Happier At Work: Leadership, Culture, Performance

How can leaders create enough psychological safety for people to share what they really think?
In the latest episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Jeff Wetzler, author of ‘Ask: Tap into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You’, explains how curiosity, thoughtful questions, and active listening can help leaders access the collective intelligence within their teams and organisations.
In This Episode, You’ll Discover:
Why genuine curiosity starts with asking, “What can I learn here?” rather than focusing on what you want someone else to do.
How leaders can create psychological safety by acknowledging the power of their position and choosing contexts where people feel more comfortable speaking honestly.
The importance of opening up first, explaining why you’re asking, and showing that you can handle difficult feedback.
Why frontline workers often hold valuable knowledge about customers, patients, processes, and organisational challenges.
How the quality of a question determines the quality of the information you receive.

Related Topics Covered:
Psychological Safety, Building Trust at Work
Connect with Aoife O’Brien | Host of Happier at Work®:
Website
LinkedIn
YouTube

Connect with Jeff Wetzler | Author and Human Potential & Learning Expert:
Website
Podcast
Jeff’s Books
LinkedIn

Episodes You’ll Love:
Episode 316: Mastering Your Inner Narrative with Owen Fitzpatrick
Episode 228: Fostering Genuine Curiosity and Building Trust at Work with Julie Pham
Episode 296: Learning in The Age of AI with Damon Lembi
About Happier at Work®
Happier at Work® is the podcast for business leaders who want to create meaningful, human-centric workplaces. Hosted by Aoife O’Brien, the show explores leadership, career clarity, imposter syndrome, workplace culture, and employee engagement — helping you and your team thrive.
If you enjoy podcasts like WorkLife with Adam Grant, The Happiness Lab, or Squiggly Careers, you’ll love Happier at Work®.
Join Aoife O’Brien for weekly insights on leadership, workplace culture, career clarity, imposter syndrome, and creating work that works for you.
Editing by Amanda Fitzgerald.
Website: https://happieratwork.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HappierAtWorkHQ

Are you sure someone is underperforming, or are you missing what’s preventing them from doing their best?
In this solo episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien explores the assumption that people are doing their best and what it changes for leaders. Rather than quickly labelling someone as lazy, difficult, unmotivated, or incapable, she encourages you to look more closely at capability, role fit, expectations, resources, psychological safety, workload, and your own contribution to the situation.
In This Episode, You’ll Discover:
Why assuming people are doing their best helps leaders look beyond quick judgments.
The role of capability, including skills, knowledge, experience, strengths, and confidence.
How a mismatch between someone’s strengths and their role can affect performance.
The importance of clear expectations, appropriate autonomy, resources, support, and psychological safety.

Related Topics Covered:
Personal Development, Psychological Safety, Capabilities at Work
Connect with Aoife O’Brien | Host of Happier at Work®:
Website
LinkedIn
YouTube

Related Episodes & Resources:
Episode 289: Leadership Choices that Define your Culture
Episode 295: From Individual Strengths to Team Capability
Episode 297: Creating Space for Talent to Thrive
Episode 315: Imposter Syndrome: Why Confidence ≠ Capability
About Happier at Work®
Happier at Work® is the podcast for business leaders who want to create meaningful, human-centric workplaces. Hosted by Aoife O’Brien, the show explores leadership, career clarity, imposter syndrome, workplace culture, and employee engagement — helping you and your team thrive.
If you enjoy podcasts like WorkLife with Adam Grant, The Happiness Lab, or Squiggly Careers, you’ll love Happier at Work®.
Editing by Amanda Fitzgerald.
Website: https://happieratwork.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HappierAtWorkHQ

In this bonus episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien shares her key takeaways from her insightful conversation with Kate Donovan on burnout. Drawing on Kate's upcoming book Mismatch, Aoife unpacks the idea that burnout isn't about needing a perfect fit at work, most of us just need a "good enough" match most of the time. When that match breaks down across areas like workload, autonomy, fairness, community, values, and reward, burnout can creep in.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Mismatch, not perfection, is the goal.

Most of the time we need roughly a 75% match between our needs and our environment — not a total match — for things to feel like they're working.
Six core areas of mismatch drive burnout

Workload, autonomy, fairness, community, values, and reward.
Burnout is a kind of stress you cannot recover from:

A helpful reframe for identifying when normal stress has tipped into something more serious.
"Toxic" is overused.

Some workplaces really are toxic, but many difficult experiences are better understood as a mismatch — a distinction that can be empowering rather than blaming.
Physical signals matter.

