executive Coaching) podcast episode Coaching for Social Impact: The Handprint of Benefit. Talking alongside the host George Warren and guest panellist Tracy Sinclair, we explored the intersection of social change and coaching.

Coaching for Social Impact is a form of coaching that focuses on helping individuals, organisations, and communities create positive and lasting social change. It combines traditional coaching techniques in the context of social issues, fostering personal and collective growth, and achieving impactful outcomes.

Coaching has traditionally focused on individual change, and targeted to the privileged few, who are able to invest in it. But, thankfully, this perception is changing and coaching is also being recognised as a tool to support systemic and societal changes, in communities and organisations. There is growing evidence about the benefit of coaching in a variety of settings, such as health, social care, education, to name just a few, and more effort needs to be put into fully resourcing and evaluating such programmes.

In this podcast, we dive deep into the topic, discussing: What does social change mean in today’s world?, How does it relate to individual development through coaching?, and How can coaches act as agents of social and systemic change?

Join in the conversation and let us know your thoughts.

You can view the video here, or listen here.

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It’s the morning of that critical board meeting and you get up damp with sweat, your head spinning, worrying over and over about your presentation and the failure it will inevitably be. You drag yourself out of bed, wondering what you’ll do when everyone ‘finally finds out you’re not up to the job’. Sounds familiar?

If you’ve been battling with impostor syndrome, you’re not alone. No matter how on your own you may feel, loads of others feel the same. Even well-known, accomplished people have considered themselves impostors. The Hall of Fame of Impostor Syndrome hosts Albert Einstein, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, and Hollywood actress Emma Watson. Not a bad crowd to mix with, eh?

Impostor syndrome was first described by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Ament Imes in 1978, when they identified this phenomenon in high-achieving women. In fact, Clance named it impostor phenomenon as opposed to syndrome, as she didn’t want women to be pathologised. Well, that wasn’t to be, and impostor syndrome is how most people refer to feelings of self-doubt and the fear of being exposed as a fraud. Although women are significantly overrepresented when it comes to impostor syndrome, men also experience it.

For those in the grip of impostor syndrome, success can come at a high price, with feelings of anxiety, fear, and self-doubt. In some cases, stress responses seriously impact the person’s wellbeing. An obsession with work, putting in long hours and great effort, in an attempt to overcome feelings of fraud and fear of failure, can cause emotional exhaustion and burnout. Not surprisingly, many of these individuals are perfectionists demanding extremely high standards of themselves, setting stretching goals, and holding rigid ideas of success, while striving to be the best among their peers.

Their quest for high achievement can be characterised by:

• Superwoman/Superman drive: wanting everything to be perfect in all aspects of their lives
• Fear of failure: feeling the need to achieve the highest standard in everything because failing is not an option, as it comes with feelings of shame and humiliation
• Discounting the positive: regardless of how much praise they receive, they still find evidence to ‘prove’ that their success is not real or warranted
• Success to fail: anxiety that being successful will only increase the demand for ever greater achievement feeding a vicious cycle of fear of failure

If you recognise yourself in this, it is important not to suffer alone but to ask for help if you can’t manage by yourself, especially as depression and anxiety can accompany impostor syndrome.

Employers wanting to support their staff are advised to provide wellbeing services, such as coaching, mentoring, and counselling, which can bring down the prevalence of impostor syndrome in the organisation. In addition, fostering a culture of interpreting mistakes as learning, not failure, can be highly supportive too.

Tips for how to manage impostor feelings:

1. Slow down

You’re kidding, right? No, I’m not. If you’re caught up in the ‘busyness’ of everyday life and working yourself into oblivion, it’ll be hard for you to feel and manage your emotions in a healthy way.

2. Take stock

Recognise and celebrate your achievements. It’s easy to go from one thing to the next, without savouring the moment. When was the last time you gave yourself a pat on the back and celebrated a personal or professional achievement?

3. Create a new story

What’s the story you’ve been telling yourself about your abilities, skills, experience and contribution? Take time with this: write down your account of yourself, or draw, paint, write a poem, or a play –use any method you fancy to capture your narrative. Then take time to think about a new story: what would you like it to be?

4. Create small moments of joy in your daily life

What are the little things that bring you joy? A hot cup of coffee? A walk in the park? playing with your children? Reading a poem? Make sure you include – and savour – a few moments of joy in your everyday life: everyday means every day!

5. Accept yourself

Perhaps there are steps you can take to better manage your impostor syndrome but, remember, you’re fine just as you are – impostor syndrome or not. Think about all the things you have achieved, potentially because you had the energy and drive to achieve them. Be compassionate and celebrate yourself. And, if your impostor syndrome is getting too much and is affecting your wellbeing, don’t soldier on. Reach out for support, from friends and family, work colleagues, a coach or mentor, or a counsellor.

Whatever you do, remember: you are enough. You deserve all the success you have, have had and will have. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not even yourself. Now go on and write that list of achievements. Enjoy!

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Is the pursuit of wellbeing killing the joy in you?

The world has changed, dramatically. One of the benefits of the new world order is that more people
are talking about wellbeing and, hopefully, some are also taking steps to improve it.

Wellbeing in the era of Covid-19 has many dimensions, from how to negotiate boundaries when
working from home to how to have sex safely (not kissing and wearing a face mask help, according
to guidelines by the Terrence Higgins Trust), but the latter is a subject for another blog.

Buried in the plethora of tips and advice on how to improve wellbeing, I can’t help but think that we
are in danger of setting people up for failure by giving them a list of ‘wellbeing tasks’ which are
unattainable and, potentially, not even helpful.

Wellbeing is highly personal and, while we all recognise the foundation stones for wellbeing, backed
up by available research in the field, how each one of us engages with these principles is up to us.

