Put Your People First: Part 4 of High Performance Teams

Put Your People First is about developing trusting relationships based on empathy and psychological safety. To do this, a leader must understand that a company’s most valuable resource is its people. Putting people first is so much more than a friendly hello in the hallways—a leader requires a focused intent on valuing everybody, and treating them with empathy, compassion, and understanding. A leader needs to listen to their employees and hear their concerns, questions, and goals, and must contribute to their employees’ professional and personal development by constantly communicating their value. This is done by repeatedly reinforcing your employees’ purpose in their work by communicating to them how their piece fits into the larger puzzle and that they are important to the team (no matter their role). 

As we’ve discussed above in the Humanizing Communication section, people need to feel safe within an organization to be at their best. The need for trust is a studied human behaviour of evolutionary psychology. According to research, as human beings, if we feel a perceived threat we go into a state of stress and fear, otherwise known as survival mode (Flight or fight). In order for the brain to enter into survival mode, it begins to narrow its area of focus (tunnel vision) by shutting off the parts of the brain that deal with creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving. If your employees do not feel safe in their environment, they will work in a stress based mode, and as a result their performance will suffer.

Stress and distrust can be manifested in many ways, but one of the more popular causes is micro-management. Your employees need to feel trusted that they can make the right decisions and that they are doing a good job. Constantly checking in on your employees can cause them to lose trust in their instincts. In fact, excessive supervision has been shown to be one of the biggest motivation zappers (think micromanagement). Instead, leaders should work on developing an atmosphere that promotes collaboration instead of competition across all levels and departments. As well as an atmosphere that creates space for empathy and compassion towards each other. This can be easily implemented by small but meaningful interactions like taking an interest in your employees families or their enjoyment outside of work. Genuine connections with your employees will help you identify what some of their struggles might be. In addition, setting an intention to remind your employees often of your trust and appreciation of them can also go a long way. This can be as simple as verbal reminders “I trust you to do a great job and make great decisions” or “If you’re not sure or need help, I’m here to offer insight and resources.” or “I’m really glad we work together”. Practicing interactions that are positive, individualistic, and future oriented in nature will tell people subconsciously that they are safe.

Teams who don’t practice empathy might instead foster an environment of harsh, critical feedback. This begins to develop into power dynamics, defensiveness, and attempted hoarding of information, control, and credit. All this can backlash onto the leader, leading to disconnected teams and a gossipy work environment, ie. employees talking about people rather than to people. The results for your company can be costly as this type of behaviour often results in low retention rates and constant turnover.