Purpose-Driven Workplace: How Leaders Connect People to Meaning, Trust, and Performance

Full Webinar Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the speakers’ meaning and conversational tone.

Welcome and Introduction to The Great Place to Work Effect

Anne Cesak: The theme for this year, with our Insights Webinar series, is The Great Place to Work Effect. This is the idea that great leaders build trust, trust shapes culture, and culture drives performance.

As you can see here, these resources are available in the webinar resources section. If you want to pick them up, please do so.

Great starts with leadership. Why are leaders important? Because the day-to-day experience that employees have is shaped by the leaders they work with.

Experience shapes culture, and culture drives performance.

I’m going to build out The Great Place to Work Effect just a little bit. When we look at leadership, Great Place to Work has identified nine high-trust leader behaviours, and that is really the focus of these Insights Webinars. It is about leader behaviours. Today, we are looking at inspiring and speaking, and we are really linking that to an organization’s purpose, because it matters to employees and has a high impact on the employee experience.

We have done webinars on some of the other leader behaviours as well. You can go back to our website and check those out. Those nine high-trust leader behaviours impact the experience employees have day to day. This is where we look at trust, pride, camaraderie, and For All. What kind of experience is everyone having? It is so important not to generalize, but to ask what kind of experience everyone is having, not just the average employee.

Then we look at culture. I like to look at culture as an outcome. It is an outcome of the behaviours we reward, encourage, and ignore. It is how things get done in our organization. It is the norms and traditions. That is culture.

Ultimately, culture drives performance. Whether you are a for-profit, nonprofit, or charitable organization, all organizations have performance metrics they track. Some are mentioned here, such as profitability, productivity, efficiency, attraction, retention, or impact on the communities you serve.

So again, great starts with leadership. Leadership shapes experience, experience shapes culture, and culture drives performance. That is The Great Place to Work Effect in a nutshell.

Now I’m going to introduce the people you actually came here to listen to, not me.

We have Robert Burko, CEO and Founder of Elite Digital, a full-service digital marketing agency providing a wide range of services to help businesses succeed in the digital world, including website design, graphic design, SEO services, custom software development, and paid social media advertising. Welcome, Robert. We’re happy to have you here today.

Robert Burko: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Anne Cesak: Next, we have Justin Weaver, Manager of Diversity and Culture at Raymond James. Raymond James provides trusted financial advice, personalized wealth management, and sophisticated investment solutions for individuals, families, and institutions across Canada. Great to have you here, Justin.

We also have Thanh Nguyen, VP of Total Rewards at StackAdapt, which is an advertising platform that enables users to distribute and promote content using real-time, data-driven audience targeting. Thanh, glad to have you here as well.

What Is Top of Mind for Leaders Right Now?

Anne Cesak: The first thing I’m going to do is ask all three of our panellists individually: what’s rattling around in your brain right now? As a leader working with people, what are you thinking about? Maybe what is keeping you up at night? Robert, I’ll start with you.

Robert Burko: Great question. My brain is a scary place, so let’s talk about what is rattling around in there.

I have been doing this for a very long time, so I have seen a lot of transformation. I remember when social media was new, not to date myself, but I remember when that did not exist. I was featured in a CBC documentary about it being new, and it changed everything in my industry.

Now we are on the precipice of a new evolution, which is the AI evolution. Obviously, that is changing everything. It is going to touch my industry and every industry.

So how do we navigate that? At Elite, our big metaphor is: AI is the wand, and you are the wizard. It is those two things working together that make it special.

That is how we are approaching it. But AI is changing so fast and evolving so rapidly that we need to make sure we stay ahead of the curve and that our staff are trained on how to use it. It is a tool, or a toolbox. How do we make sure we are set up for success in this AI revolution that is upon us?

It is happening fast, and there is no rule book. There is no research I can read that says, “Here is what happened in the past.” This is all new, uncharted territory. I often say we are on the train building the track, and the track is changing as we go. So it is an interesting time, for sure.

Anne Cesak: Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Justin, how about you? What is rattling around in your brain right now?

Justin Weaver: Absolutely. I think top of mind for me is how much change people are navigating right now. There is so much economic uncertainty. Like Robert said, all of the investment in AI is causing some uncertainty and anxiety. There are also a lot of shifting expectations at work.

All of these things do not just show up in the business; they show up in people’s personal lives too. It is becoming increasingly harder to separate your personal life and your professional life.

