How leaders can build community and connection at work

Executive overview

Workers today expect belonging, purpose, and meaning from their jobs — roles once filled by civic and religious institutions. Most leaders receive no training in how to create community deliberately. Wes Adams' research identifies three sources of meaning at work: community, contribution, and challenge. Community is foundational — its absence cancels the other two.

Leaders who treat community-building as a core responsibility, not an HR extra, unlock higher collaboration, creativity, and performance.

The three C's of meaningful work

• Community: belonging, psychological safety, showing up authentically
• Contribution: understanding how your work impacts others and connects to a larger purpose
• Challenge: opportunity to learn, grow, and develop capabilities
• The three amplify each other when all present; missing any one can cancel the others
• Community is the foundation — it enables fuller contribution and greater willingness to be challenged

Why community, not individual effort, drives performance

• Prior research focused on individuals constructing their own meaning; Adams argues the environment is what leaders must build
• Basketball analogy: teams of connected mid-performers outperform collections of disconnected superstars
• Loneliness is as harmful to physical health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day (Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General)
• Trees in a forest thrive through mycorrhizal networks sharing resources and information — isolated replanted trees fail; people work the same way
• The Harvard Study of Adult Development (~100 years): relationship strength is the biggest predictor of life outcomes

Designing shared experiences intentionally

• Hybrid and remote work has made in-person time precious — use it for creativity, brainstorming, and relationship-building, not Zoom calls
• Reddit's Director of Community supports leaders in planning gatherings; her team defaults to saying yes if the request is reasonable
• Reddit also provides grants for small peer-driven activities (e.g., employees attending a baseball game together)
• The capability to bring people together — once the domain of event planners — must now be an in-house leadership skill
• After-hours events carry hidden costs: they exclude people with family or care commitments

A portfolio approach to connection (purpose-difficulty matrix)

• Map shared experiences on two axes: purpose (low to high) and difficulty to organise (low to high)
• Low-purpose, low-difficulty moments are frequent and build the connective tissue; don't neglect them for big events
• High-purpose, high-difficulty events (volunteer days, offsites) are valuable but should be occasional
• Spread investment across all quadrants rather than defaulting to one type

Small, high-leverage practices

• Swedish fika: synchronise coffee breaks so everyone pauses at the same time — creates unstructured, relationship-building interaction at zero cost
• Inside Scoop (Vivek Murthy): five minutes at each weekly meeting where one person shares something meaningful to them — improves cross-department collaboration
• Positive introduction: at the start of a program or team meeting, each person shares a specific story of when they were at their best — surfaces strengths and personal context even in long-tenured teams
• Email signatures with a current book or quote open low-stakes conversation threads
• Something visible in a Zoom background (a photo, an object) invites curiosity without requiring formal time

Responding to good news: Shelly Gable's framework

• Four response styles exist when someone shares good news; only one builds relationships
• Active-constructive responding: lean in, ask questions, share in the positivity ("Tell me more — how did that happen?")
• Common mistake: acknowledge briefly ("Oh, congrats!") then move on — this closes rather than opens connection
• Relationship strength is better measured by presence during good moments than bad ones
• A 30–60 second genuine follow-up question is enough to deepen connection materially

Starting points for any leader

• Download the moments that matter canvas at makeworkmeaningful.com (free) — surfaces a meaningful work moment and generates a shareable story
• Run the positive introduction exercise with any new or existing team
• Model personal disclosure first — if leaders don't signal that personal context matters, others won't feel safe sharing
• Treat urgency as the enemy of connection; pause before diving into business to briefly engage with what's happening for the other person