Smart working and video conference
Creating the conditions for people to do their best work has always been a crucial role of leaders. Yet as this crisis has distributed teams virtually, it has upped the ante for leaders.
In the vacuum of interpersonal cues and coffee bar conversations, fostering trust, belonging and emotional safety has grown both more challenging and paramount.
Regardless of where we work, it’s how we work that is the primary source of value creation. Amid change and uncertainty, leaders have to be all the more deliberate in removing the psychological barriers that hinder crucial conversations, decision making processes and creativity.
Here are seven ways to create the conditions that foster a ‘culture of courage’ in your remote team that emboldens each person to do their best work.
1. Ground yourself in self-certainty
Leaders are like emotional barometers, providing ‘cues’ to everyone else on how to respond and behave. If you’re anxious, you will stoke fear, undermining objective decision making and constricting the collective creativity of your team.
So when so much is uncertain and outside your control, if employees feel certain that you’re in control of yourself, it forms of psychological safety net that frees their creative and cognitive horse-power to address the most pressing problems at hand.
So before you focus on strategies and processes, get your head and heart in the right space. Ground yourself in ‘self-certainty’, clear about who you want to be as a leader. Only then can you show up with the calm, confident ‘can do’ spirit needed to harness the best and bravest in everyone around you.
2. Encourage everyone to participate
Everyone wants to fee part of a tribe, valued and celebrated. When people are meeting behind screens instead of beside each other, it’s easier to feel isolated, to withdraw and engage in self-protective behaviors. So you must be deliberate in fostering a sense of inclusion and safety. Invite everyone for their input. Ask open ended questions. Nurture discussion. Then actively listen and acknowledge the value of what every one has to share. Most of all, be humble about your own opinion, admit what you don’t know, and when you get it wrong, say so.
3. Reward loyal dissent
It is the conversations that are not happening that usually incur the steepest hidden tax on every measure that matters. In fact, research found a strong correlation between team performance and the time span between a problem being identified and being raised (a study by VitalSmarts found that the average time was two weeks, and that was before teams dispersed virtually).
The reason for reticence is simple: when weighing the costs and benefits of dissenting against the consensus view or raising potentially sensitive issues, people err toward caution. If they assess a risk of social humiliation, much less being professionally penalized, they’ll almost certainly choose to play it safe.
As I wrote in Stop Playing Safe, people play safe when they feel unsafe to do otherwise.
Managers who consistently reward those who ‘stick their neck out’ for the greater good, ameliorate against that threat of penalty. Your job is to make it easy and as comfortable as possible for others to report, share and discuss what is not working.
4. Treat people as trust-worthy
It’s human nature to rise to the level of expectation others have of us. When you demonstrate you believe someone is trust-worthy –by giving them decision making authority or just leaving them to get on with the job – they’ll go the extra mile to prove you right. On the flip side, when you micromanage or act in ways that imply you assume they’re not, you do the opposite.
So as you set priorities, allocate resources, communicate expectations and manage accountability, consider how your behavior would make you feel if your boss did that with you. And if your boss is doing that with you, share this article.
Trust is the central currency in today’s virtual workplace. A deficit of trust will exact a steep hidden tax long after this crisis is over.
Of course when trust is broken, hold people to account. Nothing demoralizes a great employee faster than watching you tolerate a lousy one.
5. Destigmatize failure
No one wants to fail. Yet unless people feel safe enough to risk it, it deprives everyone of valuable learning and improved outcomes. Without the freedom to risk a miss-step, people will only make very small changes, cautiously iterating on what is already in place rather than boldly innovating.
As I wrote in Stop Playing Safe, “Most people will only take risks when they assess that it is safe to do so.” Removing the stigma of failure is essential to optimizing growth and adapting quickly to change (pretty crucial right now.) So foster a ‘culture of courage.’ One which celebrates ‘learning, unlearning and relearning’ and where making a mistake doesn’t incite terror but is celebrated as part and parcel of what is required to move ahead, more informed than before.
At weekly meetings, ask everyone to share what they failed at this last week and what they learnt in the process. Celebrate that learning. Acknowledge their courage. Embolden people to challenge your thinking, rethink risk, and ‘lean into’ their own discomfort amid the uncertainty.
A study at University of Exeter Business School found that leaders who back employees to take back themselves build stronger performing teams.
Emboldened employees, in brave teams, all pulling together achieve exponentially more than fearful ones each pulling each for their own.
6. Ensure people know you’ve got their back
People do their best work when they feel appreciated for who they are, not just what they do. But can you honestly say that everyone on your team feels like you’ve truly got their best interest at heart? If they don’t, you’re likely missing out on the full value they could bring and keeping you from being as successful as you would like.
So put empathy into practice and make sure everyone in your team knows you’ve got their back. Prioritize regular, one-on-one, check ins. Send them a message to acknowledges their hard work and appreciates what they’re dealing with. Ask questions to encourage sharing:
How you doin’? What’s the biggest thing on your plate? How, specifically, can I best support you right now? How can I help you play even more from your strengths?
Tune into their underlying mood and emotions. Make it safe for them to be truthful while listening to the unspoken concerns beyond what they’re able or willing to voice.
When people intuitively sense that you genuinely care about them as a human being, not just a human doing - a ‘human resource’ to be managed - they’ll go above and beyond to help you be more successful. Seriously, it’s a no brainer. Prioritize it.
7. Build solidarity around a ‘mission critical’
“There’s nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can’t clearly articulate why we’re doing what we’re doing,” wrote Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner wrote in The Leadership Challenge.
So make sure everyone is crystal clear not just about what they need to be doing right now, why it’s so critical, and their specific role, responsibilities and metrics for success.
In the midst of crisis, leaders have an opportunity to activate the ‘rally effect’ and build a shared sense of mission and solidarity. Don’t squander that opportunity. Ensure everyone is clear about what lays at stake if you don’t all pull together, speak bravely and take bold risks required to set your business up to thrive long after this crisis is over.
Margie Warrell is a bestselling author and international speaker on courageous leadership currently leading virtual ‘courage-building’ programs. She just released You’ve Got This! The Life-Changing Power of Trusting Yourself .