What I am constantly coming back to is: how do we support people through change in a way that is practical and empathetic, while still helping our organization stay focused and move forward?

A big part of that is preparing leaders to have those conversations, especially when they do not have all of the answers. It is important that we equip leaders with the skills and competencies to navigate complex conversations, so they have the confidence to create space for honest and open dialogue. That way, people feel supported and are able to adapt.

Anne Cesak: Thank you for sharing that. This is all going to play really well when we start talking about purpose, because uncertainty and how we anchor people can be really helped by a stated purpose and goal.

Thanh, how about you? What is rattling around in your brain right now?

Thanh Nguyen: What is top of mind for me right now is how to manage growth, because there is a lot of noise in the market at the moment. I think our leaders have done a really great job of creating a stable foundation where people can focus on their work.

What we are trying to focus on is, first, hiring. We have a lot of roles open, so we want to hire. Second is defining roles and responsibilities within the organization. The third is positioning our leaders for success.

That is on my professional side. On my personal side, I just came back from maternity leave, so top of mind for me is our baby every day after work. So I would say that is what is top of mind for me personally.

Anne Cesak: Amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

Poll: Where Organizations Are with Purpose

Anne Cesak: Before we get into our first question for the panellists, we are going to do a poll and get everyone who is participating engaged.

Ethen is going to pull up a poll. We are really going to be talking about purpose. The question is: in your organization, which best describes where you are today when it comes to employees and purpose, and the organization itself and purpose?

The options are:

• Purpose is clear and consistently felt.
• Purpose is clear, but not consistently felt.
• Purpose is unclear or inconsistently communicated.
• Not sure; it varies by leader.

Today we are talking about inspiring and speaking, and ensuring people understand more about the organization, where it is going, and how you are going to get there.

I will ask Ethen to give that a minute, close it up, and then we can share the results.

Okay, here we go. In your organization, which best describes where you are today?

Purpose is clear but not consistently felt has 47% of the votes. Purpose is clear and consistently felt has 31%. Purpose is unclear or inconsistently communicated is at 17%. And 6% are not sure.

Almost 50% of respondents said purpose is clear but not consistently felt. I think that is really interesting and a great jumping-off point for us.

Our research at Great Place to Work shows that purpose is important for all generations, and it is especially important for younger employees. If someone on this call heard Tan say that StackAdapt has jobs open, they might go check out the organization. What are they going to do? They are going to go down a rabbit hole around the organization and see what it stands for. What is the purpose? What does the organization do? They are going to look at the website. They may use AI to aggregate that information and give them a picture of what the organization does.

That is really important. An organization needs to be able to articulate its purpose, because people looking for jobs are interested in that.

I think there are two ways for employees to really understand the impact of the work they do and the purpose behind it. First, in organizations where employees have contact with customers or the end beneficiaries of the work, they understand the end user. In some organizations, that can be more challenging when employees are further removed.

The other piece is leaders. All three of you mentioned leadership and how important it is. So this is where we are going to talk about leadership, purpose, and tying it all together.

What Inspiring Leadership Looks Like

Anne Cesak: Robert, I will start with you. When you think about inspiring leadership or inspiring leaders, what does that look like? What does that sound like in your organization?

Robert Burko: It is a great question because it is super important to us. I think leaders have to practise what they preach, and they have to be authentic.

An inspiring leader is someone who can lead by example. I have seen organizations where people talk about their manager and say, “My manager has no idea what I do day to day. How could they understand what I am going through?”

At Elite Digital, our leaders have done it. They have walked the walk. They have been in the trenches. And not only have they been in the trenches, but to a large extent, they stay in the trenches.

I have seen organizations where leaders are in their ivory tower, and I think it is hard to relate to that when they are in a different world. At Elite, that is not the case. Our leaders are approachable. I have an open-door policy.

One of the things we try to do is be authentic in everything we do and create an environment where people are set up for success, not only to do really good work but also to have fun while they are doing it.

I firmly believe people do their best work when they are passionate about what they are doing, when they are enjoying what they are doing, and when they love working with their co-workers.

Having leaders who cultivate a culture where everything is a team effort matters. The person to your left and the person to your right are also trying 110%. When everybody is in on it, and when the culture is strong enough that everybody knows what the organization is trying to do and what the organization stands for, you get a lot of momentum.

