Be the Director of Emotional Safety®.
Hi, I’m Henry Evans, Managing Partner of Dynamic Results and as you know, I’m author of the bestselling book, “Winning with Accountability the Secret Language of High Performing Organizations”.
When we’re out working in our client organizations, sometimes we say something, when I do it, it’s usually by accident, and we get clients to say, “Wow, you should say that to all of your clients”.
So this month I am going to talk to you about one of those moments. We were explaining to a group of engineers in a very technical organization that we think that whatever their current business title is, the title of their position, they should start to re-frame it and think about it differently. And we said that everyone’s got the same title once they are in a leadership role. It’s Director of Emotional Safety®.
And, here’s what we mean: We mean that the higher you go on the organizational chart, the more responsibility and authority you have, but, perhaps the less accountability you have. There are fewer and fewer people who are willing to tell you when you are screwing up or when you haven’t kept your promises. And so, you might be operating at this point of really high leverage where you are making big decisions but you are not making them with real time information because people are afraid to come talk to you; maybe because you’ve chopped the head off the messenger a couple of times.
We think people need to feel safe when they are bringing you bad news or you are going to be making big decisions, again, with little or no real time information. We suggest that you encourage people to point out problems in the organization if they exist even if they are with you. My team does it all the time; they point out my imperfections in most of our Monday morning huddles. So, your job is to make it safe for them to keep doing that. You want to encourage them and thank them. And we this tough love.
Organizations who want to thrive are comfortable having these uncomfortable discussions when they are necessary. Now you might be thinking along the lines of this client organization I was working with during a Strategic Planning Session a few weeks ago. One of their people who might be a genius said, “What about Steve Jobs? Steve Jobs used to berate and belittle people if he didn’t like their ideas.” And I said, “You’re right, Steve Jobs was an exception to the rule I’m offering and he achieved amazing, earth shattering, industry changing results while treating people very harshly.” Then I said, “you know, I might not be an expert like all of you are, but, I don’t think any of us in this room are Steve Jobs. I think he’s very much the exception.” So, while he could achieve those results being the way that he was in meetings, we don’t think most leaders are exceptional enough that they are going to turn the world over with their ideas and have people follow them even if they are beating them up in meetings.
In short, we think it is your job as a leader to create Emotional Safety® for others so that you remain aware of what is really happening. This allows you to make informed decisions with real time information.
For more on how to make Emotional Intelligence tangible in the workplace contact us.
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And of course, as always, we look forward to seeing you again next month.
