13May2025
Leader’s Digest | May 2025
by: Nordic Business Forum
Welcome to the May 2025 edition of the Leader’s Digest, your monthly guide to business leadership. This time, we’ll dig deeper into the topic of leading organizational culture.
Contents
- How to Build a Company Culture that Supports Employee Well-being
- Co-Creating Culture: How to Build Cultures with Your People, Not for Them
- How to Develop Strategic Foresight in Your Organization
- Webinar on Organizational Culture with Gianpiero Petriglieri
- Speaker of the month: Simon Sinek
- NBF 2025 Livestream Price Increase Coming Up
- Inspirational Quote by Amy Edmondson
New Leadership Insights
How to Build a Company Culture that Supports Employee Well-being
Creating a thriving workplace goes beyond perks and a significant part of a company’s success has to do with culture. When employees feel safe, valued, and supported, they’re more engaged, loyal, and resilient.
We looked at recent culture research to discover the defining traits of strong cultures of well-being and the actionable strategies to create such workplaces. A strong culture of well-being is built on psychological safety, meaningful work, genuine connection, and open support for mental health. Basic needs are met, growth is encouraged, and flexibility is a given—not a privilege.
And how is it done? Here are a few tips (more on our other blog) that can help build that kind of culture:
- Meet basic needs. Ensure compensation and benefits reflect care, not just retention goals.
- Enable growth. Offer clear opportunities for development and career progression.
- Support mental health. Normalize conversations and provide access to resources.
- Recognize often. Show appreciation in meaningful, everyday ways.
- Lead with empathy. Model emotionally intelligent behaviors and responses.
- Design for balance. Structure work to reduce burnout and support flexibility.
When culture supports well-being, people don’t just stay—they thrive.
Co-Creating Culture: How to Build Cultures with Your People, Not for Them
Organizational culture can’t be built top-down—it needs to be lived across the organization. According to Gianpiero Petriglieri, INSEAD professor and speaker at Nordic Business Forum 2025, strong cultures are less about control and more about vitality. How can you co-create a successful culture?
✅ Start with values—but don’t dictate them. Let people live and challenge them.
✅ Balance freedom with belonging. The best cultures make people feel freer by being part of them.
✅ Build emotional ties. Real leadership is about human connection, not just performance.
How to Develop Strategic Foresight in Your Organization
“Creating a culture or steering a culture always starts with defining what it should be like and then talking about that. It’s surprising how many leaders talk about what’s wrong with their culture, but they haven’t really talked a lot about what they want the culture to be like.” – Risto Siilasmaa
Our co-founder, Hans-Peter Siefen, recently sat down with three NBF 2025 speakers—April Rinne, Howar Yu, and Risto Siilasmaa—for a conversation on strategic foresight and building organizations that succeed in uncertainty. The topic of culture was also touched upon as strategic foresight is closely tied to having a future-ready mindset as an organization.
We recommend taking the 50 minutes to watch the video as you’ll learn:
How to develop foresight in unpredictable times
The cultural shifts needed for future-readiness
Practical frameworks for integrating AI into strategy
Common blind spots—and how to avoid them
Daily habits to sharpen long-term thinking
Whether you’re a CEO, entrepreneur, or future-focused leader, this video is excellent for learning about strategic foresight!
Personal Development Boost
Webinar on Organizational Culture with Gianpiero Petriglieri
“I believe we are all after the same Grail. We hope to find leaders who help us feel committed but not captive.” – Gianpiero Petriglieri
How can you keep your organizational culture alive in the age of AI? INSEAD professor and Nordic Business Forum 2025 speaker, Gianpiero Petriglieri, joins our next webinar to explore how leaders can keep culture, connection, and meaning alive in an increasingly automated world. Eager to learn more? See you on the 15th of May!
Personal Development Boost
Join us behind the scenes as we introduce our speakers, share event updates, and more!
Speaker of the Month: Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek, described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work they do.
A trained ethnographer, Simon is fascinated by the people and organizations that make the greatest and longest-lasting impact. Over the years, he has discovered some remarkable patterns about how they think, act, and communicate, and also the environments in which people operate at their natural best. Simon may be best known for his book and TED Talk on the concept of WHY and his video on millennials in the workplace.
At Nordic Business Forum 2025, Simon will engage in a Main Stage discussion to share his insights on how leaders can build high-performing teams.
NBF 2025 Livestream Price Increase Coming Up
We’re excited to announce that over 6,800 tickets have been already sold for Nordic Business Forum 2025! If you or your team can’t join us in person, we have a solution. For bigger teams, we offer two options:
- The Group Livestream — for groups watching together in one location
- The Remote Group Livestream — for companies watching on their internal website with no user limit
The prices for these products will increase on 23 May, so make sure to check the livestream options soon!
Stop and Think
“The primary leadership stances that really impact psychological safety are humility, curiosity, and empathy.”
Amy Edmondson
