What if hope is a strategy?

A new book by a former Deloitte executive turned workplace well-being expert argues exactly that

In her new book Hope Is the Strategy, Jen Fisher, an expert on workplace well-being and human sustainability, makes a clear and timely case that hope isn’t a soft skill or a leadership afterthought; it’s a practical, learnable approach to navigating uncertainty and building healthier, more resilient organizations. In the following excerpt, Fisher draws on her personal experience grappling with burnout, as well as her research on well-being, leadership, and corporate culture, to reframe hope as something we can all learn and implement for ourselves and those we work with.

We’ve long misunderstood hope in the workplace. We’ve treated it as wishful thinking—a nice-to-have feeling that emerges when things are going well. But research from psychologist C.R. Snyder reveals something far more powerful: Hope is a cognitive process with three essential components: goals (what we want to achieve), pathways (our ability to identify routes to those goals), and agency (our belief that we can pursue those paths). This isn’t passive optimism; it’s an active strategy for navigating uncertainty and driving meaningful change.

After my own experience with burnout, I discovered that hope isn’t what you turn to after strength fails—hope is the strength we’ve been looking for all along. It’s not the light at the end of the tunnel; it’s the torch we need to lead others through it. And when organizations embed hope into their leadership practices and culture, they unlock something remarkable: the capacity to transform not just how people feel about work, but what they can actually accomplish together.

As more organizations prioritize helping their employees become healthier, more skilled for the future, and connected to a sense of purpose and belonging, they have an opportunity to instill hope in leadership and encourage it in workers.

A roadmap for the future

A leader who has hope can map out a path for an employee, offering a solid roadmap rather than an empty promise. They might say, “I can’t promise you complete job security, but I can provide you with the skills that will make you attractive in the job market.” That, in turn, helps foster hope in the worker, because they know that they’ll have more tools in their success toolkit, no matter what the future holds.

That’s not just a win for the individual, but for the group. An organization (of any type—it could also be a community, or a family) filled with people tapped into their meaning and purpose is stronger than one made up of disengaged, unhealthy, and unhappy people. In fact, hope is a strategy for a variety of prevalent workplace problems: It can improve mental well-being and stress management; it can drive action and reduce catastrophic thinking; and it can help overcome the disengagement crisis at work. What’s more, hope will support our transition to a more human-centered workplace as AI takes on the more mundane, tactical aspects of work.

Creating new ripples from leadership on down is possible—and as with the negative ones, it starts with modeling behaviors to set the tone for your team and your peers. That is, modeling the sustainable work behaviors and values that will drive purpose and well-being. Here are four examples:

1. Get clear on what your own boundaries are

If you’re following someone else’s vision of success instead of your own, you’re going to end up miserable and probably burned out. So take that PTO—really. The company will not crumble without you. And don’t answer that email at midnight—reply in the morning, during work hours. A leader who actually sets healthy boundaries and lives by them gives employees permission to do the same.

As I reevaluated the role that work played in my life, I set my own new boundaries. I got clear on what my definition of success was, instead of allowing the external world to define that for me. And I brought hope into my life: I started each day with a set of “what if” questions, looking at the day ahead through the lens of possibility: What if this goes right? What if I do things this way? Then I’d end each day with reflection: How did it go? It helped me to see challenges as an opportunity for change.

Here are some other daily practices I put in place, all of which I still follow today:

• Treat sleep as a nonnegotiable. I protect my eight hours like the business asset it actually is, recognizing that sleep isn’t a luxury but the foundation that makes everything else possible.
• Schedule humanity into the calendar. Not vague “personal time” but specific blocks for connections that make me human: dinner with my husband, phone calls with friends, reading fiction that has nothing to do with work.
• Incorporate daily recovery rituals. Three-minute breathing breaks between meetings, a proper lunch away from my desk, a brief walk outside to reset my nervous system—these small moments of renewal prevent depletion from accumulating.
• Defend the calendar against the tyranny of urgency. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, exercise, and sleep aren’t just activities to fit around “real work”—they comprise the immovable infrastructure that sustains my performance. Everything else has to work around them, not the other way around.

2. Embrace the unknown

When we temporarily suspend our need for certainty, a different kind of productivity emerges. I call these my Possibility Days: Once a week, I grant myself permission to coexist with uncertainty. Instead of trying to control outcomes, I deliberately seek experiences with unknown results. I have conversations without preparing talking points. I explore ideas that seem impractical. I follow curiosity down rabbit holes without worrying where they lead. My most innovative solutions and deepest insights almost always trace back to these deliberate ventures into possibility thinking.

3. Walk the walk

The old ways of leading through power and control are giving way to something more human, more hopeful, and more whole. The future of leadership isn’t just about what we do—it’s about how we show up, how we hold space for both struggle and possibility, and how we cultivate well-being as a vital way of being.

There’s this old thinking that we should check our feelings or emotions at work. It’s basically telling people: Don’t show up as who you truly are. When leaders normalize having no energy, no life, no nothing beyond work, it becomes not just accepted but expected. Emotions, whether they’re positive or negative, are really a sign of the things we care about—and when we’re told not to bring emotions into the workplace, it stunts creativity, growth, innovation, connection, and understanding. The answer is simple: Show your emotions.

Your employees look to you to set the pace, tone, and stakes of the team and the work being done. Be vulnerable and authentic about when you’ve made a mistake, when you said one thing and you did another, when you screwed up. Your actions show them that decisions to support their own health and well-being and career growth aren’t going to be viewed negatively or make it seem like they’re less committed to their work.

4. Build teams grounded in trust

True organizational and individual success depends on teams built on mutual trust—teams that prioritize deep relationships alongside personal well-being. Trust-based teams require leaders who actively invite people to show up authentically and provide genuine support when they do. This means fostering psychological safety where team members feel confident giving honest feedback, taking calculated risks, learning from missteps, and growing from challenges rather than facing punishment for them.

Organizations with the strongest well-being cultures maintain ongoing dialogue between leaders and team members. Within trust-based environments, people develop a growth-oriented perspective. Colleagues treat each other with genuine care and respect, creating workplaces rooted in kindness. This positive energy extends far beyond individual teams, helping organizations attract diverse talent, improve retention, spark innovation, and build lasting resilience.

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