With the chaos and relative unsteadiness of our economy and world, I can’t help but think about how people are feeling moving through and out of the holiday season. It’s not an easy time to feel like celebrating, and in certain cases, some may also feel unsafe. It makes me sad. I imagine that other leaders may be feeling similarly and concerned about the psychological safety of their teams and coworkers. I reached out to my wise coaching team and asked what can leaders be doing to help build trust and safety.
To no one’s surprise, the responses from Seth Rosenbloom, Zovig Garboushian, and Marriot Winquist were remarkably consistent and focused on these three items:
- Show you care with your time through 1:1s and building relationships
- Be consistent, follow through on what you say
- Model the behavior you want to instill: trust and safety is a two-way street
Your time
Zovig: Have regular and consistent 1:1s. Ensure they are not performance-based, ever, and leave your agenda as the manager out of it. Never cancel (or at least rarely cancel) a 1:1 meeting because it sends a message that your direct report isn’t important. Let them guide the meeting.
Seth: Build a relationship that focuses not only on the outcome/results of the employee’s work but seeks to understand how they are doing in the doing of their job. This means taking the time to walk in their shoes and understanding their perspective on the degree of skill and capacity they have to do the work. It also means understanding the challenges they face as they perceive them.
Marriot: Set up 1:1s, and BE PRESENT during these times. Ask what is blocking/concerning/motivating them, and truly LISTEN.
Consistency and follow through
Zovig: Follow through on every agreement you make. If you say you’ll get back to them Thursday, do it. And if you can’t, acknowledge it, share why, and create a new agreement. If you skip over Thursday with no mention, the silence speaks more loudly than any intention you have. A leader is only as good as their ability to stick to their agreements.
Seth: Stay true to your word— integrity is a manager’s greatest tool. You can not (nor will your organization enable you to) do everything for your employee. People are willing to be led (and managed) by leaders who demonstrate integrity on behalf of themselves and their organizations.
Be a good model, practice what you preach
Zovig: Time and attention. Match your actions with your words. Model good behavior consistently. And give opportunities for private and confidential ways to express themselves. Listen with curiosity and don’t explain or defend. Trust takes time and attention to build. Be patient and do your best. It sounds obvious (and it is!), but it also takes courage and willingness to self-reflect and not be perfect to create safe spaces for others.
Seth: Model the behaviors yourself: (1) recognition of interdependence, (2) openness, (3) work from curiosity/seek to learn together, (4) acknowledge individual/self fallibility and humility. These behaviors are perpetual, not one-and-done. Teams that flourish circle around these behaviors continually.
Marriot: If you’re the leader, then first is for you to create a safe environment for your team. If your team members don’t participate, then ensure the steps in “how to build a culture that values psychological safety” are followed: Is this stated and known? Are expectations defined? Am I (the leader) modeling this? Are we enforcing this? If specific individuals are experiencing challenges, what’s holding them back? If they are paralyzed with fear, it’ll likely require some 1:1 work to dig deeper and understand what’s behind the fear before setting up small actions to move forward.