I often use a canoe example with our team. I say, if we all get in a canoe and I have very talented paddlers, but they are all paddling in different directions, what happens? We end up spinning in a circle in the middle of the lake.

When everybody has that vision, purpose, and focus, and everyone is paddling in the same direction, suddenly you are flying across the lake with amazing momentum.

That is really what our leaders do. They make sure everyone knows where we are, what we are trying to do, that we care for them, that we listen to them, and that we are creating a culture where people do not just want to get the job done. They want to get the job done well because they are proud of what they are doing for themselves, for our clients, and for the team.

Anne Cesak: Fantastic. Thank you. Justin, how about you? What does inspiring leadership look like in your organization?

Justin Weaver: Great question. At Raymond James, inspiring leadership shows up in how leaders connect people to outcomes. It is not so much about motivational speeches. It is really about making associates feel like they have a genuine stake in our success, because they do.

On a practical level, it sounds like leaders explaining not just what we are doing, but why it matters and how each person and each role contributes to that.

I think ownership is a key component. We need to make sure we are creating space for associates to shape how the work gets done. When people feel like they have a stake and ownership in the outcome, inspiration becomes easier. It is not just something that is communicated to them. They actually experience it.

That is something leaders cannot manufacture. People have to actually feel connected to it. So ownership is a key component.

Anne Cesak: I do not want to put words in your mouth, but I am hearing authenticity. People can see through someone who is saying things but maybe does not necessarily believe them. I am also hearing co-creation. It is not about a top-down approach.

We are going to talk in a few minutes about tactical communication strategies, but thank you for sharing that.

Thanh, how about you? What does inspiring leadership look like at StackAdapt?

Thanh Nguyen: At StackAdapt, inspiring leadership starts from day one. It starts when we hire a leader.

When we hire leaders, we look for bar-raisers. We look for someone who has built things from scratch and has innovated processes. But we also look for that rare combination of courage and humility.

When a leader joins the organization, we hand them our most treasured resource: our dynamic and nimble team.

I saw a recent reflection video that captured this perfectly. It challenged all of us to have the courage to live our values every day and for each other.

Internally, that means you hear a lot of things like, “Do you have time for a quick huddle?” “Let’s tackle this problem together.” “How can I help?” “How can I support?”

We want to make sure our leaders are constantly self-reflecting. When we try to innovate, we need to reflect. We are moving at an incredible pace as an organization.

We also push our leaders to have radical candour, transparency, and high support with our teams. When we hire talent, we do not just hire them for what they can do today. We hire them to grow with us, and we rely on our leaders to support that growth.

Anne Cesak: Great. What I am hearing from all three of you as well is that leadership and values are connected to helping people feel like they are part of the organization.

Sometimes we look at what organizations might call best practices, and we think we can translate them directly to our own organization. But really, it is about taking the best of what many organizations are doing and asking: how do we adapt that to our company? What is important to our employees and our clients?

Thank you all for sharing that.

Inspiring People Through Challenging Times

Anne Cesak: Justin, I am going to start with you because I think you mentioned this specifically. How can leaders continue inspiring people when we are going through challenging times? We have talked about uncertainty and unprecedented change. How do we make sure we are staying inspiring during that?

Justin Weaver: Excellent question. Going back to that theme of authenticity is important. To take that further, I would say transparency. But I think transparency has to be paired with clarity around what principles remain important.

For instance, at Raymond James over the past year, we experienced a significant leadership transition, and that naturally created some uncertainty.

What I appreciated was that our leaders did not try to overpromise or pretend they had all the answers. Instead, they were very clear on what was not going to change: our values, our priorities, our culture, and our focus on our clients.

They also reinforced that our success as an organization is not tied to just one individual. It is truly a collective contribution of all of our associates.

That balance is key. Leaders need to acknowledge uncertainty while grounding people in what remains stable. I think that is what builds optimism and credibility among leadership.

Anne Cesak: Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that.

Thanh, what would you like to add? How does this look in your organization? How do we make sure leaders can still inspire people when we are dealing with uncertainty?

Thanh Nguyen: For me, an inspiring leader is also someone who takes accountability and focuses on communication.

Like Justin said, we need to focus on communicating. As leaders, we accept that the world is not perfect in many different ways. We try to get ahead of tough conversations and look around the corner.

I also think it is a two-way street. It is a healthy reminder for leaders that by doing this, they also get better.

