How can you use SEL to build trust and improve communication in the workplace?

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) isn’t just classroom jargon; it’s a powerful workplace tool. By understanding and managing our emotions, we cultivate trust. SEL guides us in empathizing with colleagues, navigating social complexities, and making responsible decisions. In my experience, integrating SEL fosters open dialogue and collaboration. It creates a safe space for sharing ideas, acknowledging vulnerabilities, and addressing conflicts positively. As an empathic leader, promoting SEL has been pivotal in strengthening team cohesion and enhancing overall communication. It's about listening as much as it's about speaking—a balanced exchange rooted in mutual respect. That's the SEL impact: a harmonious, trust-filled workplace.

One great thing about the SEL approach is it highlights emotional awareness. We become the best version of ourselves when we align our heart with our head. The most effective leaders are very self-aware of their emotions and their thoughts. You can't eliminate either side. The most vibrant work cultures stem from the people within who strive to be emotionally healthy and build positive relationships. Research has shown over and over again that the majority of our decisions, mindsets, and behaviors are 100% correlated to our feelings and beliefs. When we have healthy roots we will have healthy fruits.

Building a thriving work culture starts with the people. If you have toxic people, you'll have a toxic culture. If you have a place where collaboration, transparency, trust, and open dialogue are promoted, you're more likely to have a healthy culture. The cornerstones of trust, respect, and loyalty are built from doing the right things on a consistent basis. And this "doing the right things" are to be anchored into the relationships of the people within the workplace. The workplace should be totally about celebrating each person instead of merely tolerating one another. Diversity, differences, and uniqueness are to be embraced. The more people accept their own emotional world and the emotional world of others, the better off it will be.

Every relationship will have conflict, difficulties, and obstacles to navigate. The key to success is having relationships where each voice matters and every emotion is allowed. Collaboration and true team-work don't come from a poster in the lunch room. They come from an intentional focus to allow open communication and no voice is silenced. Vibrant communication requires people to let go of their title and economic status and treat everyone with dignity and respect. Though trust and respect must be earned, everyone should be given the opportunity to earn it from others. Leaders are responsible for making sure policies and standards are provided to encourage collaboration, building trust, and resolving conflict.

Pursing SEL is a great thing. Again, it all starts with each person. I'm a big believer that leaders need to provide to their team a process for everyone to pursue their own self-care. This will look different for everyone. There are different personality types, different cultural and socio-economic types, different motivational factors, and so on. However, a standard can be implemented where there is both the time and money to provide to people what they need. It might be counseling, coaching, time-off, work more from home, or whatever. Giving people what they need to be successful ultimately profits the organization with lower turnover, more productivity, and less HR issues.

SEL is a great protocol. It is very much akin to other types of emotional development like EFT, Narrative, etc. It's about consistently trying new things to build newer neuron pathways to get a different result. There are many things people can do such as mindfulness training, engaging with narrative techniques, using positive-dream-meditation scenarios, practicing conflict resolution, etc. You can even disrupt the system by having people switch roles and titles for a day. One great way is to have a 3rd party do confidential interviews and then assess behaviors from a distance. However, nothing will change until people first buy-in on their own personal level to become a better person themselves.