Eudaimonia

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Cultivating Virtue at Work: Lessons from Marcel Meyer

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On this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, Andrew speaks with Marcel Meyer, professor at the School of Economics and Business at the University of Navarra. Meyer specializes in ethical leadership, organizational behavior, and Aristotelian virtue ethics - an area of philosophy that explores how character, purpose, and moral wisdom help people and communities flourish.

In this conversation, Meyer and Soren examine how Aristotle’s ideas can help us rethink what it means to lead and thrive at work. They discuss why virtue is developed through action, how flourishing depends on community, and how leaders can use empathy, reason, and character to create more ethical and hopeful organizations.

Returning to Aristotle

Meyer begins the conversation by situating his work in the long lineage of Aristotelian thought. Aristotle, he explains, saw human beings as rational and social creatures who live in community and seek eudaimonia - a term often translated as “human flourishing.”

For Aristotle, eudaimonia is about living in alignment with virtue and purpose over time. “Virtue,” Meyer says, “means character excellence. It’s built through the actions we take, the habits we form, and the kind of person we become.”

He emphasizes that flourishing is not an end state, but a continual process of cultivating virtues like courage, justice, temperance, and practical wisdom (phronesis). This growth happens through practice, reflection, and connection with others - a theme that becomes central to the rest of the conversation.

The Moral and Relational Core of Flourishing

What makes flourishing not just a personal pursuit, but a moral one?

Meyer explains that eudaimonia is inherently social:

“Human beings are social creatures, and flourishing happens within relationships and communities, not in isolation.”

Our moral character, he continues, is formed and expressed through our roles and responsibilities in families, organizations, and society.

Aristotle’s ethics, then, offer a lens for thinking about work as participation in the common good. Flourishing requires integrity, responsibility, and self-governance, which together connect individual growth to the wellbeing of others.

From Individuals to Organizations

How does any of this apply to the modern workplace? Aristotle, after all, was certainly not thinking about that when he wrote about ethics.

Meyer points out that Aristotle’s notion of the *polis (*a self-governing city-state devoted to human flourishing) is not far removed from today’s large organizations. “The challenge,” he says, “is how to take individual virtue and bring it into the organization.”

That question aligns closely with the ideas explored in our special 50th episode, where Soren further examines how workplaces can serve as modern moral communities devoted to purpose and wellbeing.

Building on that connection, Meyer draws on Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS), a field pioneered by scholars like Kim Cameron, who has also appeared on this podcast. POS explores how organizations can amplify the good through processes, routines, and cultures that encourage ethical behavior, hope, and human connection.

Meyer connects these ideas to Aristotle’s cycle of action, habit, and character. Just as individuals become virtuous through repeated actions, organizations can cultivate virtuousness through systems that reinforce and reward goodness.

Leadership as Modern Rhetoric

The conversation then turns to Aristotle’s work on rhetoric, which Meyer links directly to leadership. Leadership, he says, is fundamentally a relational act of persuasion.

He unpacks Aristotle’s three pillars of persuasion:

  • Pathos, or emotion, reflects empathy and understanding.

  • Logos, or logic, provides reasoning and structure.

  • Ethos, or character, establishes credibility and trust.

“Persuasion,” Meyer notes, “is achieved by the speaker’s personal character, when the speech makes us think they are credible.” In other words, ethical leaders inspire through integrity as much as through their words.

Soren adds that if more leaders were trained to connect reason, emotion, and integrity, “we would live in a very different world.”

Meyer agrees, emphasizing that listening is one of the most overlooked yet essential leadership skills. Leaders who genuinely listen and seek the good of others, he says, are those who help organizations and people flourish together.

The Positive Leadership Action Framework

Meyer shares his Positive Leadership Action Framework. Developed from his research in virtue ethics and positive organizational scholarship, the model identifies five areas leaders can focus on to nurture ethical and flourishing cultures:

  1. Create positive assumptions about the future. Cultivate hope and optimism grounded in reality, not wishful thinking.

  2. Foster a positive formal environment. Build structures and policies that reinforce trust and fairness.

  3. Support positive professional growth. Align development with both performance and purpose.

  4. Nurture a positive informal environment. Strengthen relationships that sustain emotional wellbeing.

  5. Model reflection and self-awareness. As Meyer puts it, “Work on the person in the mirror.”

He notes that this process is incremental.