As leaders, we need to be comfortable when things are not clear right away. Waiting around or being silent is not good practice. Leaders can focus on communicating and being transparent with their teams.

As I mentioned, our leaders at our organization have done a really good job of building a stable foundation. By being transparent, communicating, and getting ahead of these conversations, over time the culture becomes more positive because people feel they have a strong foundation and consistency. They can trust their leaders.

That is how I think about inspiring leadership and how leaders can stay consistent during uncertain times.

Anne Cesak: Excellent. Something you triggered for me as you were speaking is that we need to remember leaders are employees too. When there is uncertainty or challenge, leaders also have to digest and process it themselves, and then show up for the employees they are supporting.

Thank you for sharing that.

Robert, how about you? You have been around for a while, so what have you learned?

Robert Burko: My answer is honesty. Brutal honesty and transparency.

That is really the key for us. We do not shy away from our challenges. I have seen CEOs take the stage during challenging times and it is all rainbows and unicorns. Everything is wonderful. The problem is that becomes lip service.

Once leaders or anyone on your team does not believe what is being said, it feels disingenuous and it falls apart. If you do not have honesty and transparency, especially in challenging times, it is hard for people to buy into what is happening.

At Elite, we make sure we do not run away from our problems. We face them head-on. I think that creates an environment where people understand how we are making decisions.

I often say employees at Elite never think we have done something that came out of left field, because they know what our values are. They understand how we make decisions. They understand what happens in the good times, the bad times, and the challenging times.

When you have that degree of transparency and people trust their leaders, they trust what I am saying. They know they are getting the honest truth. It is always easier to navigate the good times than the bad times, but in the bad times, it creates this culture of, “We are doing this together. We are all going to navigate these rocky waters together. We are going to hold hands and get through this.”

That degree of honesty inspires leaders and everybody else, because everyone understands that we are going to get through this together and we can believe what we are being told.

That level of sincerity, and that feeling that we are on this journey together through thick and thin, makes a world of difference in keeping people inspired. There is a better day tomorrow, and we are going to get through this.

At Elite, we approach that whether it is corporate challenges or personal challenges. Justin said it before: the lines are blurred. We talk about work-life balance, but there is work, there is life, and this is all in one big blender.

That is true for all of us. The world is a crazy place. So when we talk about challenging times, we are not just talking about our balance sheet. We are talking about, if this person is going through a challenging time, what can we as a team do to rally around them and help them? Helping that person is the same to me as helping the organization overall.

Anne Cesak: Absolutely. Back to what Justin said, and what you just reiterated: we cannot separate people. You do not leave your personal life behind when you turn on your computer or walk through the door. We are all human beings with many things going on in our lives.

Inspiration is about how we inspire people around us to work for the organization and our clients, but also how we see people as whole people.

Robert, to go back to what you were talking about, it is about the good times and the challenging times, and whether people trust. At Great Place to Work, we measure trust in organizations. Do I trust the people I work for? Do I feel they are credible? Do I feel they are sharing enough? And if they are not, am I asking questions? As employees, we can be involved in that as well.

Practical Ways Organizations Communicate Purpose

Anne Cesak: My next question is about very tactical things your organizations do when it comes to communicating.

We have talked about inspiring leadership and the behaviours of leaders. But tactically, how does that happen in your environments?

You can share whether you are fully remote, hybrid, or however your organization works. It is always helpful for people on the call to understand what your environment looks like and what specific ways you communicate that they might be able to take back.

Robert, I will start with you. What are some specific ways you communicate and inspire?

Robert Burko: We do quarterly town halls, which I think are very important. That is not just me and the leadership team standing up, reading off cue cards and giving a speech. We open the floor to everybody to ask questions.

I think that is really important because it is not only about what we as leaders want to say. It is about what people want to hear.

We have a saying at Elite: nothing is off limits. I tell everybody I keep no secrets. Part of the reason I keep no secrets is because it is easier for me. I do not have to remember what I have said or not said. I have said everything.

But more importantly, I believe we can only solve the challenging problems in front of us if we do it as a team. Nothing is done as an individual.

I love sports analogies. I say you play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back. Everything is a team game. If the team does not clearly know the game plan, if I march the players onto the field and they do not know where they are going, they are going to bump into each other.

We have quarterly town halls, we do social events, we do performance reviews, and we do all sorts of things. I also think one of the things we do that is special is we try to keep it conversational and not too corporate.