Time and again, I hear my clients saying they feel guilty and inadequate because they are not able to
do everything they think they should be doing to achieve greater levels of wellbeing. It’s not
surprising as the list can be endless. Whilst it can be enjoyable (for some) to embrace all the
different aspects of wellbeing, for others, an endless wellbeing ‘to do list’ can become a draining
chore.

One way of dealing with wellbeing overwhelm is to do less, not more. One of the wellbeing models I
use in my practice, both with individuals and organisations, has only six areas (PERMAH):
Positive emotions
Engagement (fully immersing yourself in an activity; being in flow)
Relationships (strong and positive connections)
Meaning (a sense of purpose)
Achievement (accomplishment)
Health (eating well, moving regularly, sleeping)

Now, how you incorporate these different aspects of wellbeing is deeply personal to you and not a
to-do list. Teams and organisations wanting to improve the wellbeing of their staff also need to take
time to reflect on how they could potentially foster these aspects in the workplace, whilst
considering individual differences and needs. You don’t even need PERMA do that (but I think it is a
useful model).

A good place to start is to reflect on what wellbeing means to you. Take notes if that helps, or draw a
picture, or write a poem. Do whatever suits you in terms of capturing your own version of wellbeing.
From there, think about small daily steps you can take to connect with your personal vision of
wellbeing. I’m a big fan of small things: they can have a significant impact on our lives.

I’ll give you an example of how this approach has helped one of my clients. I will call her Lucy (not
her real name, of course). One of her daily wellbeing to-do lists read something like this: yoga (1
hour), cook at least one meal from scratch a day (1 hour, including sourcing ingredients – this could
take even longer depending on the menu); meditation (30 minutes); read for pleasure (30 minutes);
talk to a friend (30 minutes); paint (30 minutes); write a reflective journal (15 minutes). More
generically, she also had on her list: spend quality time with the children and my partner. All good for wellbeing, right? Of course, but instead of feeling energised and content, Lucy found herself
totally exhausted trying to keep up with her schedule. She also felt frustrated as some of these
activities kept being postponed to the next day, only to be neglected once more as life got in the
way. This is not to say that Lucy won’t be able to build these things into her life, but she may decide
to scale down her choices, so that they bring her joy, instead of misery. Before making these
decisions, I invited Lucy to think about the small things in her life that brought her joy.
Unsurprisingly, many of these little things take nearly no time at all and bring us joy every day, but
we have to notice them. This puts us in a better place to deal with the unavoidable adversities of life
and to make choices about how we want to live out our wellbeing in a way that is kind,
compassionate and generous – not like a strict task master.

There are no three, five, seven, or ten ways to wellbeing. There are billions of ways to wellbeing — as
many as there are people on the planet. Your way is unique and will bring you joy. So give yourself a
break, do less and enjoy more.

• PERMAH is a wellbeing theory developed by Martin Seligman, one of the founders
  of positive psychology. According to this model, these are the five core elements of
  psychological wellbeing. This model has been empirically tested and can be used to
  improve the wellbeing of individuals, teams and organisations.

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When resilience is not good for you

In my professional life, not one week goes by without me receiving a report, some academic
research, an article or a think-piece about resilience – what it is, how to increase it, how to use it,
how to share it…ad infinitum. I’m a big fan of resilience as a concept that supports people through
challenging times. However, even before Covid-19 hit us hard – whether personally, professionally,
or both, changing our world forever – there were already issues around resilience being viewed as a
silver bullet.
Resilience is our capacity to recover from adversity, and research shows that it can support
wellbeing levels, reduce stress and improve our health, amongst other things. The good news is that
we can learn to be more resilient, and increasing our resilience levels will support our overall
wellbeing. The bad news is that resilience is not the answer to chronic stress and fatigue, neither is it
a panacea to systemic organisational shortcomings and detrimental work practices that harm people
and organisations. Helping employees to become more resilient is a positive move, providing it is
part of a wider wellbeing strategy designed to support individuals and teams which also takes into
consideration the potential internal changes necessary to enable people to flourish in the
organisation. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and employees are being sent to ‘resilience
training’ with a view to giving them the tools ‘to get on with it’, despite difficult challenges that are
well beyond their control.
Resilience is a well-researched concept and a vast field with various models and theories, which goes
beyond the scope of this article. Among many approaches available is the Penn Resilience
Programme (University of Pennsylvania), which asserts that there are six variables to resilience: self-
awareness, self-regulation, optimism, mental agility, self-efficacy and connection.
Resilience variables
Self-awareness is about how aware we are of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and what
actions we take as a result.

Self-regulation is our ability not only to notice what is going on for us, but also to change the
outcome, for example, you notice you are getting angry with a work situation and, instead of
reacting, you are able to press the pause button and decide how to respond instead.
Optimism is about our belief in a better future.
Mental agility is our ability to look at a scenario through different lenses and from different
angles, assessing how to solve problems and move forward.
Self-efficacy is a sense of our ability to do something and an awareness of our strengths and
capacities to master our environment
Connection is having people around us whom we trust, who are supportive and on whom we
can rely.

Developing resilience

Work can be done at both personal and group level to develop these characteristics and
increase resilience in individuals and their teams. However, we have to be mindful that
developing resilience is only part of an organisation’s strategy to support employees’
wellbeing. If the setbacks and challenges experienced in the workplace are symptomatic of
deep and ingrained damaging work practices, no amount of resilience training and
development that will change that. Resources, including time and money, are better off being
spent on developing wellbeing practices that may start to address some of the systemic
issues present in the organisation. Resilience is great, but it’s only one piece of the jigsaw.

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