Meet the Family: Good Leaders Help People Feel Safe

Brett and I were having a conversation the other day. In it, we were discussing fear and anxiety and how it impacts people and their performance. While he dug deep into the function a bit as he described some reactions to fear as primal responses rooted in the need to survive, fight, or flight, I thought of how it impacted me in the moment in regard to my performance. That is, when I’ve felt great fear and anxiety back in the day when I began fighting or public speaking, I would get what can be described as tunnel vision, or very “single minded” if you will. That is, even though I might have a broad repertoire of behaviors that would have helped me very successful under either occasion, I would only be able access pieces of it. Essentially, those conditions at that time did not bring out the best in me because of the fear and anxiety I was experiencing. 

And this makes sense if we are genetically predisposed to react to fear in one of three ways to promote survival. In the wild, this is good thing; however, in an organization, it can be devastating to performance, morale, and the bottom line. Researchers have actually found that the hormone most responsible for the fight or flight response commonly occurs from “threats to one’s social self, or threat to one’s social acceptance, esteem and status.” 

As a leader or manager in an organization, it is important to minimize conditions that elicit these type of fear responses as they will only result in people doing just enough to get out of trouble. One of the things that consistently stands out amongst great leaders is their ability to help people feel safe. When people feel safe, their creative abilities flourish and they are more likely to add value to the organization. I’ve worked hard to create a safe environment in the different organizations I’ve been a part of, and I witness Brett working even harder. 

Lindsey Belman

There are many ways to help people feel safe and socially accepted. At Brett DiNovi & Associates, Lindsey Belman has done a marvelous job facilitating a process that lets people know they are valued and connected. That process, Meet the Family, literally connects people across states who might have otherwise felt isolated through a simple survey and PowerPoint slide which is shared on the BDA Culture page. Lindsey, who admits to previously being very “discrete trial oriented and rigid” as a newer BCBA, gained a lot of experience working in public schools. 

After successfully helping to turn around struggling classrooms, Lindsey found herself inundated with people asking her for help. As a result, she learned to have meetings with her teams to listen to their concerns and gain their input. In fact, she would even regularly send out google forms asking for feedback. For example: 1) I think the behavior plan is working 2) Kind of working 3) Not working at all. She even included open question like what skills do you think we can work on. The process increased the team’s sense of well-being, safety, and ultimately improved learner outcomes. I asked Lindsey how she came up with the Meet the Family process. Here’s what she told me:

"I’m frequently at social outings. We hire at such a rapid rate and I’d keep seeing new faces that I didn’t know. There are also some folks that don’t come to outings as much so it can be hard to meet everyone. So I asked Joe Kendorski (Executive Director at BDA) if we could do something to highlight folks: their name, roles, clinical and personal interests. The immediate benefits of this is that it put a name to faces and connected people across our offices in different states including Maine and CA. I get a lot of positive feedback and it has been a great networking tool. We are also linking it to our Skills Matrix, a spreadsheet that share’s staff areas of clinical interest and expertise." 

Meet the Family

The process has proven very successful.  I was recently highlighted on it. It felt so good to hear from and connect with folks from different parts of the country who shared some of my similar interests.  If you are wondering how you might be able to create a similar process within your organization, check out the standard operating procedures below:

Basic Procedure:

Sending out the Google Form Survey

• Lindsey opens up the staff directory and identifies staff members at random trying to include people in all roles from all areas of BDA (i.e. Maine, California, North Jersey, South Jersey, Jersey Shore, & Florida).
• Send the Google form.

Preparing PowerPoint Slides

• Lindsey opens up the Google Spreadsheet that collects all the responses from the Google Form and the PowerPoint template, side by side
• Copy and paste the entered information from someone into the matching sections on the PowerPoint form. Be sure to keep or fix formatting so they look uniform.

Load to Facebook

• Lindsey loads the slides to Facebook in advance with scheduled postdates.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, too many leaders make their employees scared. While this might not be their intent, it is their impact. Simon Sinek suggests the best leaders help their employees feel safe. They create a culture characterized by trust that fosters support and cooperation. But leaders can’t force employees to trust.  They can, however, engage in a variety of specific behaviors that result in "trusting"relationships. Judy Agnew offers some amazing tips in this article on how to create trust and build relationships. And beyond Judy's tips, they can also create an environment rich with tradition that further fosters a safe and "family" type of environment where employees feel accepted, and know and want to cooperate with one-another. Lindsey Belman's "Meet the Family" is a simple approach for helping to create just such an environment.