A recent Gallup study confirms that globally, followers need trust, compassion, and stability from their leaders, but above all, they need hope. More than half (56%) of desired leadership attributes focus on hope. And, if leaders deliver what followers need, they can improve others’ wellbeing, Gallup found.

Regarding the workplace specifically, leaders hold tremendous potential to improve lives. More than one-third (34%) of employed individuals cite someone from their work environment (manager, colleague, or organizational leader) as most influential, just slightly fewer than those who name a family member (44%). Again, most (65%) followers emphasize the need to see hope from organizational leaders.

Family leadership plays an integral role in daily life, though, with 57% of adults naming a family member as the most influential leader in their lives. Including those who mention a friend (5%), more than three in five adults cite a loved one.

Overall, hope (56%) stands out as the dominant need among followers, and trust (33%) is also fundamental. Compassion (7%) and stability (4%) together account for about one in nine positive leadership traits.

Nearly half of the people living in the U.S. breathe unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to the American Lung Association’s 2025 State of the Air report. In total, the report finds that 156 million people, 25 million more than last year’s report, are living in areas that received an “F” grade for either ozone or particle pollution. Extreme heat and wildfires contributed to worse air quality for millions of people across the U.S.

The Lung Association’s 26th annual report grades exposure to unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone air pollution (also known as smog), and year-round and short-term spikes in particle pollution (also known as soot) over a three-year period. The report looks at the latest quality-assured air quality data from 2021-2023.

“Families across the U.S. are dealing with the health impacts of air pollution every day, and extreme heat and wildfires are making it worse,” said Harold Wimmer, American Lung Association president and CEO. “Air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick, and leading to low birth weight in babies. This year’s report shows the dramatic impact that air pollution has on a growing number of people. Even as more people are breathing unhealthy air, the federal staff, programs, and policies that are supposed to be cleaning up pollution are facing rollbacks, restructuring and funding challenges. For decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked to ensure people have clean air to breathe, from providing trustworthy air quality forecasts to making sure polluters who violate the law clean up. Efforts to slash staff, funding and programs at EPA are leaving families even more vulnerable to harmful air pollution. We need to protect EPA.”

The State of the Air report found that 156 million people in the U.S. (46%) live in an area that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution and 42.5 million people live in areas with failing grades for all three measures. The report also found that a person of color in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a white individual to live in a community with a failing grade on all three pollution measures. Notably, Hispanic individuals are nearly three times as likely as white individuals to live in a community with three failing grades.

The air pollutants covered in the report are widespread and can impact anyone’s health. Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes, preterm births and impaired cognitive functioning later in life. Particle pollution can also cause lung cancer.