Arthur C. Brooks on How Leaders Can Be Happier

I'm Audie Ignatius. I'm Alison Beard and this is the HBR Idea cast. So for all the things we write about, leadership, talent, technology, strategy, The one topic that seems to resonate with our audience above all others is something that's maybe a bit surprising, and that is happiness. How to find it, how to maintain it, how to make it part of your work life.

And the fact is the data shows that leaders are struggling to find happiness at work and that this affects what they do. Yeah, I think this is a real problem right now, particularly for people in stressful jobs, and especially because Anxiety and uncertainty are so high. You know, I interviewed Leslie Perlow of Harvard a few episodes back about her research on how the busiest people find joy. And it's a tough subject to study because happiness is subjective, but I think it's key for us to cover it right now because unhappy people tend to not be good employees or leaders.

And we really all want and need to find well-being, you know, in both our personal and professional lives. So the guy to make sense of all of this is my guest today, Arthur C. Brooks. He's also a Harvard professor. He used to focus on straightforward economic issues.

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