Emotional safety of the team - It's your job, Leader!

In an online chat group recently I suggested that part of the leader’s role is to create an emotionally safe team environment, and was quite surprised to read an opinion attempting to debunk my statement.  

Could a thinking leader doubt that it is part of her role to create emotional safety for her team?  The correlation between an unhappy workforce and loss of productivity is a given, so how does emotional safety feed into this equation?  Besides, what is an emotionally safe environment for a team?  

Perhaps it’s easier to start with what it isn’t.  

What an emotionally safe environment doesn’t have:  

• The threat of humiliation for expressing opinions and ideas, 
• Name-calling or ridiculing, 
• Back-stabbing, 
• A blame culture, 
• Dummy spits, 
• Manipulative behaviours.

What an emotionally safe environment does have:  

• Valuing and protecting of the dignity of the team members,
• Cooperation, 
• Consistent, fair and transparent performance management, 
• team members who listen to each other,
• Interactions that are respectful, even during conflict.

How does a team get to be like this?  
  
Teams like this do not just happen.  They get this way because the leader manages the team culture.   In fact leaders of emotionally safe teams are (usually intuitively) doing a combination of three things . . . 

1. Modelling behaviours that promote emotional safety,  
2. Censuring behaviours that are destructive to the effectiveness of the team and the people in it, 
3. Rewarding behaviours that are constructive to the effectiveness of the team and the people in it. 

Modelling behaviours that promote emotional safety

There are many things that a leader can do to model the promotion of emotional safety, but three of the most critical areas are performance management, conduct in meetings, and casual interactions. 

When objectivity, calmness and the willingness to listen are the characteristics of a disciplinary encounter, team members emerge from it far more robust and able to lift their game than if they have received an irrational battering of their self-esteem.  When the leader lacks objectivity, has an angry outburst and does not listen to what the team member has to say in his defence, the scene is set for disquiet, discontent and gossiping.

In meetings, the leader's tight control of her own and the other members’ behaviour, allowing no dummy-spits, hobby horses, grandstanding and overbearing stances creates an environment in which members becoming increasingly ready to propose ideas and express opinions.  On the other hand, allowing these things to happen, make the team meetings a negative space that everyone will dread.  

When the leader is in touch with each member of the team’s work, the pressure of their workload, the challenges they face, the victories they celebrate, and she communicates her concern and appreciation, she is modelling a behaviour that team members can adopt with each other.  When she doesn’t do these things, the absence can lead to team members feeling unappreciated and undervalued.  

Censuring behaviours that are destructive and rewarding behaviours that are constructive

Not all conflict is destructive, but I still find myself being surprised by the number of people I encounter who cannot argue constructively.  Here are some the characteristics of a destructive argument.

An argument that is destructive is one in which:

• The issues get lost in extreme emotional overlay, 
• The antagonists are not open to a compromise resolution, 
• There are elements such as name-calling, ridicule and recruiting others into the conflict.

The leader of the emotionally safe team will not only arbitrate the dispute, but censure behaviours that are destructive.  She will challenge the dummy-spits and other inappropriate behaviours and she will encourage and affirm behaviours that deal with the conflict in mature and helpful ways.  

She will reward: 

• Argument that is calm, rational and linear, 
• Respect of the antagonists for one another, even though they may be deeply divided on an issue, 
• Antagonists who listen to each other's point of view,
• Willingness to seek a compromise situation.  

A safe emotional environment means that people are not tense and anxious about their workplace relationships.  They can focus on the work of the team.  They have no vested interest in being secretive, detached or non-cooperative.  In short, they function better as individuals and as a team.  

(Photo: www.freedigitalphotos.net)

Statistics and Meetings: How boring!

At training events, I often make jokes based on humankind’s dislike of statistics and meetings and I always get a laugh.   Why?  Because the hatred of statistics and meetings is multi-cultural and almost universal. 

Although we claim it’s because they’re boring, I suspect the real reason is because they reveal the true facts about our performance and effectiveness.  If we fear that we’re not up to speed, we prefer to keep it hidden!

But statistics and meetings are two of the leader’s most important tools for keeping his team accountable.  They’re tools to get the job done. 