I do not think people want the official memo of our goals for this quarter. Especially at Elite, where I am lucky that everyone is so awesome and our culture is so special, people know that when I stand in front of them and talk, I am not reading a speech prepared for me by HR. I am speaking honestly and authentically from the heart about what I am thinking.

When that lands, they know they are getting genuine information, not a corporate, filtered version where they have to wonder what rosy picture is being painted.

The other thing I would say is frequent communication. Even between formal channels, there is always dialogue. People always know what is happening.

We are remote four days a week. Slack is always buzzing with information. Our company-wide channels are filled with activity, from fun social content and birthday wishes to corporate announcements and everything else.

We believe the best communication is honest, frequent communication. No one is sitting back wondering what is happening in the company. They know, and they know in real time. I think that makes it much more effective.

Anne Cesak: Justin, I saw you smile when Robert talked about corporate messaging. Tell us a little bit about what Raymond James does to communicate. What are the practical, tactical things that help with inspiration?

Justin Weaver: Definitely. I will share three quick habits I have noticed.

One is accessibility. At Raymond James, we are a relatively flat organization, and our leaders are pretty approachable. From the average employee, there may only be two or three levels between them and the most senior executives. I think that helps enable accessibility.

We also have town halls where people are invited to ask questions, as well as informal interactions. That accessibility and visibility really help build trust.

The second is inviting the perspectives of others. When associates bring forward questions, ideas, or challenges to leaders, oftentimes the leaders will ask the question back and say, “What do you think we should do?”

That promotes co-creation and operationalizes co-creation, as well as ownership.

The third is being intentional about connection. Robert, you mentioned this as well. How we design our internal events is something where we intentionally build connection.

We host an annual internal conference called the National Business Conference. The conference includes a lot of breakout sessions and business-related content, but there are also intentional social events built into it.

One year, one of the opening sessions was called “We’re Plaid You’re Here,” and everyone was encouraged to wear plaid shirts. It was a fun social function to help break the ice and help people get to know each other.

When you have that rapport and relationship with people, it is easier to share perspectives, ideas, and even challenge a leader because you have a relationship with them.

None of these things are overly complex, but they do make an impact, and they compound over time.

Anne Cesak: Awesome. Thank you. Thanh, how about you? What are some practical things your organization does?

Thanh Nguyen: My strategy is something I borrowed from the communications team. What they told me is to deliver the message directly and say it simply, without jargon.

For example, when you are communicating purpose, values, or vision, those things have a lot to do with belief and how people feel. It needs to come through as a feeling.

If the message does not seem simple enough or does not bring truth, then I keep iterating on the message over and over again. That is something I learned from the communications team.

Anne Cesak: I love that. Thank you.

You mentioned it, Robert mentioned it, and Justin smiled when Robert mentioned it: the jargon. What I am hearing is that for participants here, it is about speaking clearly and simply. That is where people feel inspired, because it is more relatable. We are speaking to each other in a conversational way, and we are not getting lost in acronyms and all of those kinds of things.

Poll: What Gets in the Way of Inspiring and Speaking Well?

Anne Cesak: Now we are going to do another quick poll.

You are all running businesses or working with leaders who are running businesses, so there are sometimes challenges. The question is: what most often gets in the way of inspiring and speaking well in your workplace?

Some of the options are:

• Leaders are stretched too thin.
• Messages change too often or priorities are not stable.
• Leaders do not want to say the wrong thing.
• There is not enough listening or dialogue.
• Other.

If there are other ways leaders are challenged in your organization when it comes to inspiring or speaking, you can share that as well.

While we are waiting for the poll to close, Justin, you said something about putting the question back to the person who asked it.

I had a manager I worked with once, who is still a really good friend of mine. I would ask her something, and she would say, “What do you think?” I got to a point where I said, “I just want the answer.” But it is a really important tool to get that person to think about what they would do and how they would approach it.

Justin Weaver: I think that is important because that is why you hire really smart and capable people. You hire them for their ideas and perspectives.

Anne Cesak: Exactly.

Okay, we will get Ethen to close the poll and see what some of the barriers are.

It is fairly evenly split. Leaders are stretched too thin, leaders fear saying the wrong thing, and there is not enough listening or dialogue are all at 27%. Messages change too often is also represented.

