Leadership Courage: Creating A Culture Where People Feel Safe To Take Risks

The human ingenuity within any organization is it's greatest competitive advantage.  Yet the fear, complacency and outright disengagement that can exist within it's walls are the biggest barriers to leveraging it.

The number one responsibility of any leader is to create an environment that not only engages their workforce, but draws out the best of what they have to offer. The best thinking. The best creativity and innovation. The best strategy and business execution. The best customer service and quality control. The best accountability and collaboration.  The organizations that are the most successful at this are those that build and sustain the strongest competitive advantage over the long haul. Easier said than done of course.

Theories abound on how to best optimize employee engagement, yet there is no one clear solution. It's my experience that the simplest paradigms tend to be the most useful.  Which is how I came to develop the engagement framework shown in the adjacent diagram, which I discussed at length in my latest book Stop Playing Safe.

1)  Engage – Connect Authentically According to the latest Gallup statistics, over half of today's workers are disengaged – defined as an employee who is "less emotionally connected" and unwilling to do any more than necessary to keep his/her job. Even more alarming is that nearly 1 in 5 workers are classified as "actively disengaged." Even if you have just five people working for you, this makes for a lousy support team!

Communicating effectively with the people in your workplace first requires establishing a genuine connection with them. Therefore, engaging authentically with people around you is the first task of genuine leadership due to the trust that it builds.   This requires leaders leaving their offices to join employees on the shop floors and front lines where employees spend each workday. It requires a willingness to lay vulnerability on the line, share authentically, and engage in open unstructured sessions of discussion, risking tough questions, direct criticism, open hostility and even unsuccessful outcomes.

In a Harvard Business Review article entitled Connect, Then Lead, authors Amy Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger share what many leaders intuitively know to be true: leaders who can establish a meaningful connection with employees will ultimately exert greater influence than those who can’t.  Employees will be far more ready to go the extra mile for leaders they can relate to on a human level than those they perceive as distant or a "little bit better" than everyone else. Relationships are the currency of the workplace, and so the stronger a leader’s connections, the better placed they will be to engage their employees.

2)  Inspire – Enlarge the Context It’s in the human DNA to want a sense of purpose and meaning in our work as well as in our lives outside of it; to know that what we are doing with our time, talents and expertise is for something more than just a paycheck. Sadly, millions see no utility in what they do beyond the income it provides. Research shows those same people tend to be less willing to put forth extra effort when it’s needed, more prone to cutting corners, and more likely to cover up mistakes.  The cost to the bottom line runs into the billions. For this reason it is imperative for leaders to enlarge the context and help employees understand the bigger “Why” so they can view what they are doing through a bigger lens. Doing so enables employees to reframe their role – not only in the context of how it contributes to the organization’s mission, but to the impact that mission serves in the world at large.

A leader who does not inspire is like a river without water. Dry and depressing.   Let's face it, there's little more demoralizing than working for someone who can’t articulate why you should care about what you're doing. Which is why leaders must continually work to ensure employees know that their role, however small it may seem when compared to the organization’s output, is both valued and valuable.  When people know that there’s something bigger at stake as they go about the mundane or challenging aspects of their job, they will approach every challenge with greater tenacity, determination and initiative than they otherwise would.

3)  Embolden – Cultivate a ‘Culture of Courage’  Five minutes of morning news is all you need to see that we live in a culture of fear where people face a constant stream of reasons to play safe, keep their mouth shut and head to the ground.  But given the accelerated pace of change, it's more important than ever for people to be willing to step out of their comfort zone into the unfamiliar, to lay their reputation (or even job) on the line and take bold action.  However, as I wrote in Stop Playing Safe, “Most people will only take risks when they assess that it is safe to do so.” It's our innate aversion to risk that makes it so crucial for leaders at all levels to be proactive in cultivating a "Culture of Courage" in which people feel secure enough to exit their comfort zone and take risks.  Such a culture is one where people are actively encouraged to challenge status quo thinking, provide candid upward feedback, experiment and push boundaries.

My experience coaching and working with teams has shown me that when people feel that their contribution is truly valued and there is a safety net if things don't work out, it generates greater ownership of their success and stronger commitment to the larger mission of their team and organization. Leading in today's increasingly competitive, accelerated and uncertain world takes courage.    Yet only when leaders demonstrate the courage they wish to see in those around them will they be able to unleash the human potential within their teams and organization, tap ingenuity,  raise the bar on innovation and optimize the value their organization contributes to all of it's stakeholders. It doesn't take the brains of an Einstein to do that, but it does take the heart of a lion.

Margie Warrell is a leadership coach, keynote speaker and bestselling author of Stop Playing Safe (Wiley) and Find Your Courage (McGraw-Hill).  Connect on Twitter,  Facebook, or LinkedIn.