Mykella Auld: Fostering Workplace Wellbeing Through Innovative Leadership

Mykella Auld is on a mission to transform unhealthy work cultures and empower both employees and leaders to thrive. As the Founder and Executive Coach of Culture and Leadership at The Work Well Studio, she specializes in helping organizations shift to psychologically safe, equitable cultures that prioritize wellbeing and belonging.   

Turning Struggle into Leadership Insight

Mykella’s own winding career path led her to realize the vital role that company culture and engaged leadership play in unlocking employee potential. After climbing the ladder in roles she was passionate about, chronic stress and burnout began taking a toll. “I found myself combating chronic health diseases and chronic burnout, questioning my purpose in life,” she shares. Struggling to reconcile ambitious career goals with deteriorating mental and physical health, Mykella came to an important insight: many leaders lack the tools and support needed to create thriving cultures.   

This sparked a career pivot. With advanced degrees in leadership and executive coaching, Mykella shares, “I realized something: a lot of times supervisors and leaders are not adequately prepared and supported as employees themselves. This realization drove me to become a culture and leadership coach.” Equipped with skills and knowledge, Mykella launched The Work Well Studio to help organizations transform from the inside out.   

Leading With Vision

The Work Well Studio is guided by the vision of creating workplaces where employees can show up as their best selves. “In 10 years, it will be 2034, and a new generation will make up the workforce. Wellbeing, belonging, and trust are no longer a suggestion; it’s a requirement to keep up and attract this incoming generation,” Mykella predicts. She sees a future where the Monday blues are a distant memory, where people look forward to with energy and purpose.   

To reach this goal, The Work Well Studio partners with companies to lay the cultural foundation needed for innovation and success. Mykella explains, “Leaders need the skills and time to build engaging work cultures where staff voice is heard and used in decision-making.” By investing in workplace culture initiatives early on, organizations can proactively shape a dynamic and resilient business landscape.   

To translate inspiring visions into reality, The Work Well Studio offers customizable services tailored to address leaders’ specific areas for growth. From one-on-one coaching, helping individuals align personal and professional purposes to leadership team development, encouraging collaborative decision-making, the studio provides concrete steps to reach aspirational goals.   

The Work Well Studio also offers transformative courses like the 12-week Culture Design Program for Strategic Leadership that empowers leaders to create engaging, innovative work cultures grounded in psychological safety. Additionally, there’s a Strategic Design for Entrepreneurs course supporting early-stage founders in analyzing opportunities and developing strategic plans. “We meet leaders where they are at to collaboratively bridge the gap between the status quo and an ideal future state,” Mykella explains. By accounting for each organization’s distinct challenges and capabilities, her studio nurtures the interpersonal foundations that innovation requires.   

Fostering Inclusive Cultures

Creating inclusive spaces where every individual feels valued is central to Mykella’s cultural transformation process. “Psychological safety is the foundation for a thriving and successful work culture,” she emphasizes. Psychologically safe environments encourage people to speak up without fear of embarrassment or retaliation. The result is greater collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving.   

On the flip side, cultures forcing employees to conform often breed disengagement and turnover. As Mykella notes, “fitting in is the opposite of belonging.” She coaches leaders to spot situations where staff feel pressure to hide parts of themselves to fit in. Replacing conformity with belonging means ensuring policies, systems, and social norms support inclusion. When people feel recognized as their authentic selves, they become more invested in collective success.   

Helping clients balance ambitious visions with practical steps is Mykella’s superpower. She describes her approach: “The strategy behind my coaching emphasizes self-awareness, encouraging leaders to understand unique strengths and weaknesses and laying the groundwork for innovative leadership.” With deeper personal insight, executives can tailor company objectives to leverage their abilities. Mykella acts as a trusted advisor, offering encouragement to lean into discomfort and evolve perspectives.   

She also stresses the importance of distributed authority, noting that leaders should “build cross-functional teams to enhance idea exchange.” Mykella guides executives to empower employees through participatory decision-making. This fosters openness to experimentation and a growth mindset focused on learning rather than failure. Gradually, Mykella’s clients learn to coach their own staff by role-modeling vulnerability and providing supportive feedback.   

The Coach Behind the Leader

While navigating complex organizational dynamics, Mykella grounds her practice: “I want leaders to feel empowered to bring both their heart and brain into their visions and strategies,” she shares. By holding space for vulnerability, Mykella inspires executives to let their guard down and reconnect with their needs and emotions before guiding others.   

Mykella describes her coaching style as “built around adult learning practices, data-driven insights, social-emotional wellbeing, and psychological safety principles.” Blending empathy and evidence-based expertise, she establishes trusting partnerships with clients. Within these supportive relationships, leaders gain awareness of how their behaviors cascade through the organization, learning to address stressors and model healthy behaviors.   

Yet Mykella understands life happens amid the best-laid plans. When inevitable setbacks occur, she helps clients process feelings of defeat and rebuild resilience. “Through coaching, workshops, and hands-on collaboration, we empower them to embrace change, embrace their full potential, and drive innovation,” Mykella affirms. With the engine, Mykella charts roads to cultural transformation.   

Champion of Workplace

Early in her career, Mykella realized leaders often lack tools to prevent employee burnout and nurture talent. Rather than accepting toxic organizational patterns as inevitable, she equipped herself to disrupt the status quo. Now, Mykella is paying it forward by creating workplaces where everyone can thrive.   

Through The Work Well Studio , Mykella gives executives an insider advantage as they plan for major workforce changes ahead. Leaders leaning into culture transformation today will reap rewards tomorrow when employees demand purpose and flexibility. Mykella is preparing the way so that both businesses and their people flourish.   

As a tireless advocate guiding executives to care for employee wellbeing holistically, Mykella models what it looks like for leaders to bring their hearts to work. She is pioneering a shift from compliance to consciousness, replacing check-the-box inclusion efforts with authentic belonging. Mykella is working to reshape business landscapes where profit and ethics seamlessly align.   

With insight and innovation, Mykella partners with leaders to lay foundations where innovation and care take root. She is growing a harvest of workplaces where every employee can achieve their full potential. Under Mykella’s stewardship, the corporate world is becoming fertile soil for human resilience and creativity to blossom.