“It’s like learning a language. You start small… asking yourself, could I have been more patient in this situation? More truthful? More kind? Over time, that’s how character grows.”

Key Takeaways

  • Virtue is cultivated through daily actions, habits, and reflection.

  • Flourishing is relational - it grows through communities and organizations.

  • Leadership is moral persuasion grounded in empathy, reason, and integrity.

  • Positive organizations amplify goodness through structures and relationships.

  • Self-reflection is the foundation of meaningful and ethical leadership.

Final Thoughts

Aristotle’s philosophy may be ancient, but Meyer shows it is remarkably relevant to the modern workplace.

His message is both timeless and practical: meaningful work starts with moral character, grows through community, and flourishes when leaders commit to the common good.

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Work as Polis: Reclaiming the Communal Soul of Eudaimonia with Andrew Soren

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The Meaningful Work Matters podcast has reached an important milestone: our 50th episode!

Over the past two years, we have spoken with more than 50 researchers, practitioners, and leaders about what makes work meaningful. But in this special episode, host Andrew Soren flips the script. Instead of interviewing a guest, he shares ideas from a text he’s co-writing with his mentor, Dr. Carol Ryff. Their theme? “Work as Polis”—a vision for workplaces as moral communities devoted not just to profit, but to human flourishing.

The talk unfolds in five acts (plus a conclusion), weaving together Aristotle’s ancient philosophy, modern science, organizational design, and even the arts.

At its heart, the message is clear: if we want more meaningful work, we must think of workplaces as communities where everyone’s flourishing matters.

Act I: Work as a Site of Eudaimonic Possibility

For years, Soren has helped people cultivate well-being at work. Along the way, he became fascinated with Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia—a Greek term often translated as “human flourishing” or “living in accordance with virtue.”

Unlike hedonia (the pursuit of pleasure and comfort), eudaimonia is about becoming one’s best self through purpose, virtue, and meaningful struggle. Aristotle believed that the purpose of the polis—the city-state—was to enable eudaimonia for its people.

Soren argues that perhaps modern workplaces, with their scale and influence, have the potential to embody the polis. If companies used their power not just to satisfy shareholders but to support the well-being of their stakeholders, they could become engines of human flourishing.

Not every organization will take up this challenge, but research shows that cultural change often starts with a critical minority. That makes the pursuit worthwhile.

Act II: The Communal Soul of Eudaimonia

Etymology offers a clue: eu (good) + daimon (soul).

For Aristotle, eudaimonia meant living in alignment with the soul’s calling to do good. Importantly, this was never just an individual pursuit, but the purpose of the community itself. We flourish together, or not at all.

Yet modern psychology often frames well-being in purely individual terms. Frameworks like PERMA, while useful, reflect Western ideals of autonomy and self-optimization. The booming wellness industry reinforces this, promising that the right habits or productivity hacks will help us live our “best lives.” But rarely do these narratives ask deeper moral questions or confront systemic issues like greed and inequality.

Soren calls this the “missing communal soul” of well-being science. Flourishing includes ethical discernment, shared responsibility, and cultivating conditions where everyone can thrive. Other traditions have long emphasized this relational, collective view of well-being. It’s time Western workplaces caught up.

Act III: Designing the Organizational Polis

If workplaces are to become modern versions of Aristotle’s polis, what should they look like? Soren points to several design principles:

  • Purpose as telos: Just as the polis existed for the flourishing of its citizens, organizations should aim for the flourishing of their people.

  • The common good over shareholder value: A true polis prioritizes collective purpose, not just profit.

  • Voice and choice: Active participation and agency are essential for eudaimonia.

  • Decency as foundation: The International Labour Organization defines decent work as work that ensures equity, security, freedom, and dignity. Without these, flourishing is impossible.

