David Van Adelsberg: Why Wall Street Is Betting on Employee Well-Being
From Lead From the Heart by Mark C. Crowley
February 6, 2026
About this episode
David Van Adelsberg discusses the importance of employee well-being and its impact on long-term business performance.
F or decades, Wall Street has rewarded short-term thinking: layoffs, cost-cutting, and squeezing employees. Let’s be honest, investors have never been concerned about workers or their well-being. But that era is ending. David Van Adelsberg, CEO and co-founder of Irrational Capital (alongside renowned behavioral economist Dan Ariely), has helped produce some of the most rigorous research on the connection between employee well-being and long-term business performance. The work draws on data from thousands of publicly traded companies over more than a decade—and the results are hard to ignore. Irrational Capital’s research shows that companies ranking in the top 20% for employee well-being significantly outperform those in the bottom 20%—by nearly six percentage points over 11 years. Even more striking, their study proves intrinsic factors like trust, clarity, innovation, and connection are consistently more important drivers of company performance than extrinsic rewards such as pay and benefits. In other words, caring and supportive leaders matter more than what they pay. For years, CEOs and boards have nodded toward employee well-being without taking decisive…
People in this episode
Host: Mark C. Crowley
Guest: David Van Adelsberg
Topics covered
- employee well-being
- business performance
- leadership
- Wall Street
- investor behavior
Keywords
- employee well-being
- business performance
- leadership
- Wall Street
- investors
- trust
- innovation
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Irrational Capital
More episodes of Lead From the Heart
- Eric Ries: Why Most Companies Are Built to Fail · June 12, 2026
- Shawn Achor: The Power of Belief and the Hidden Architecture of Human Performance · May 29, 2026
- Gillian Sandstrom: How Talking to Strangers Boosts Well-Being and Leadership Impact · May 15, 2026
- Julianne Holt-Lunstad: Connection Is the Most Powerful Tool Leaders Are Ignoring · May 1, 2026
- Frank Giampietro: How EY’s Chief Well-Being Officer Drives Impact · April 17, 2026
- Jen Fisher: Leading With Hope And Well-Being · April 3, 2026 · 34 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Lead From the Heart podcast page.