Hi everyone, I’m Saralyn Hodgkin. And this is the podcast to practice your leadership.
Teams learning out loud. Do your own work. The inner work of teams, right? I’ve been talking about this for a couple of episodes now. With this inner work of teams, one focus area is all about dysfunctions, discomfort, aversions, the hard conversations, the stuff we’re avoiding.
This is a really important conversation. A lot of times, or what I’ve seen on a lot of teams, maybe you have, too, is people being nice to each other. Well, how lovely. Is trying to find a co-creative process where we have consensus, with this kind of tone in your voice. And what I urge us to see more of is conversations that are hard and take us into this deep, you know, my voice is deepening, and there’s going to be conflict here, and we’re scared of it.
But conflict can be productive. Conflict can be data. Conflict can be sources of curiosity. Now, some of you may not agree with that. So let me just take a stance on this to say, if we can see conflict as a place of discourse amongst a team, to say, I don’t agree with that, I don’t think this is going to take us in this direction, actually, right. Like that kind of conversation versus behaviors where people are putting power over each other, or people haven’t done their own work to sort of settle into a discourse, an active productive conversation, but instead of just holding their flag in their righteous place, no, that’s not helpful.
The inner work of teams, stating that you have dysfunction in the team, because everybody does, is one of the first steps. And another step is creating the spaces to have these uncomfortable conversations. So you start building the muscle to having productive conflict, rather than keeping it in a place of fear. Keeping it hidden, like shame. No, no, no, no. And sometimes what we see, are these facades of niceness, artificial harmony, co creation.
Could the team look at some of those behaviors? And possibly see, not always, but sometimes possibly see, wow, those are just curtains to hide the conflict that is underneath to preserve our harmony, as artificial as that might be? What is behind that? What are some of the shadows and the blind spots that are behind that?
Dysfunctions, coming into places that we’re avoiding really helps teams establish what’s going on here? Why is it going on? And what is there for us to pick up and explore, to pick up and explore? And how do we need to norm that conflict is data, conflict is discourse? What do we need to norm on our team?
So that that starts to centre into our behaviors, and it starts to set into a place of saying it’s okay for you to stand up and disrupt this harmony that’s happening. Here’s the common language that we use, here’s time and place where we really stir the pot. Right? This is what our team norms look like around conflict and aversion and disrupting. Here’s how power dynamics flow in and out of that, from the experience on this team. Is that how we want power to show up? Is that what we think of when we think of conflict, that that’s how power does and does not show up? Are we okay with that?
Of course that starts to connect into psychological safety? Of course it does, right? What are those brave spaces that we need to curate from a place of psychological safety so we can stand in places, sources, discourse of conflict. Amy Edmondson defined psychological safety as the belief that no one will be punished, or humiliated, or shamed for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, mistakes. I may have added that shame part in there, but the idea is there. You’re not going to be punished, just because you come and stand up.
But I gotta tell you, there are a lot of power dynamics in so many teams, where you may think that that person feels like they’ve got the power but they’re like, I’m not speaking up. Are you nuts? I’m not putting my ass on the line to say XYZ or whatever it is, right.
And so as a team, of course, hosting conversations around psychological safety, defining it, talking about it, doing things differently to cultivate psychological safety in our teams, so that conflict can be present in our team, because it is a total place of innovation. It is a total place of creativity. It is part of the grit that forms our relationships. If we can approach with curiosity, respect, generous assumptions, integrity. These are some of the ways that we can hold ourselves and hold the conversation. So that conflict can be present with us and give us part of what we need to work towards the impact we’re trying to create in the world.
Some of these dysfunctions and conflict requires our own self leadership work as well. What are your biases? What are your unconscious biases? Are you doing that work? Are you doing your own work around imposter syndrome and how that’s holding you back from standing bravely in conflictual conversations? Are you holding yourself accountable? Are you standing and operationalizing behaviors that cultivate a sense of trust with your team? Are you holding yourself in the tensions of accountability and empowerment and respecting others boundaries and know that they’ll do for them as you do for you, in your sense of boundaries, to say what’s okay and not okay?
Some of this work means that you need to step up in your self leadership work. And to do that, connected with teams doing their own work as a collective, doing the inner work of teams. Man, does that ever have power. Journey together all. Do your own work.
Thanks all, I’m Saralyn. You can find me at holonleadership.org. I walk alongside you as you practice your leadership.