  • Moral community: Rituals, leadership, and culture should nurture virtue, justice, and mutual recognition.

  • Scale matters: Aristotle believed the polis must be small enough for intimacy and accountability. In practice, Soren observes, smaller organizations often do better at cultivating eudaimonic workplaces than sprawling corporations.

Act IV: The Business Case for Eudaimonia

Of course, no organizational change takes root without a business case. Fortunately, the evidence is strong.

Research shows that eudaimonic well-being correlates with:

  • Better health and longevity (which translates into fewer absences and lower healthcare costs).

  • Improved performance at both individual and team levels.

  • Greater engagement, loyalty, and innovation, which help organizations attract and retain top talent.

  • Financial outcomes, as studies at Oxford reveal - companies high in employee well-being consistently beat market averages.

At the same time, Soren cautions that while eudaimonia may boost performance, framing it only as an economic strategy undermines its moral foundation.

Treating human dignity as a means to higher productivity risks trapping organizations in what philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre called the “morally hollow iron cage” of modern business.

The real case for eudaimonia is ethical: workplaces should foster human flourishing because it is the right thing to do.

Act V: Reclaiming the Soul of Work—AI, the Arts, and Storytelling

Looking to the future, Soren warns that emerging technologies like AI may strip even more meaning from work, creating what anthropologist David Graeber called “bullshit jobs.” Without careful design, AI could deepen inequality and erode the soul of work.

So what can counterbalance this risk? The answer, Soren suggests, lies in the arts and storytelling. Far from being luxuries, they cultivate the reflective, relational, and imaginative capacities we need to flourish:

  1. Sharpening discernment of complexity.

  2. Building emotional sensitivity and care.

  3. Expanding moral imagination to envision alternatives.

  4. Integrating intuition and vision into wise action.

  5. Prompting critical reflection on whether we’re living our values.

The arts and humanities—often underfunded and undervalued—are essential for developing the human capacities most at risk in an AI-driven world. Stories, too, are not just communication tools but moral infrastructures. They shape culture, transmit values, and enable collective healing.

If we want eudaimonic workplaces, Soren argues, we must treat storytelling as a sacred practice. One that reveals shared purpose and binds communities together.

Act VI: Conclusions

As Soren notes, building workplaces as moral communities will not happen all at once. Designing workplaces as moral communities, or modern-day poleis, means:

  • Moving beyond self-optimization toward collective flourishing.

  • Treating organizations not as economic machines but as spaces for ethical, aesthetic, and human development.

  • Recognizing that even small shifts, led by committed communities, can ripple outward into real change.

Across workplaces and communities, leaders and workers are already experimenting with ways to make work more decent, purposeful, and humane.

The challenge is to notice, share, and build on these efforts - together.

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Realizing our Eudaimonic Potential: Lessons from Dr. Alan Waterman

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In this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, Dr. Alan Waterman joins Andrew Soren to unpack what eudaimonia looks like in everyday life, especially when it comes to the work we do.

Dr. Waterman is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at The College of New Jersey. He is widely recognized for his pioneering research on identity, intrinsic motivation, and the distinction between eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. His work brings together philosophy and psychology to explore what it means to live a life of purpose and fulfillment.

Their conversation touches on themes like motivation, personal values, calling versus obligation, and the kind of support individuals need to develop a fulfilling life, whether that fulfillment is found through their job, outside of it, or both.

From Aristotle to Identity: What Is Eudaimonia?

Dr. Waterman explains eudaimonia as the process of realizing our fullest potential.

He draws an important distinction between two kinds of potential. Species-generic potential refers to the abilities and traits that are uniquely human, such as reason, creativity, and moral reflection. Individual-specific potential is about the strengths, values, and capacities that are unique to each person.

Both types matter.

From Waterman’s perspective, fulfillment happens when we develop our own individual strengths within the broader context of what it means to be human. It is not just about performing well, but about growing into the kind of person we are most capable of becoming.

