Picture the scene. You are leading a team, you feel you are doing all the right things, you have regular one to ones and team meetings, you have set the vision for the year ahead and you have a “door is always open” approach. However, you find your 1:1’s are surface level, you rarely get through each person’s to do list let alone find time to talk about growth or development and team meetings feel like a status update from each person without the time or energy to go broader. If you feel there is room for improvement, then you are not alone. Many leaders create the building blocks of a high performing team, then find there is still more to enhance and work on.
In this blog we explore some simple yet powerful strategies to skilfully lead the team and create a positive team dynamic, through focusing on building trust, creating a safe space, powerful communication and clearly defining roles.
Psychological Safety
I like to keep things simple. Before people are comfortable speaking up, taking risks, challenging concepts and sharing feedback, they need to feel absolute trust and safety. Great teams start with safety first and leaders play a critical role here. For example, this may include sharing your own vulnerabilities, what you have learnt recently from a mistake, being open, willing to be challenged and actively listening.
What can I do to build safety and trust?
Start from a place of unconditional positive regard, rather than going in with assumptions about a person, start by assuming good intent. This often involves clearing our mind of past performance or situations and allowing yourself to be curious about what the person could be capable of. If you take this approach, the feeling that you believe in them and hold them in high regard will be felt by the other person.
When people challenge you or have a different perspective, encourage them to expand their thoughts, thank them for sharing their ideas and genuinely listen to understand, rather than respond from a place of defending your own idea.
Ask the team about how they would value building trust. Instead of assuming trust is there it can be useful to talk about it. We all have different levels of trust of people and that is okay. What is important is to acknowledge it and work on it. An example question could be “What does it take for you to trust people?” “What matters to you most”, people’s answers are fascinating and will give you concrete ways to build trust.
Ensure everyone in the team has a voice. This includes you facilitating the meetings and encouraging a sharing of ideas rather than just some people sharing thoughts. Another great question is “What are we not saying or noticing here that could be important to surface?”
When you have set a schedule of meetings, particularly one to one’s I encourage you to stick to them rather than cancel them. A leader who regularly cancels one to ones is signalling an important message to the team, that they do not see them as a priority. This simple act can make a big difference to trust in the long term.
When the team visibly make a mistake, it is important for them to see the leader owning it with them rather than pointing the finger or blaming. I encourage all leaders to lean into the more uncomfortable moments such as these. Whilst mistakes need to be learned from, the leader can step in, encourage learnings and insights rather than creating a blame culture.
A metaphor here is the trust bank. Some people start in a deficit, they do not trust until you prove to them you are worthy of trust. Others start from a neutral bank balance, neither trusting or mistrusting. Others start in credit, they trust you before you even speak. This is useful to notice when we build a new relationship, different people have different perspectives and the trust bank may go up and down depending on situations. For example, if you are regularly cancelling one to ones this may result in trust levels decreasing.
Clarity of roles and responsibilities
In coaching sessions, I hear firsthand how confused people can be about messages they have been given. We think we have been clear but perhaps we haven’t taken the time to check. A coaching skill of rephrasing and summarising works well here. Having a two-way conversation where you summarise what you think you heard from the other person allows them to hear it back and make changes or ask questions. Enabling them to share what they took away from the conversation is another way to do this. We can also assume too easily that someone just knows the standards and what is expected of them so the skill of being explicit and clear is also important here too.
What this might look like
- Have a conversation about what success looks like in their role, be explicit about examples, engage the person in the conversation and seek their input.
- Share “So I am hearing you say . . .“, “What I understand is . . . .” or “What I am taking from our conversation is . . . .” i.e. summarise and paraphrase to check understanding.
How we communicate
In addition to setting up a regular cadence of both one to one’s and team meetings, it is crucial to consider how you communicate with one another. Here are some simple yet powerful tips that make a difference:
- Start every meeting with a check in. A simple question such as “What have you learnt this week?”, “What’s been challenging?” or “How are you feeling as you come into our time together today?” all have the potential to settle people to become present. I facilitate many leadership group coaching sessions and the power of a check in is evident here, leaders experience it for themselves and then start to use this tool with their teams. It gives an energy or mood check in that enables people to connect beyond the work.
- Ask “What do we need to focus on today?”, instead of talking and directing, give space for you both to set out what the focus is.
- Ask “What do we want to walk away with?” or “How will we know our time has been useful?”, these questions allow us to pinpoint what it truly is that we want from the meeting, not only the focus but the measures of success
- Ask “What is important about talking about X?”, this encourages us to dig deeper in to the significance of the topics, so that we ensure we connect it to something meaningful.
- Ensure the conversation is not only about facts and information but also about how we are feeling in relation to the work, what is not being explored that needs to be, or what isn’t being said. It takes courage to ask these types of questions and yet this is where connected and powerful teams sit. In uncomfortable conversations as these, they bring about new thinking and creativity as well as acknowledgement.
- Check in throughout the conversation for learnings, insights and actions. Rather than only checking in relating to progress at the end, by doing this throughout you allow the insights to bubble up naturally. In doing so you can change the direction of the conversation in partnership with the person by asking again “So now what do we want to explore next?”. In addition this enables you to focus on not only the topic but on the growth and development of the person at the same time.
What might this look like?
- Engage the team by bringing curiosity, ask more than telling.
- Set a structure for the conversation every time using the questions above so that people get used to the familiarity of being in partnership in the conversation. They will start coming prepared for it over time.
- Encourage people to voice the challenge or the trickier conversation rather than hiding them.
The metaphor here is holding the handrail of the conversation. When we have a structure it is like holding the handrail going up and down the stairs. We can use it to hold on to when we are not sure where we are in the conversation and we can check in relating to progress by holding the handrail of the structure outlined above.
Key takeaways
- By asking about learnings and insights in every conversation you are building development and growth of the person into every conversation not just in quarterly performance reviews. Simple questions such as “What are you learning about yourself in relation to this project?” can be so useful, as it focuses on the person’s learning not just the task learnings.
- Behavioural changes occur when we focus on people’s values and beliefs rather than just the task at hand. Spend a good portion of one to ones exploring how the person sees the work, how they feel about it, what might be getting in the way in terms of how they think about it and themselves.
- When people feel safe, they explore beyond the status quo, they challenge and come up with new ways of thinking. I encourage you to always consider safety and trust in how you show up with others.
- Prevent meetings from being simply an update, instead reflect on how people are feeling, what are the key questions? and how can they brainstorm together?
In summary
Leadership is less about control and more about creating an environment where people can thrive. Having clear team norms, role modelling curiosity, encouraging courage and having structured check ins make such a difference.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on building positive team dynamics. Let me know how you get on and how you find the different approaches. If you would like support with building your leadership style get in touch to see how 1:1 leadership coaching sessions can support you.