Not all meetings are equal

Having said that, not all meetings are effective as accountability tools.  Indeed, some never have the intention of being so.  Others try to be but fail. So what are the elements of a good accountability meeting? 

What a good accountability meeting looks like

Effective accountability meetings will have most of the following elements. 

ü  It will take place on a regular basis (Most of mine are fortnightly),

ü  Each meeting will be followed up with a list of action points, with deadlines and the person responsible,

ü  Everyone will get a copy of the action points within a day or so of the meeting,

ü  The list of action points forms the basis of the discussion for the next meeting, with new items added to the list as they arise,

I have found that, with these simple elements in place, nearly all of the action points will be completed by the deadline. 

How it works psychologically: Social sanctions and social rewards

Most people want to appear professional and effective in the workplace.  However, if they turn up to a meeting and their allocated task has not been done, they experience some embarrassment (a social sanction).  The desire to be regarded as effective on one hand and to avoid the social sanction (often unspoken) associated with not “pulling your weight” on the other, are often enough to keep performance on track. 

On the positive, when they are able to sit in a meeting declaring that they have met their responsibility, the achievement is acknowledged, at least implicitly, (social reward) and they feel a degree of satisfaction.

(Having said all that, some people are naturally less responsive to the feelings and opinions of others - known as poor self-monitors - and these may need extra nudging by the team leader.)

Dealing with delays and poor performance

Delays in completion of tasks sometimes occur due to genuine reasons outside the control of the team member.  Then it is the responsibility of the leader to:

1.    Discern the real reasons from the excuses, and then

2.    Give direction on how to proceed under the changed (behind schedule) circumstances. 

Keep it safe

Whatever the case, it is important that the leader maintains an emotionally safe environment in the meetings, even when he has to tell off members of the team.  This means allowing only objectivity and solution-focused behaviours from everyone in the team, and not allowing blame-shifting and name-calling.  It is about rewarding behaviours that enhance team cohesion and good performance and censuring behaviours that are harmful to cohesion and performance. 

We’re about people not numbers!

Despite humankind’s aversion to statistics (with the possible exception of social work professors) they really do help us to get the job done. 

In the human services field (and especially the spiritual nurture field) we hate to reduce our work to numbers because it seems to be debasing our clients or pastoral flock.  But a simple and easily-collected set of statistics, while not telling the whole story, can provide indicators of growth or decline, effectiveness or ineffectiveness, success or failure.  These indicators can provide the beginning of the conversation for rectifying a problem or recognising good performance. 

The numbers that we collect should be simple, as few as possible, and easily understood.  Further, they should be set next to the benchmark expectation for each number.

Here are some examples that have value in the real world of human services: 

For	Example of Numbers	Benchmark
Case Workers	percentage of time spent in contact with clients	60%
	Reduced drug use in clients	30%1
	Improved social functioning	70%1
	Improved familial connection	50%1
Social Workers	Clients in Caseload	20 – 25 clients2
	Outgoing referrals	71
	Incoming referrals	31
Corps officers	Number of persons attending Sunday meeting	10% growth pa
	New soldiers and adherents	10% growth pa

¹These are not real figures, but are for illustrative purposes only.  They vary according to the nature of the client group, aims of the service, etc.

²This is based on the worker seeing each client once a week.

How it works psychologically

Recognition and achievement are the two greatest workplace motivators.  By making a clear statement about what performance is sought the team member understands how she may achieve both recognition and achievement.  She will put less time, creativity and energy into activities that do not support the goals and more time, creativity and energy into activities that will.  The old adage, “You get what you measure” really is true.

But wait, there’s more!

If you still hate statistics and meetings, then let me throw in the complimentary steak knives . . .

The synergy of using both regular meetings and numbers to keep people accountable is very powerful.  When your team member is looking toward the next meeting and she knows that she has met the benchmarks she feels confident, strong and effective (which she is)! 

Even the negative is positive with good simple accountability tools

Of course it’s not always sweetness and light.  There are times when the leader is going to have to address poor performance.  It’s so much easier when he can point to the numbers and the lists of action points and say clearly and concisely, “This is what we expected, this is how we explained it, and this is where you let us down.”

Even performance management becomes easier with good statistics and meetings.