Thriving Teams: facing fears and vulnerability
There’s a big difference between the positive pressure of bravery, and the burden of bravado.
Over time, ‘bravado armoury’ takes its toll on our mental and physical ability to thrive. Stress builds up and cortisol invades our bodies and our brains. It’s a toxic cocktail for individuals and teams alike.
Teams experiencing the burden of bravado are rarely creative, innovative and sustainably high performing. ie. they rarely Thrive.
In 2021, Deloitte predicts a Thrive focussed mindset and a clear need to integrate Wellbeing into work and the workplace.
Whilst the design of work and the technology which supports its completion is fundamental in creating your ‘lived experience’ of work and the workplace, it is leadership which has an outsized ability to promote or diminish an individual or team’s Thrive Factor.
Leadership can promote or diminish a Team’s Thrive Factor
I don’t believe any leader gets out of bed in the morning to deliberately diminish their team’s Thrive Factor.
Why then, is it such a common experience to leave work depleted rather than energised; exhausted rather than exhilarated?
The most common reason I’ve heard over the years, is the pressure of unrealistic budgets and deadlines. We know there is a point at which ‘stretch’ targets lose their positive motivational impact, but that doesn’t account for why some teams, in the same business with similar conditions, thrive, and others struggle to survive.
Having facilitated many many conversations with leaders about what types of leadership enable or diminish an individual or a team’s Thrive Factor - I’ve found there is one common denominator beneath diminishing behaviour in all its forms. It’s a 4 letter word, called fear.
Fear sneaks in from our many crevices of self doubt.
It’s human to have doubts under pressure, whether it’s about the team not being good enough and unable to deliver, or our own fear of losing control.
When we’re fearful - we’re at our most vulnerable - and we know from Brene Brown’s exhaustive research - that’s when we can turn to bravado more than we do bravery.
What have I learned about Fear, Bravery and Bravado?
Forced to cancel our much anticipated (and needed) plans for connection and renewal due to the Northern Beaches Lockdown, I buried myself in a book and ‘pondered’. As I dived deep into Dare to Lead, I relived key moments in my personal and professional life, when fear was present and I was at my most vulnerable.
I paused to consider how my behaviour changed and what the impact of that was.
And what I realised, is my response varied.
Sometimes I applied my ‘bravery suit’ and shared the burden with others (enlisting their help) - and at other times I applied my ‘bravado armoury’, and toughed it out.
Having had the lightening bolt moment I’ve inflicted both bravery and bravado on unsuspecting team members, my next question was - when did I select bravery vs. bravado?
What were the conditions which impacted my decision?
Despite some life changing personal and professional crucible moments, I’ve never asked myself this question before. And I now realise, I’ve made my selection totally unconsciously, with little understanding of it’s impact on me or my team.
It’s a question you might also like to ponder.
What is your ‘aha’ moment?
My Aha moment was profoundly simple.
I adopted bravery when it felt safe to be brave, or when I had the meaningful support of someone significant.
Hmmm!
To select bravery - the team environment has to be safe enough to enable bravery.
Which makes it a chicken and egg challenge!
As leaders, we’re in a position to create the environments we desire.
So how do we create environments which make it safe for everyone to bring their ‘bravery suit’?
Leaders Lead!
By leading with bravery, we create an environment where it’s safe for everyone to bring their own ‘bravery suit’.
But how do I know when a team has sufficient safety to reward the choice to be vulnerable and brave?
To me it’s a bit like a nice wine - we know it when we have it - but unless we’re a connoisseur or vigneron, we rarely know how it’s created.
So let’s pull team safety apart, to explore how we can enable more bravery, more often!
The 4 stages of Psychological Safety provides us with 4 simple, yet powerful steps to consciously unlock Collective Intelligence and create Wellbeing and Belonging.
1. create connection and community in the team
2. enable learning and the ability to make (appropriate) mistakes - it’s critical to learning!
3. promote collaboration and the sharing of “collective intelligence”
4. encourage disruption and drive productive debate
Sounds simple! But… in your experience – how likely are you to experience deep and authentic connection, learning, collaboration and challenging debate - when you’re operating from a place of fear, with your bravado armoury firmly in place?
When I have my bravado armour on, I find myself pushing and working harder, usually overplaying my strengths.
And that isn’t conducive to any team adopting bravery. Quite the reverse!
Messy collaboration, candid debate, daring decision making, and imperfect ideas are replaced by canned responses and ‘acceptable’ solutions. And they don’t allow anyone or any business, to truly Thrive!
How can leaders consistently create brave environments?
It turns out it’s not that complicated!
Dr Timothy Clark has identified 4 behaviours of Conscious Collective Leaders – and what’s fascinating to me – is the behaviours which create innovation & performance, are EXACTLY the same behaviours which create wellbeing & belonging.
Here’s the formula:
Connect for community and belonging
Coach for competence and confidence
Collaborate to unlock collective intelligence and contribution
Challenge for disruptive impact and to make a difference
It requires both, a conscious collective mindset and skillset.
As you return to your team in a year which will undoubtedly require us to consciously select bravery over bravado, I urge you to be aware of the importance of adopting a Thrive mindset and integrating wellbeing into the every day experience of work.
I encourage you to look at your own mindsets and skillsets, and ask how you can enhance your connection, coaching, collaboration and challenging capabilities.
I also encourage you to consciously don your bravery suit, more often than your bravado armoury, because it, just like Covid-19, is contagious!
Brave leaders, who look fear in the face and engage bravely, openly - AND with a vision for their team to disrupt and innovate - will thrive rather than just survive.
Brave leaders create teams which drive more Innovation & Performance, and experience more Wellbeing & Belonging - in other words - more Thrive Factor.