When courage becomes a cornerstone of your culture, extraordinary things can happen.

A courageous culture is one where teams feel safe and empowered to take risks, experiment, pivot and ideate. Without courage in your culture there can be no new ideas — because everyone’s too afraid of getting it wrong. A courageous culture gives your business a competitive edge because you are encouraging bold thinking and brave behaviour that leads to innovation. That’s the ‘why’ of courageous culture — you can see how it sets you up for success — but what about the ‘how’? Many leaders get caught up in thinking we need to know all the answers. We don’t. Creating a courageous culture requires the participation of everyone in your organisation. So, if you want to create a courageous culture within your organisation, explore these six tips:

1. Have your team identify positive qualities and behaviours

To help people understand the concept of psychological safety, you want your people to think about the characteristics and behaviours of those around whom they can be unguarded and free to share insights and ideas.

This is important and something to be really mindful of for yourself as a leader.

People around you will always gauge your response and reaction. This doesn’t mean that you have to hide everything. Just make sure you closely monitor how you respond because it is sending a message of what and how people can safely come to you.

For a courageous culture to happen, your employees must recognise they don’t need to be guarded with their ideas and thinking. That it’s okay for everyone to share and to make mistakes.

The latter is vital. As human beings, everyone makes mistakes. Despite our best efforts, things will happen that are beyond our control.

Within a courageous culture, you and your team need to believe that such mistakes and deviations are not a big deal.

If you and your staff have not gone through this exercise, schedule it as a structured team activity during a meeting or even during a Friday night happy hour.

If you’re not sure how to go about it, you start by doing it for yourself first. You can use your results as a guide for your staff.

1. Establishing no shaming ground rules

If you’re not familiar with Brené Brown ’s work, I suggest you check it out. She’s a shame researcher, which sounds unusual but her work has resonated around the world.

Shame is one of those things we don’t realise we’re doing perhaps to someone else or we don’t realise we’re experiencing ourselves. People tend to do it out of habit or their own insecurities. Whatever the reason may be, it can have huge repercussions on how we feel, our self-esteem and that of those around us.

So, ask your teams to establish ground rules such as no mocking, ridiculing or put-downs. You also want to ensure people don’t tell jokes at others’ expense. Be mindful that what is considered funny is highly subjective.

Finally, establish rules on disagreements. Sometimes when people disagree on something, our communication skills get muddled and we start attacking the other person’s personality rather than the idea or the behaviour in question.

Ground rules help people focus on the idea, not on what’s allegedly wrong with another person.??

1. Foster a culture of curiosity and inquiry versus advocacy

In many cultures, children are taught that having the right answer is the key to reward and recognition. I’ve got young kids and I know they thrive on getting things right.

This behaviour is reinforced in many highly competitive businesses where everyone is jockeying for the position of being the brightest one in the room. This ego-driven desire for prestige and status drives much of the behaviour in workplaces. Brené Brown points out that this could potentially be a shame shield that someone holds up to protect themselves.

However, if you foster a culture around curiosity and inquiry rather than a "tell me what’s right" then you encourage people to speak up and delve deep into the whys and hows of the organisation.

People who have just joined your team are the best people for this exercise. They haven’t acclimatised to the culture already existing within your business. So, if you’ve got new employees and they’re asking those questions, pay close attention to what they say.

1. Model courage

You want to model the courage to speak up. Practise it.

More importantly, encourage and support your staff to speak up.

1. Create a psychologically safe culture

If you come from a place that has tolerated dysfunctional and disrespectful behaviour, you will find that that is no longer acceptable.

"Psychologically safe" has been a buzzword since COVID. We’re going to see more mental health issues than ever as a fall-out of the pandemic and its impact on the lives of our people — isolation, massive amounts of change and huge amounts of fear.

A psychologically safe place allows people to speak up and express what they’re truly feeling without negative repercussions.

1. Explain the ‘why’

Human beings have an innate need for purpose. We want to feel that how we use our time and our talent each day is important. It’s not that we’re ending world hunger or curing cancer. It doesn’t need to be those life-changing things.

It can be something more simple and personal. Since the ‘why’ of people could be different from the ‘why’ of your business, it’s up to you to anchor your ‘why’ to people’s ‘whys’.??

Is it that their efforts give them the financial freedom to do what they want for their family?

Is it because their ‘why’ greatly aligns with your business vision and mission?

Maybe they’ve got their own vision and mission and they’re learning and developing their skills within your business.

Whatever it happens to be, explain why you do what you do in your business to build and cultivate that courageous culture .

Until next time Eat the Frog, Get the Worm, and Be the Bird.

Ally

Ally Nitschke is a Speaker, Author and Educator. Ally speaks on Leadership, Communication and Culture.

She has been working with leaders and as a Leader for nearly 20 years. She is on a mission to change the way we communicate at work, to lean into those uncomfortable conversations and to lead with courage.

Ally delivers Keynotes , Courageous Conversations Programs, Courageous Leadership programs, Coaching & Mentoring and writes practical, pragmatic and personal Leadership books .

To inquire about her working with you or your organisation please contact us here.