Leadership Teams Under Pressure...

With the bits of downtime I have had over the last few days, I have been watching old episodes of the BBC Drama Spooks. It has provided an interesting prism through which to consider the challenge which many of my clients are facing at the moment across sectors: how to make sure their leadership team operates as effectively as possible under the pressures being faced.

Good coaches, like good leaders, make sure they recruit the right players into their team. Great coaches however, like great leaders, go further; they focus on getting the resulting team to operate as more than the sum of its parts.

In these difficult times, issues with how a team operates can come under the spotlight, and lead to seriously adverse consequences. Issues such as members not feeling confident to speak up; fear; members not having clarity on purpose and direction; members prioritising their own self interest; and lack of trust and respect. These can all be amplified where communication is solely by virtual means.

The solution? Well decades of research has shown that psychological safety, a term coined by American professor and renowned author Amy Edmondson, drives high performance within teams. A team climate characterised by interpersonal trust and mutual respect, in which people are comfortable being themselves.

Psychological safety does not equate to ‘soft’ or easy. But it does mean an environment in which everyone feels safe enough to give of their best, freely and openly. Whilst a relatively simple concept, it takes a huge amount of hard work and effort to instil; however, the results overwhelmingly make it worthwhile.

If you feel your team could do with a boost in this area, take a look and see if you can improve in any of the following facets.

Setting the Stage

  • Provide clarity on purpose and direction.

  • Identify what’s at stake, why it matters, for whom.

  • Motivate your team to work hard to achieve it.

  • Build trust between the team, by getting to know each other better.

  • Ensure clarity on role and contribution to the wider goal.

Inviting Participation

  • Have you got the right structures in place?

  • Do you follow through on ideas and suggestions?

  • Do you make it easy for people to share concerns and experiences?

  • Does the leader make it clear they haven’t got all the answers?

  • Do you ask good questions?

Responding Productively

  • Listen, acknowledge and thank.

  • Destigmatise failure: look forward, offer help, discuss, consider, brainstorm next steps.

  • Fight then unite.

  • Highlight clear violations of psychological safety.

As well as the many examples in the commercial world of psychological safety driving team performance, the GB Women’s Hockey Team, who won Gold at Rio 2016, put their success down in large part to their focus on building psychological safety within their squad.

Whilst there are a range of interventions and recommendations for building psychological safety within teams that we deliver at Sport and Beyond, here are some of the key levers:

  • understanding each other better as individuals;

  • making candour real;

  • seeing conflict as collaborators not adversaries;

  • replacing blame with curiosity; and

  • re-booting the way the team communicates.

For more on this or any aspect of leadership, with a healthy dose of mindset, sport, and I hope usefulness thrown in, do feel free to browse through all the articles in the Huddle, or get in touch with me directly on catherine@sportandbeyond.co.uk . And if you want to see a brilliant example of psychological safety in action during a team meeting, do watch an early episode of Spooks (BBC iplayer) - short, slightly uncomfortable (but safe), different opinions actively sought, candid discussion, and then uniting behind the decision made.

Teams, Performance, Insight, LeadershipCatherine BAKERComment