How We -Accidentally- Created a Servant Leadership Development Tool

We have learned a lot at PeopleNotTech over the last year. The fact that last spring we opened access for free for three months to any teams needing us during the outbreak of Covid and the sudden (and often traumatic) move to remote led to countless lessons: we learned that teams of all sizes and from all industries desperately needed to stay connected; we learned they needed to face the new and sudden reality of WFH with some help and we learned they still intensely cared about the team. Being that we’re obstinately Agile all of this learning has quickly translated into features and redesign of the product to respond to what we’ve discovered. 

By far the biggest lesson though has been that, while we were spot on in constructing our algorithm, in the need for a live dashboard as Psychological Safety is always in flux and in the way we measured Psychological Safety, we were definitely wrong in whom we exposed to the findings. We were gathering data about whether or not the team is flexible, engaged, resilient, learning, open and courageous and we were exposing it on our Dashboard only accessible *to the Team Leader*. 

In retrospect, it feels almost silly, but our instinct when we designed the solution, had been that once a team leader knows exactly how their people feel, they can take actions to increase the positive behaviours and to decrease the negative ones. The natural next step in that line of thinking was then that we must make sure the team leader knows what to do - both theoretical knowledge-wise and EQ wise. 

That as a leader, *they* ought to act to improve Psychological Safety. 

As such, on that version of the Dashboard, the team leader would see all the Psychological Safety components scores derived from how their team answered the questions (while of course having no visibility to match any team member to any answer in particular since the information is aggregated and abstracted) and also see a bevvy of other “leadership development” tools such as a Leadership score, an Empathy score and a Positivity one, some motivational and next best action features, as well as a counter of the amount of 1-on-1 interactions they had with each team member, but the team themselves only gained a link to answer questions and had no access to the dashboard at all. 

The first time we were asked at the beginning of last year if the leader can/should share their dashboard on screen with the rest of the team in meetings, we knew the answer was “yes, of course, there should be full visibility, they ought to be accountable and that will keep them on track to do more of the people work” but we never considered more than a fleeting flashing of the data that justified why the team leader had decided to have some type of “human intervention” - such as a workshop, a team exercise or a coaching session- to improve a certain aspect of Psychological Safety. 

It wasn’t until we met an Agile team so keen on bettering the way they work and so unencumbered by organisational demands or general convention, that they "had no team leader” and asked who should then send these invites and then have access to the Dashboard that a light switched on and we understood the error of our ways. This team should all have access to the Dashboard in that case and rotate the responsibility of sharing their screen and leading the discussion on using the data to decide on the next team action together, taking turns. As should everyone else! 

As soon as we understood our basic premise was erroneous and this was in no way a job for the team leader but for the entire team, everything changed, and our product became much more powerful! We stopped focusing on bettering one individual and their leaderships so they affect Psychological Safety and realised we have to have everyone collectively responsible for their progress. 

With the whole team now having access to the exact same Dashboard, their sense of accountability increased, their engagement with the questions did as well and when they did share the screen with the findings in the meetings, they were already familiar with the data and that naturally led to our most pivotal feature - choosing a “Team Action” together. 

Whether they thought of something themselves or if they needed coaching help, this was the space to formulate and commit to a joint decision. Further down the line, this was augmented by the second most used -and useful- part of the software that truly transformed them into an autonomous team: our Playbook, which enables them to always “think of something themselves” and be self-sustainable in terms of “human interventions” without any external help. 

So the Team Action feature is a space where the team is asked to come up with an idea of what is the one thing that would improve the data they look at. Say they see a drop in Engagement - hold a “Humour Workshop” or a sharing session, should they need to be more Open - organise an Impression Management “Catch Yourself Counter”, etc using the plays. Holding this space alone is what drives an improvement in Psychological Safety and best of all, this was done collectively, by everyone and in time, we saw increased engagement with the Dashboard from the team members outside of it being shared in a meeting once they had chosen a Team Action and then answered questions again as naturally, they wanted to see the effects in the data. 

We had always been wrong, we thought, this was never the job of the leader! But what if it isn’t that, but that the leader we had in mind is the command and control one, who ought to do better by their people, a job in itself, a title with decision making power and sole ownership of responsibility, whereas the leadership we need today is not anyone’s job but a joint responsibility with a servant leadership mindset where all they have to do is hold the space, make the data available, help their team come up with the best ideas on how to do better, then lastly, facilitate that these ideas become reality?

Furthermore, what if Leadership 2.0 is not only a question of simply smoothing paths and removing blockers but it doesn’t even need to be anyone’s specific job in particular and the role can be shared amongst team members? What if, we took turns to take care of each other for the week /the sprint/ the project and while doing so we each had a go at moving the team in the right direction? 

And then, a few weeks ago, it all came full circle when we met an organisation that clearly stated they wanted our software, yes, to improve Psychological Safety, but more “for leadership development”. We replied that we had changed our focus and it is now a team development solution and no one person is responsible for it with shared visibility and responsibility, etc, and they retorted that they know that, that’s precisely why they want our software since their team members would rotate the task of sharing screen to show the Dashboard then facilitate the discussion on what needs to be done next in terms of a Team Action and ultimately help organise that and remove any blockers in the way. 

That by doing so, they would effectively all learn Servant Leadership. That they tried everything to move their leadership from title to role and drive home facilitation and the value of service and while people understand it in theory, that hasn’t been their professional experience, so they have trouble applying themselves to this new mindset, so using our software would teach them how to do just that - observe, help, facilitate and serve while creating the conditions for all team members to “lead”. 

So no, it isn’t the team leader’s job to improve their team’s dynamic, it’s everyone’s. Or put differently, yes it is, but everyone can be a servant team leader if we now understand that role as being all about helping, not about sole decision making and dictatorship. 

In tomorrow’s video, we’ll have some more details on this smart organisation’s journey and what we learned, as well as give you a few tips on how to ease the transition from command and control to servant leadership so be sure to check that but meanwhile, think of leadership as facilitation of dialogue and blockers removal in lieu of a singular decision-making point and imagine how much better your organisation would be if they had that.

—————————————————————————————————————

Don't send your teams home with a laptop, a Jira and Slack account and a prayer!

Get in touch at www.psychologicalsafety.works or reach out at [email protected] and let's help your teams become Psychologically Safe, healthy, happy and highly performant.