The Workplace Event Agenda 2026

Culture isn’t what’s written on the wall. It’s how people feel at work, especially when things are uncertain.

In today’s workplace, change is constant. New technologies, restructures, AI adoption, and shifting expectations ask people to adapt again and again. And in these moments, culture is revealed, not through values statements or engagement surveys, but through the emotional experience of everyday work.

Despite decades of leadership models and culture initiatives, organisations continue to struggle with the same blind spot: emotion. Leaders often focus on the culture they want to prescribe, while overlooking the emotional signals that shape the culture people actually live.

For some employees, change feels energising and full of possibility. For others, it creates anxiety, fatigue, or quiet disengagement. These emotions don’t just affect morale, they define trust, belonging and performance. Over time, they become the real culture of the organisation.

This is where culture, health and wellbeing intersect, not as programmes or perks, but as outcomes of how emotion is led every day. When emotional signals are ignored, pressure builds, psychological safety erodes, and wellbeing conversations start far too late. When emotion is understood and addressed early, people feel safer, more engaged, and better able to cope with change.

Drawing on the core ideas from Jennifer Bryan’s upcoming book, this keynote explores how leaders shape culture, intentionally or not, through the emotional experience they create in times of change. Jennifer reframes emotion as a leadership capability that directly influences culture, trust, and sustainable performance.

This is about closing the gap between prescribed culture and lived culture, and giving leaders practical ways to lead emotion with clarity, confidence, and humanity so change strengthens culture instead of draining it.