The Leader Factor

In this episode, Tim and Junior discuss the challenges of building a speak-up culture and the importance of psychological safety. They explore separating worth from worthiness, loyalty from agreement, status from opinion, and permission from adoption. They also highlight the benefits of speak-up cultures such as improved safety, compliance, decision-making, and innovation. The hosts emphasize the need for inclusivity, establishing an inclusive culture, harnessing collective intelligence, and learning the art of disagreement as a leader. Lastly, they discuss the importance of picking battles and investing in creating a culture of speaking up.

Today's lesson:Use Minimum Necessary Intervention to Liberate TalentKey Points:One of the hardest things for leaders to learn is when to be more or less directive, when to tighten down and when to loosen up. Too little intervention and you’re an absentee landlord. Too much, and you’re micromanaging. As humans we yearn for autonomy in our contribution. We want to create, we want to affect reality in a way that is uniquely ours and in order to do this, we need room.Today's key action:Next time you work with a high performer, spend time determining what minimum necessary intervention looks like, and then behave accordingly. Even better, write it down.

In this week's episode of Culture by Design, Tim and Junior discuss The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety in a way you might not expect. Using social exchange theory, they'll do a deeper dive to add some color to The 4 Stages model and give you additional tools and frames to use when you look at psychological safety.What is social exchange theory? (01:47) According to social exchange theory, people are motivated to engage in social exchanges that they perceive as beneficial. Tim and Junior discuss four key concepts related to social exchange theory: Costs, benefits, reciprocity, and power. What is psychological safety? (13:03) Psychological safety is a culture of rewarded vulnerability and lies at the heart of healthy social exchange. In order for a culture to be truly psychologically safe, the environment must provide something and then the participant must provide something. Tim and Junior explain that each stage within The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety has a social exchange. The social exchange for Stage One: Inclusion Safety (16:39) In stage one, we are given inclusion in exchange for lack of harm. Tim and Junior explain how this works and what the difference is between worth and worthiness.The social exchange for Stage Two: Learner Safety (23:30) In stage two, we are given encouragement to learn in exchange for engagement in the learning process. Tim and Junior explain how this works and who has the first-mover obligation.The social exchange for Stage Three: Contributor Safety (30:02) In stage three, we are given autonomy with guidance in exchange for results. Tim and Junior explain how this works and the ratio between autonomy and accountability.The social exchange for Stage Four: Challenger Safety (38:15) In stage four, we are given air cover in exchange for candor. Tim and Junior explain how this works and how to protect our people in their most vulnerable state. 

Today's lesson:Adversity is an Opportunity for BeautyKey Points:There’s tremendous incentive to make things as easy as possible but adversity is a constant. "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen." -Elisabeth Kubler RossToday's key action:Take five minutes and ask yourself, name 3 people you consider to be beautiful people. Not in looks but in character. Why those three names? What characterizes their experience? Have they had easy lives?

Psychological safety is crucial for team performance, with leaders as the key variable. Only 15% of managers create a safe work environment due to a lack of training. Managers should prioritize people and develop a culture before numbers. Changing norms and enforcing expectations are essential for cultural transformation. Tolerance, accountability, and rewarding vulnerability play pivotal roles in promoting psychological safety.

Today's lesson:Proximity Prevents HostilityKey Points:"There’s a lot of hatred, prejudice, discrimination, and contention between and among people who don’t really even know each other. Humans tend to fear difference, especially at a distance." -James Baldwin 1963 “Many of our society's greatest problems are created by people who don’t feel seen and heard.” -David Brooks “Prejudice and ethnic strife feed off abstraction” --Alain de Botton Today's key action:Here it is: Spend time in the same physical space as someone with different bumper stickers than you and make a concerted effort to understand their perspective by asking questions.

