What does wellbeing mean to you?

Ailie Shackleton is Head of Content Marketing at Impact

A team icebreaker that changed the conversation on wellbeing

At the start of our virtual team meetings, we always make time for an icebreaker. It might seem like a small thing, but it's a deliberate leadership choice – they’re unpredictable, to the outside eye totally random, but they’re an established 15 minutes of our working week that connect our global team way beyond deadlines, projects and inboxes.

As World Wellbeing Week approached, we decided to explore a simple question:

What does wellbeing mean to you?

The answers were varied, personal and surprisingly revealing. But before we get to them, it's worth asking a bigger question.

What is wellbeing?

Wellbeing is about thriving, not just surviving. Wellbeing is deeply personal and as individuals we have ultimate responsibility for our own health and wellness. But wellbeing doesn't exist in a vacuum.

The environments we work in, the relationships around us and the culture we experience all influence our ability to perform, adapt and stay resilient. This is why wellbeing isn't just a personal responsibility or an HR initiative. It's a leadership issue. Leaders may not be responsible for making people happy, but they play a significant role in shaping the conditions in which people can thrive. Wellbeing is a combination of three interconnected elements: physical health, mental health and social health.

With that in mind, we turned the question back on ourselves “what does wellbeing mean to you?” The answers were personal, but collectively they revealed something important about the role leaders play in supporting wellbeing at work.

Social connection

Working from home, living life through screens and busy schedules are part of life, but isolation can creep up on you. One team member makes a point to take some time each day to call someone, even just saying hello for five minutes can make a huge difference.

Routine

Another colleague talked about starting each day with a cafetière of coffee. Not because coffee itself creates wellbeing, but because the ritual provides a moment to pause and check in. Do I need to slow down today? Refocus? Gather energy? If they’re away and miss the routine, coming back to it provides a sense of wellbeing.

Place

For one person, wellbeing is closely tied to a mountain range near their home. It's a place that provides perspective, calm and clarity. Even when they can't physically be there, simply recalling the sights, sounds and sensations helps restore a sense of balance.

Appreciating the details

Another gets hyper focused on what’s happening around them. The blossom on a tree. A child's expression while listening to a story. The excitement of a dog chasing a ball. These moments help shift attention away from anxiety and back towards what's happening right now.

Balance

For some, wellbeing is about noticing what helps and what doesn't. Exercise. Meditation. Eating well. Not perfection. Just paying attention to what increases energy and making choices accordingly.

Kindness

One colleague shared a story about buying a coffee for a cyclist who had forgotten their wallet. It reminded them that kindness can come in all guises, it doesn’t have to be financial; it can be any gesture that makes a significant impact on someone’s day.

Exercise

One response was beautifully simple: "Exercise makes me feel capable, even when everything else is going wrong." Sometimes wellbeing doesn't need a more complicated explanation than that!

Looking across the responses, although people talked about routine, exercise, kindness, places and moments of calm – there was a core theme: connection. Connection to people, to places and to themselves. And that's where the leadership lesson began to emerge.

Key elements of wellbeing

There are three key elements to wellbeing. Physical, mental and social health. Social health is the third pillar of wellbeing, yet it is often the least discussed. While organisations often focus on physical health initiatives or mental health support, leaders have an enormous influence over social health through the everyday experience they create for their teams. Do people feel included? Do they feel comfortable asking for help? Do they have opportunities to connect beyond transactional conversations? These are leadership questions, not wellbeing programme questions.

How leaders can support wellbeing at work

Social health is key to wellbeing. It is the quality of our relationships, the sense of belonging we experience and the support we feel from others. And leaders can actively influence it. They can listen, shape the conversations, influence whether people feel included and create opportunities to connect beyond the day-to-day.

Our wellbeing icebreaker

What did I take from these 15 minutes? Our wellbeing icebreaker turned into a double win. In the moment it felt like a virtual hug, offering practical insights and watching my colleagues mentally transported to a place of calm. But as I started to write this blog, I appreciated how a short conversation strengthened our social health as a team. It reminded me that leaders don't build wellbeing by removing every challenge. They build it by creating the conditions that help people meet those challenges without becoming depleted. Sometimes that starts with strategy, culture or organisational design. But sometimes it can be a simple question. So if you're looking to strengthen wellbeing within your team, try our icebreaker and ask: "What does wellbeing mean to you?"