People who've experienced this kind of neglect may struggle to notice basic physiological needs (hunger, thirst, needing the bathroom, tiredness) — a warning sign that can also mask the approach of burnout.
Connect with Aoife O’Brien | Host of Happier at Work®:
Website
LinkedIn
YouTube

Connect with Cait Donovan | Author, Culture & Leadership Keynote Speaker & Advisor:
LinkedIn
Website

Episodes You’ll Love:
Episode 241: Exploring The Phases of Burnout with Aoife O’Brien
Episode 294: The Realities of Leadership Mental Health with Melissa Doman
About Happier at Work
Happier at Work is the podcast for business leaders who want to create meaningful, human-centric workplaces. Hosted by Aoife O’Brien, the show explores leadership, career clarity, imposter syndrome, workplace culture, and employee engagement — helping you and your team thrive.
If you enjoy podcasts like WorkLife with Adam Grant, The Happiness Lab, or Squiggly Careers, you’ll love Happier at Work.
Join Aoife O’Brien for weekly insights on leadership, workplace culture, career clarity, imposter syndrome, and creating work that works for you.
Editing by Amanda Fitzgerald.
Website: https://happieratwork.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HappierAtWorkHQ

How can you recognise burnout, understand its root causes, and create a better match between people and the workplace?
In this episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien speaks with Cait Donovan, author of the upcoming book ‘Mismatch: Why Good People Burn Out in Good Organisations’, about the difference between chronic stress and burnout, the role of workplace mismatches, and why burnout is blameless. Cait explains that burnout is defined by a lack of recoverability, with recovery taking 12 to 18 months on average.
In This Episode, You’ll Discover:
The difference between chronic stress and burnout, and why recoverability is the key distinction.
Why burnout can take 12 to 18 months to recover from.
How childhood experiences and emotional neglect can affect interoception, agency, and the ability to notice stress signals.
Why burnout is blameless, with contributing factors often found in both the individual and the workplace.

Related Topics Covered:
Workplace Culture, Mental Health, Chronic Stress at Work
Connect with Aoife O’Brien | Host of Happier at Work®:
Website
LinkedIn
YouTube

Connect with Cait Donovan | Author, Culture & Leadership Keynote Speaker & Advisor:
LinkedIn
Website

Episodes You’ll Love:
Episode 241: Exploring The Phases of Burnout with Aoife O’Brien
Episode 294: The Realities of Leadership Mental Health with Melissa Doman
About Happier at Work®
Happier at Work® is the podcast for business leaders who want to create meaningful, human-centric workplaces. Hosted by Aoife O’Brien, the show explores leadership, career clarity, imposter syndrome, workplace culture, and employee engagement — helping you and your team thrive.
If you enjoy podcasts like WorkLife with Adam Grant, The Happiness Lab, or Squiggly Careers, you’ll love Happier at Work®.
Join Aoife O’Brien for weekly insights on leadership, workplace culture, career clarity, imposter syndrome, and creating work that works for you.
Editing by Amanda Fitzgerald.
Website: https://happieratwork.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HappierAtWorkHQ

How do you know what your team is truly capable of?
In this episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien explores why current performance, job titles, CVs, and manager perceptions don’t always reveal someone’s full capability. She shares her own experience of working in a role that didn’t fully use her strengths, and explains how limited opportunities, low confidence, a lack of psychological safety, or the wrong working conditions can hide valuable talent within an organisation.
In This Episode, You’ll Discover:
Why organisations often look externally for skills and capabilities that already exist internally.
The difference between task-based skills and broader capabilities, including strengths, knowledge, experience, and confidence.
How psychological safety affects people’s willingness to speak up, experiment, challenge, and fail.
Why confidence can mask someone’s true capability at work.

Related Topics Covered:
Human Capability, The AI Age, Psychological Safety
Connect with Aoife O’Brien | Host of Happier at Work®:
Website
LinkedIn
YouTube

Related Episodes & Resources:
Episode 289: Leadership Choices that Define your Culture
Episode 295: From Individual Strengths to Team Capability
Episode 297: Creating Space for Talent to Thrive
Episode 315: Imposter Syndrome: Why Confidence ≠ Capability
About Happier at Work®
Happier at Work® is the podcast for business leaders who want to create meaningful, human-centric workplaces. Hosted by Aoife O’Brien, the show explores leadership, career clarity, imposter syndrome, workplace culture, and employee engagement — helping you and your team thrive.
If you enjoy podcasts like WorkLife with Adam Grant, The Happiness Lab, or Squiggly Careers, you’ll love Happier at Work®.
Editing by Amanda Fitzgerald.
Website: https://happieratwork.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HappierAtWorkHQ