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)
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