There is not one particular reason why this might be a challenge. But when we look at organizations, all of you have talked about trust. Thanh, I loved what you said about iteration. Maybe I said it this way and it did not land, so I am going to say it another way. You do not have to get it right the first time when you are talking to people. It is also about getting that feedback.

Measuring Employee Commitment and Understanding of Purpose

Anne Cesak: I would be remiss if I did not ask how you measure employees’ commitment to, or understanding of, purpose and the reason your organization does the work it does.

We also had a question that is related to this, and I think it is specific to Robert, but all of you can answer: Although you provide an opportunity for employees to ask questions during town halls, what do you do when they do not trust leadership enough to engage honestly?

So related to that, how do you measure employees’ commitment, understanding, or willingness?

Justin, I will start with you.

Justin Weaver: For sure.

We look at both participation and behaviours. One example is that during the month of May internally, we call it Raymond James Cares Month, because volunteerism is really important to the organization. That initiative is one of our most widely adopted initiatives.

We track it through things like volunteer hours and the number of causes and organizations our associates participate in or volunteer for.

We also provide associates with two dedicated volunteer days of paid time off that they can use specifically for volunteering. We see very strong utilization of those days, which tells us associates are connecting with that aspect of our purpose and volunteerism.

Beyond that, we do more traditional things as well, like engagement surveys. On the engagement survey, we have a question where we specifically ask whether associates see a connection between the work they do and broader organizational goals.

That is one of the ways we can see whether it is translating. When people have performance goals, do they see how their part contributes to the whole?

So it is less about one single metric and more about looking at various metrics and patterns over time.

Anne Cesak: Thank you. Robert, how about you? Going back to that question that came in, how do you make sure employees have the opportunity to engage honestly?

Robert Burko: We do a couple of things.

First, I mentioned that we have quarterly town halls. We also have an anonymous feedback form. If someone wants to say something but is afraid to put their name on it for any reason, I do not want them to hold back.

I would like to believe that in our company, no one is afraid of anything. But I do not want someone to not say something because they do not want to put their name on it.

Open, transparent dialogue is key. We can solve every problem we are faced with if we know it is a problem. So we allow anonymous feedback because we want to hear everything, the good and the bad.

We also do the obvious things, like engagement surveys. I like that I get KPIs, charts, and a lovely presentation from our amazing HR director. That is wonderful.

But to me, what matters even more is the day to day. I get to see whether people understand the purpose behind what they are doing through their daily collaboration with others.

We had a new employee start a couple of weeks ago, and I check in with everybody when they start. I ask, “How is it going?” because it is a great pulse check for me.

The response was, “I cannot believe that every single person I met in the organization, in any department, said, ‘Welcome. Let me know if you need anything. I am here to help. Is there anything I can do to make this better?’”

They could not believe that no matter who they spoke to, everybody was eager to help, embrace them into our culture, and welcome them to the team.

Engagement surveys aside, when new staff show up and feel that sense of belonging, and feel like they are joining the canoe with us, that means everything to me.

We also have a long history of supporting causes, including 12 years of donating to SickKids. When people understand that the work they do empowers the organization to do good things, regardless of whether they are working on a nonprofit pro bono client or something else, that matters.

I always say we are fortunate enough to use our power for good. I want to make the world a better place. The fact that the entire team at Elite understands we are on that mission and that we practise what we preach makes a big difference.

In the day to day, when I walk around the office or chat with people, you can see it in their eyes, their work, and their collaboration. That is the big checkmark I am looking for.

Anne Cesak: Amazing. I will use the expressions “leading” and “lagging” measures. The survey is a lagging measure because it is based on their experience, and it is really important to get that data. It is also important to get leading data. Where are we going? What can I nip in the bud? What do I see bubbling up, and how can I get at that?

Thanh, how about you? How do you measure employees’ understanding and commitment?

Thanh Nguyen: I look at constructive feedback or criticism. When people actively raise concerns or suggestions for improvement, it means they still deeply care and are invested in the process.

I really fear silence. If I do not hear anything, and there is no feedback or constructive feedback, that worries me. When people want to make changes, that friction means they still care about the outcome and still want to contribute to the outcome.

That is how I measure commitment and how engaged employees are.

Anne Cesak: That is so interesting and so helpful. Silence does not necessarily mean good or bad. In fact, it could mean something is not being raised.

It is important not to take silence as a sign that everything is fine. We need to make sure people are actually sharing constructive feedback.

