The Data Is Clear: To Lead Well, We Must Lead Human-Centered

Every year, the World Happiness Report gives us numbers. This year, the numbers gave me goosebumps. Not because they were shocking, but because they confirmed what many of us in leadership and coaching have known in our bones:

Human connection is the single most undervalued leadership tool we have.

This year’s report places a sharp focus on what truly drives wellbeing, and it’s not just GDP or health systems. It’s things like:

• Whether people feel cared for.
• Whether they believe their neighbor would return a lost wallet.
• Whether they eat dinner alone.
• Whether they have someone to call in a crisis.

These might not show up in your quarterly KPIs, but they show up in your team’s burnout, your company’s culture, and your own capacity to lead.

What This Means for Leadership

The report outlines a powerful truth: benevolence, trust, and connection aren’t soft skills, they’re survival skills. And the presence (or absence) of these factors explains not just happiness scores, but real-world outcomes like mental health, deaths of despair, and political polarization.

Yet so many leadership models still prioritize strategy over soul, performance over presence. We're coaching for better performance, not better humanity. We're consulting for outcomes, not transformation.

That’s the gap. That’s the cost. That’s what I’m here to change.

Coaching for a Different Kind of Impact

In the report, we learn that people are significantly happier when they believe others will act with kindness. That optimism alone, even more than actual benevolence, predicts happiness.

Now, imagine bringing that into your organization. Imagine being the kind of leader people trust deeply, not just because you’re competent, but because you are consistently compassionate. Because your presence restores safety and belief in something better.

That’s what I coach for. Not just the doing, but the being behind the doing.

Because data like this makes it clear: when we rehumanize leadership, everything else gets better too.

Why Work With Me?

If you’re here, you’re likely not interested in business-as-usual. You want to lead from a deeper place. You’re not just managing performance, you’re shaping culture. You’re not just looking for success, you’re seeking meaning.

Working with me means bringing that intention into action. It means creating space for you, and your people, to show up fully, lead with integrity, and make sustainable impact in a world that needs healing leadership more than ever.

Let’s build the kind of leadership the data, and our hearts, are asking for.

With care and conviction,
Amber Lea