Anne Lepelaars, a dedicated Staff Wellbeing Consultant at The Happy Humanitarian, is on a mission to help organizations truly see, support, and empower their people. With a Master’s in Clinical Psychology and years of experience working across different countries in psychology, supervision, and leadership roles, she quickly noticed two things: first, how little awareness there is among leaders about the power of truly supporting and motivating their teams, and second, how simple and doable it actually is to create meaningful staff wellbeing programs.
For Anne, it all comes down to presence—being genuinely there for your staff, colleagues, and clients. When people feel valued, acknowledged, and supported, they bring that energy into their work, which directly drives success for businesses and organizations. Through her consultancy, she helps leaders build cultures of psychological safety, resilience, and engagement.
At The Happy Humanitarian, Anne combines her therapy experience, leadership insights, and knowledge of staff wellbeing to help organizations not just function but truly thrive. Whether working with humanitarian teams in crisis settings or corporate leaders looking to create lasting change, she believes that prioritizing staff wellbeing isn’t just an option—it’s the foundation for sustainable success.
Let’s delve into the interview details below!
Authentic Leadership is a key theme in your consultancy. How do you define it, and how do you help organizations integrate this approach to enhance staff wellbeing and resilience?
Authenticity is aligning your behavior with who you are and what you believe in, and being present with that while you engage with clients or staff members. People thrive when they feel safe, seen and supported. Authentic leadership is the vehicle for that. But very often we see leaders in the work environment that play a role, wear a mask, copy their predecessors, or feel robotic and not present for their employees because they never seem to have time or interest in their most important asset: their people. It takes the ability to self-reflect, a lot of courage, and a willingness to be vulnerable to show up as your authentic self while you lead organizations or teams. This is something you can learn through training and coaching; most of us aren’t born with those skills. But if you want psychological safety on the work floor, to help your teams thrive, you have to start there.
Working with diverse organizations across the Arab world and beyond, what common challenges do you see in prioritizing staff wellbeing, and how do you address them in your MHPSS frameworks?
The first thing I’ve noticed in almost all organizations is that staff wellbeing is dangling at the end of the priority list. “We don’t have time” and “We don’t have money” are the most commonly heard objections. But if you calculated how much time, energy, and other resources you are wasting right now because your staff feels overwhelmed, is unable to focus or prioritize, and is not as happy as they could be in their work environment, you’d RUN to me to ask me to set up a staff wellbeing program. The wellbeing of your staff is a direct predictor of the success of your organization. And there are so many ways to incorporate staff wellbeing into your everyday business. Involving staff, giving them resources and autonomy, letting them take the lead, and bringing in external support for training and mentoring will inspire them and give them the acknowledgment they desire. There are so many assets in people that we don’t use, so many incredible ideas—if only we’d truly see our talented staff for all they bring and understand how that would increase sales, efficiency, and continuity. These businesses would be even more successful.
The Happy Humanitarian has a unique mission. How does your organization stand out in supporting humanitarian workers and leaders to thrive under pressure?
From my work as a humanitarian in conflict and crisis settings, I’ve had the chance to experience how even in the most dire work environments, you can help your staff thrive. Knowing that the wellbeing of your staff is a direct predictor of the success of your organization, you can’t give me any excuses as to why the wellbeing of your team is not your highest priority. We stand out in our approach because we have experience (being an employee in such organizations for many years and being a leader as well) of how it is possible, and we can make it happen. We also know what does not work, and it’s amazing to help prevent organizations make these rooky mistakes. I have so many frameworks and policies that can be applied to any kind of organization. But I always say to senior management: it can only work when YOU apply and model it yourself. Staff wellbeing can’t work bottom up only. It has to come from the top. So that’s also why executive (senior) leadership coaching is an inevitable part of our approach.
What unique perspectives do you bring as a woman consultant to the traditionally male-dominated humanitarian and leadership spaces, particularly in the Arab world?
I’ve heard that I show a beautiful example of how leadership can be both feminine and masculine. I love embracing the feminine traits of being sensitive, vulnerable, and attuned, while also embodying the masculine strengths of being confident, clear, and directive in how I lead. I thrive when there is some competitiveness, but I also bring playfulness into it. I embody both. When managers, teams, and clients are in my space, they experience what it’s like to step out of the male-dominated norm and be led in a different way. Change doesn’t come from me telling you how to do it differently; it comes from experiencing something different. Natural law and order can then take over and show managers, teams, and clients how to approach leadership differently, using both female and male qualities combined.
My leadership and training style have been described as “the power of vulnerability” more times than I can count on my hands. This society tells us over and over again that we should not show our humanness and prefers for us to be optimalized and productive like machines. It’s crazy, we are not wired like that, it won’t sustain. And that orientation takes away all of our unique individual talents and authenticity. If, as leaders, we bring our full selves to work, you’ll notice right away how this impacts your teams and clients and naturally makes any environment people-oriented. And that’s when they start thriving.
Looking ahead, what is your vision for The Happy Humanitarian in the next five years, especially in promoting MHPSS and staff wellbeing across diverse cultures and contexts?
Bringing more current science into leadership spaces. Science has been showing us over the last decade how much our brains, minds, and thinking are directly influenced by how our bodies and nervous systems are feeling. Our body is a gateway, and our nervous systems determine how we are feeling, which directly impacts our leadership style. If our bodies are in survival mode—because there is more stress and expectations than we can handle—we can’t be creative, optimistic, or resourceful anymore. We simply act from our primal brain, seeing danger everywhere. We can switch that by using techniques that ‘hack’ our nervous system. I already bring a lot of these concepts into the stress management training and leadership coaching that I provide, but I can’t wait for the corporate and humanitarian world to start including this incredible knowledge as a foundation for how the workspace (and our agendas!) are organized.
As Women’s Day nears, what advice would you give to aspiring women leaders in healthcare and humanitarian work who want to make a difference in their communities?
Surround yourself with women mentors; be very picky in who you spend time with. A lot of this world is dominated by a patriarchal perspective, and it’s contagious. Step into spaces that are led by women, apply for roles that are managed by women that you find inspiring, and make sure you have a female support system that is available for the moments where you experience a lot of resistance. Remember what you are here to do and go one step at a time. You are not just doing this for yourself or the women in your current community; you are doing this for all the girls that are following and will be benefiting from your bravery. Keep going!
Anne Lepelaars on Why Women Leaders Are Key to Thriving Workplaces
So many scientific studies are showing how women’s leadership shifts aspects of organizations in ways that are unique and more effective. Women are biologically wired to bring a natural empathy and ability to tune into people’s needs. They bring care, presence, and attention in a way that is very different from how traditionally male-led organizations run.
Us women have a natural tendency towards wellbeing, understanding the importance of good mental health and wellbeing on employee satisfaction and competence. The leadership norm in organizations has been built on masculine principles for centuries: competitiveness, independence, assertiveness, etc. This is the opposite of relational, people-focused, considerate ways of leading, which is what women naturally bring, and allows for much more connection, psychological safety, and helps people thrive.
Of course, male leaders can incorporate female leadership qualities and vice versa, and we should, but right now the norm is still leaning too much towards the masculine leadership style. And with that, you are also not allowing most women to thrive. I see a lot of women in leadership roles working so hard to do it ‘their’ (masculine) way, whereas their natural skills would work so much better and would cost a lot less effort.