You have all talked about how important it is to be in this together. Leaders share that message, and employees share that message with each other. It is about how we care about each other and how important it is that we are working together.

Developing Leaders Who Can Inspire and Communicate

Anne Cesak: We have just a couple of minutes left, so I will ask one more question of the panellists.

We have talked a lot about leaders. Inspiring and speaking is a leadership behaviour. How do you develop leaders? Is this something you can develop, or is it innate?

Robert, you came off mute first, so what do you think?

Robert Burko: For me, the most important thing is creating an environment that lets people thrive.

I am fortunate that the leaders around me are the smartest, most awesome and amazing people ever, so I am lucky to have amazing co-workers. But creating an environment where people can thrive is key.

Who is responsible for making Elite Digital the best place to work? Everybody. Me, the leaders, the staff — everybody is empowered.

We ask for ideas from everybody. When someone starts at Elite, I say right away, “There are some companies where they tell you to put your head down and do your job, because that is what you were hired to do. At Elite, that is not the case. We want you to raise your hand. We want you to say, ‘I have an idea. I have an idea on how we can make this place better. I see you doing it this way — have you explored that way?’”

That does not mean we always do it, but we invite everybody to the table. It is everybody’s responsibility to make this the best place it can be.

People can work anywhere they want. People choose to work at Elite Digital because they love it. The reason they love it is because everybody is in on making it the best place to work.

That is a real secret sauce for us. Once you are in, once you love it, and once you know that your job is not only to love it but also to create that environment for the next person, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of being a great place where people want to be.

When work does not feel like work, when it feels like you are going to do productive projects with your friends, it changes and reframes everything.

It also crosses over. When someone has a baby at Elite, we say our team is growing. They get the Elite onesie. We celebrate weddings, births, marriages, and all of those moments because we are in it together.

Anne Cesak: Amazing. Thank you.

Justin, how about you? How do we develop leaders? Is this innate, or is it something we can develop?

Justin Weaver: I think it is somewhere in the middle. Leadership has to be enabled. From an HR perspective, I think our role is to do just that.

At Raymond James, we provide leaders with clear principles, frameworks, and tools, but then we rely on them to execute and adapt those tools for their teams.

One example is that there has been so much talk around return to office. Is it a mandate, or do you stay remote?

In refreshing our approach, instead of having a one-size-fits-all mandate, we have taken a business-led approach grounded in certain principles.

Leaders assess what their teams need to succeed, and then that input shapes how work happens accordingly.

So I think it is a balance. You need clarity at the top, but you also need flexibility in execution. That is what makes inspiring leadership sustainable. Leaders have tools, but they are also able to bring their own individualized style into how they lead.

Having that flexibility is so important.

Anne Cesak: I love that. It also allows leaders to lead the individuals on their team. You used the term “one size,” and one size does not fit all. How do we make sure we are hearing from everybody on the team? How do we make sure we are building a workplace that works for everybody?

Thank you very much for sharing that.

Thanh, I will finish up with you. What does this look like in your organization? Is leadership innate, or do you think it can be developed?

Thanh Nguyen: I think for the HR team, we can create an environment where it is more likely that we are going to be able to develop great leaders.

I think about systems that can be successful, such as having leaders who are more like player-coaches. At the core, that means aligning rewards with innovation.

For a team, we need to have the psychological safety to try new things and know that not everything is going to work the first time.

If you have effective strategies that you keep iterating on, and you allow people to innovate and try new things, leaders can support problem-solving at every step of the way.

That kind of environment, reward structure, and system gives us a higher chance of success.

Leadership is a journey. It needs to be developed.

Anne Cesak: Yes, it is about the systems. Justin was also talking about this. It is not one or the other. It is enabling, and it is putting the processes in place.

Closing Remarks

Anne Cesak: I think we are going to end there. I apologize that we are over time, but I really want to thank our panellists today: Robert, Justin, and Thanh, for your insights.

I know you put your details on LinkedIn, so please connect with them. There were some great ideas you can take away.

Thank you for being here today and helping to be part of our mission to build a better world by helping organizations become great places to work for all.

If you are looking to survey your employees, reach out to us at Great Place to Work.

Thank you, everybody, and we will see you next month for the next webinar in our Insights Webinar series. Have a great rest of your day.

Panellists: Thank you. Bye, everybody. Have a lovely afternoon.