How would we do business if we weren’t all so afraid?

What is your biggest fear in business? Cashflow, people politics, public speaking? If you could take a magic eraser to Sunday night dread or pre-presentation tummy turns, how would that impact your day-to-day experience of work? 

If professional failure and success held the same value for you, how would that change the shape of your business? What might ideas and innovation look like in that space, and perhaps most importantly, what kind of team would you build in that environment?

The great resignation of 2021 represented a tidal wave of personal and professional re-evaluation, triggered by polarising politics, global social justice movements, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the inevitable, yet drastically accelerated shift to more flexible ways of working. The 2021 Indeed Workplace Happiness Report found that second only to pay, lack of happiness was the leading reason that those surveyed considered quitting.

The role work plays in our lives has shifted drastically over recent generations; we are now more driven than ever to seek work that provides us with a sense of identity, purpose, alignment and fulfilment. Despite countless management and leadership studies indicating that happier, healthier teams produce tangibly better results, even by the traditional metrics of profit, productivity and presenteeism, many businesses still don’t seem able to move beyond the fear that prioritising people over profits might lead to catastrophe.

As we stand at this inflection point, looking ahead to a future of hybrid working, a metaverse of connectivity, and the slightly ominous new normal, what are the simple, foundational principles that teams of the future must embrace? How can we ensure that greater connectivity does not come at the cost of meaningful connection, and that our health, happiness and fulfilment, are the drivers of our decision making, as we shape this new working world?

Safety and Trust

If our long-term goal is dismantling the outdated ideals of the status quo, we should start by taking a sledgehammer to the pillars of hierarchy, paternalistic professionalism and fear that uphold it. Fear has a nasty habit of permeating down through an org chart, leading us to approach people management from a position of mistrust and breeding feelings of existential dread in our teams.

Fear is an extraordinarily powerful motivator for both action and inaction. Human beings are hard wired for survival and our ability to process and respond to perceived threats is a vital part of that mechanism. When facing what our brain interprets as a life-threatening situation, our bodies’ automatic fear responses kick in. This triggers a range of physical and hormonal responses: accelerated heart rate and breathing rush oxygen to major muscles to enable fight or flight, or a decreasing heart rate and restricted breathing forces us to freeze or flop to minimise the risk of physical harm. 

When it comes to life and death decisions, there is no question that our brain is designed to support our survival. However, in the relative comfort of the modern working world, in interviews, presentations, or when facing down professional failures, why do we so often find ourselves responding from a place of such heightened fear?

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that after safety, belonging is the next most fundamental human need. Over the span of human evolution, establishing connection and cooperation has increased our chances of survival exponentially, making the desire to find belonging and acceptance in social groups an instinctive human need. 

With all this in mind, it becomes clear that what is required of us as leaders, as we build the teams of the future, is to create a sense of psychological safety and belonging in our organisations. We must inspire and empower our people to fulfil their potential, without leveraging their basic human desire for safety and acceptance. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to grow, change and adapt, in both function and structure, in response to new information and evidence. We have the power to do things differently, and in doing so to tread down new neural pathways, that lead us to the extraordinary potential that lies just beyond the limitations of our learned fears.

Culture and Communication

A healthy, happy organisational culture is one that is founded on clearly defined and deeply engrained, shared core values. Your values should be the unambiguous boundaries that define who you are, and who you are not. These values should be supported by a set of behaviours, that act as practical, tangible examples of how you work. It feels important to note here that an unwavering emphasis on living up to shared values and behaviours should never be conflated with a requirement for homogeneity. Sharing values is not about being the same, thinking the same or even agreeing. In fact, the greatest test of how well a team lives its values, can be how quickly and kindly it can resolve conflict.

At the heart of a values-led culture is effective communication. Assuming that you have done the foundational work of building a team that is representative of the community in which it exists, or the customers that it hopes to serve, the next step is building a framework for communication that allows for the effective flow of ideas and information. Diversity has very little value if the individuals in a team are not supported, empowered, or rewarded for bringing their unique experiences to the table. If you do not have mechanisms in place to keep unhealthy power dynamics in check, and to hear the perspectives of the introverted, societally marginalised, or more junior members of your team, then there will be blind spots in your organisational outlook, leading to poorer decision making, and worse outcomes at every level.

The extent to which your team feel safe to bring all of who they are into your organisation, will be directly proportional to your willingness to lead by example. Perfection doesn’t exist; but consistently showing up for them, being honest, vulnerable, empathic, authentic and accountable for your actions, is a great place to start. 

Freedom and Flexibility

In a traditional business model, c-suite executives are usually considered the most valuable members of an organisation. As such, they are often afforded remuneration that is representative of their value, alongside the trust, freedom and resources that they need to thrive in their roles. If we had the courage to extend these privileges across our teams, it follows that engagement, job satisfaction, productivity and general wellbeing would likely improve proportionally. 

Happy, healthy teams are built on foundations of fairness, trust, respect, and above all, kindness. In establishing core shared values and making a commitment to leveraging trust over fear, leaders create space to offer their teams true freedom and flexibility, allowing them to determine, when, where and how they work, and trusting them to get that work done.

The words trust and transparency are thrown around so often in the context of organisational culture that they risk losing tangible meaning when it comes to day-to-day decision making. So, let’s explore a specific example: In a truly diverse team, what constitutes a major life event, worthy of taking leave, will be entirely different from one person to the next. Birthdays, religious celebrations, mental or physical health issues, births or deaths will all have completely different impacts on the lives of each member of a team. There is no HR policy robust enough, or leader experienced enough, to make a fair determination about what does or does not warrant granting someone the time off that they feel they need. Freedom and flexibility mean saying; “Take as much leave as you need, whenever you need it. I trust your judgement and your commitment to our values, and think you’re better placed than me to balance your own needs with those of the wider team. I’m here if you need any support.”

The antidote to fear in leadership is accountability. Embracing your own power in values-driven leadership means being truly accountable for supporting those members of your team who share your organisational values, to thrive. It also means taking equal accountability for kindly and compassionately supporting those who do not, to find opportunities that better suit their needs. Offering freedom and flexibility doesn’t mean allowing people to take the mick, it means rewarding those who don’t with the trust that they deserve.

Visionary Leadership

If your values are who you are, and your behaviours are how you work, then your vision is what you are working towards. Great leadership is about painting a picture of what success looks like, so compelling and clearly defined that it acts like North on a compass, allowing every member of the team to orient themselves and their decision making, and see exactly how their contribution slots into the bigger picture. As a leader you must seek to collate the ideas and ambitions of your team into a singular unifying set of bold objectives, coaching, inspiring and empowering them with the feelings of safety and freedom needed to dream, innovate and create. French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry perhaps described it best when he said “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

Jessica Neil
SevensEdge

About the Author

Jess Neil is a coach and consultant with over 15 years’ experience in pursuing her own professional utopia, achieving extraordinary success and catastrophic failure along the way. Through SevensEdge, Jess inspires her clients to dream about what meaningful success and fulfilment would look like for their teams, supporting them to translate their vision into simple, actionable strategies, empowering them to align their actions with their purpose and reach their true potential more quickly.

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