Description
Great leaders don't choose between results and wellbeing — they build both
Leadership is tough. When it comes to delivering success, you face higher demands, yet you receive less support. Meanwhile, your team members are stressed, tense and on the verge of burnout. Most leadership books focus solely on driving results, while ignoring a critical truth: you can't sustain high performance when you and your team are running on empty. That’s where Great Leaders Care is different — it delivers a practical, evidence-based framework for building teams that are both high-performing and resilient.
Graeme Cowan, Founding Director of R U OK?, draws on extensive interviews with successful CEOs plus his own personal journey with mental health, revealing what really matters in leadership. Inside, you’ll discover how caring cultures transform both people and business outcomes, including stronger engagement and performance, reduced liability and higher retention. When people feel genuinely cared for, productivity rises, turnover drops and teams become magnets for top talent.
Great Leaders Care shares the tools to:
- Master the three pillars of caring leadership: self-care, team care and support for people who are struggling.
- Spot burnout early and use the VIP (Vitality, Intimacy, Prosperity) framework to stay steady, focused and resilient.
- Build psychological safety so your team members can speak up, share ideas and take the risks that lead to innovation.
- Put care into practice with daily habits and tools that lift workplace wellbeing and performance.
Leaders who care build teams that thrive. Great Leaders Care equips you with immediately actionable strategies to become the leader people actually want to work for — while delivering the results your organization demands.
‘Great Leaders Care is a compassionate, practical guide for managers on how to care for themselves and their teams in ways that reduce burnout and build psychological safety at work. Opening with the author’s deeply personal journey through severe depression and recovery, the book provides evidence-informed tools and stories from his work, and the celebrated R U OK? movement he helped to grow. Great Leaders Care offers a clear roadmap for anyone who wants to create workplaces where struggling is okay, speaking up is welcomed, and thriving is the result.'
—Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership, Harvard Business School, author, Right Kind of Wrong and The Fearless Organization
Table of Contents
Introduction XI
1 Code red: From burnout to breakthrough 1
PILLAR 1 Self-care 17
2 Your moodometer 19
3 Mindset: Your psychological wellbeing 29
4 Vitality: Your physical wellbeing 45
5 Intimacy: Your emotional wellbeing 61
6 Prosperity: Career wellbeing 75
PILLAR 2 Crew care 89
7 Your crew’s moodometer 93
8 Care about belonging 113
9 Leading with psychological safety 131
10 Growing together: Moving from amber to green 149
PILLAR 3 Red-zone care 165
11 Applying the ICARE framework 167
12 Building a WeCARE Culture 187
13 Complying with WHS laws 213
PILLAR 4 Code green 241
14 A different kind of awakening 243
15 The ripple effect of green zone leadership 255
16 The movement starts with you 267
Conclusion: The movement you’re invited to join 279