He describes it this way, inspired by the work and research of David Norton:

“Being where one wants to be, doing what one wants to do, where what you are doing is something that is worth doing and worth doing to the best of your ability.”

This definition highlights that living well requires both self-knowledge and effort. We need to know what we are capable of and choose to act on it.

For Waterman, this is what gives life its meaning.

Work as a Calling vs. Work as a Job

One of the clearest applications of eudaimonia to modern life is how we approach work. Waterman distinguishes between work as a calling and work as a job.

  • Work as a calling is intrinsically motivating. It’s often tied to activities or roles to which people feel connected. Not because of pay, status, or convenience, but because they find them worthwhile.

  • Work as a job, by contrast, is usually chosen for practical reasons and tends to be extrinsically motivated. It may be necessary or even enjoyable, but lacks the deeper sense of purpose that defines a calling.

Waterman challenges the notion that callings are rare.

In his view, many people experience a calling: teachers, scientists, first responders, artists, etc. However, they may not always label it as such. He also emphasizes that callings can evolve over time and show up in multiple domains of life, not just in paid employment.

Intrinsic Motivation and Person-Activity Fit

So how do we know what path might lead to fulfillment?

Waterman points to intrinsic motivation as a key signal. The activities, values, or beliefs we feel a natural pull toward are often the ones most aligned with our individual potential.

He encourages us to pay attention to resonance, a term borrowed from music. Just as certain notes create harmony within us, certain tasks, roles, or values feel more aligned with who we are. When we ignore those signals, we may succeed externally but feel disconnected internally.

Waterman also highlights the difference between interpersonal comparisons (how we stack up against others) and intrapersonal comparisons (what we do best among all our own options).

Eudaimonic fulfillment, he argues, comes from the latter.

“We are not here to fulfill someone else’s version of success. The work of a meaningful life is identifying and developing the strengths that resonate most for us.”

Harmonious vs. Obsessive Passion

The conversation also explores a critical distinction in motivation theory: harmonious passion versus obsessive passion.

  • Harmonious passions are intrinsically motivated and additive. They support our overall well-being and integrate well with other areas of life.

  • Obsessive passions on the other hand often involve a rigid attachment to goals or identities. They can lead to burnout, alienation, or the neglect of other important life domains.

Waterman encourages anyone stuck in an obsessive loop to step back and assess what’s working and what’s not. He suggests revisiting earlier moments in life where balance or joy were more present. Oftentimes, rediscovering meaning starts with exposure to something new.

What This Means for Managers and Workplaces

While much of Waterman’s framework focuses on individual awareness and alignment, the conversation closes with a practical discussion about how leaders and organizations can support fulfillment both at work and beyond it.

  • Not all jobs will be intrinsically motivating, and that’s okay. Every person still has the potential to find meaningful expression somewhere in their life.

  • Managers can support employees by creating space for strengths exploration, autonomy, and values alignment even if that expression happens outside the workplace.

  • When employers support the whole person, employees are more likely to feel grounded, satisfied, and capable in their roles.

Soren reflects on how organizations might expand their understanding of growth by including personal development alongside traditional professional development. Together, he and Waterman suggest that fulfillment at work is more likely when people are supported in growing in ways that feel personally meaningful.

Key Ideas to Reflect On

  • Eudaimonia is about realizing your highest potential by making choices that lead to a lasting sense of fulfillment.

  • Intrinsic motivation and alignment with personal values are reliable signals that you are on a path toward self-realization.

  • Work can be experienced as a calling, a job, or something in between. Each orientation has its place, depending on context and individual goals.

  • When employers support employee fulfillment outside of work, it can lead to greater well-being, motivation, and performance on the job.

Final Thoughts

From Waterman’s point of view, meaningful work is about recognizing your unique strengths, aligning with your values, and having the opportunity to express what matters most to you.

His insights are a reminder that fulfillment comes from choosing what is worth doing and committing to doing it well. This applies just as much to individuals seeking more purpose in their work as it does to leaders responsible for creating environments where people can thrive.

Resources for Further Exploration