Today Tim and Junior will be discussing coaching and accountability. These are two of the most important tactical levers a leader has and they always go together. If we do these things well, we’ll be able to effectively transfer two things to our people: 1) Critical thinking and 2) Ownership. In this conversation, Tim and Junior will reference the coaching and accountability matrix created by Dr. Clark which we have included below. (01:52) Coaching and accountability are connected. "You can't really separate them. They don't come apart. If you think about what coaching is, coaching is really about a cycle of delegation and then holding someone accountable through the process and then coming back and reporting. It's about that ongoing journey. So coaching cannot be separated from accountability." (09:41) The pattern of our communication will dictate the quality of our coaching. What is your ask to tell ratio? "What's your pattern of communication? Are you telling people what to do all the time? Are you asking questions? What is your ratio? (17:55) What are the three levels of accountability and how do they play into our coaching conversations? What level of accountability do the highest performers operate at? When we are coaching, can we help others move up to higher levels of accountability? (28:12) Introducing the coaching and accountability matrix. This diagram serves as a powerful diagnostic tool for leaders, coaches, and managers. Whatever the position, stewards can look at the people for whom they have responsibility and assess their mode of performance based on the two dimensions: coaching and accountability. (39:09) Where do you fit on the coaching and accountability matrix? What level of accountability do you operate at? Use this matrix not only in your coaching situations but as a measure of your own performance. Important LinksThe Coaching and Accountability Matrix

Today's lesson:Urgency is a Catalyst, Seldom A SustainerKey Points:Urgency is good, but only in doses. If we rely consistently on urgency, what do we get? Stress, poor decision-making, and decreased creativity. Urgency has a short shelf-life, it relies heavily on emotion and that emotion dissipates, so in the long run you should rely on vision and discipline to keep you going over a long period of time.Today's key action:Here it is: Keep your sustainability/urgency ratio higher than 3:1. For every 1 week that’s absolutely crazy, you need 3 that aren’t. For every piece of messaging you give to your team about pushing harder, send 3 that are about pace, intention, and sustainability.

In today's episode Tim and Junior define culture and explain the three levels at which it lives. They explain the most important level of culture: the micro-culture & the single most important variable for influencing psychological safety on a team. Today's conversations includes a peek into some of our survey data that’s brand new coming out of LeaderFactor’s Psychological Safety Survey Tools. (02:06) What is culture? In short, culture is the way we interact. Culture is in and around us. Fish have water and humans have culture. (04:26) How does culture form? Tim and Junior discuss the three levels of culture. 1) A pattern of thought or behavior in an individual is a habit. 2) A pattern of thought or behavior in an individual is a habit. 3) A collection of norms in an organization is a culture.(08:21) What is a sub-culture or micro-culture? A sub-culture is a smaller, distinct group within a larger society that shares unique beliefs, values, practices, norms, and behaviors that set them apart from the dominant or mainstream culture. These subcultures can form based on various factors, such as shared interests, hobbies, profession, ethnicity, religion, generation, or geographical location. In an organization there are many micro-cultures.(15:13) What does the data say? Team assignment is by far a more powerful variable in understanding variants, in understanding the nature of the culture and the nature of the experience that you'll have.(25:05) Team leaders have the single biggest influence on culture formation. Leaders are the cultural bottleneck for positive the experiences of their team members. The leader has the single biggest influence on the micro-culture of the team. This is more important than any single demographic variable. (32:58) How do we build better leaders through cultural accountability? "We have these, these KPIs, we have these numbers. And what is that? It's almost all going to be technical. Having that layer of cultural accountability becomes very important, which is why it's a big reason we measure psychological safety, we have quantifiable evidence of how we're doing in cultural accountability."(38:49) Culture by design or by default?  "If you're gonna try and go affect the opinion, the prevailing norms at the top of an organization, you better come with some data, and we've seen this over and over again. We won't go to the top of an institution and attempt to do this without some data, it's important that you can back up what you're saying."(45:13) Cultural accountability can help you in your planning. "We're starting to see this more and more in organizations where they are incorporating psychological safety as a selection criterion for promotion to management"Important LinksThe 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™ Survey

Today's lesson:Mistakes Are Not the Exception, They Are the ExpectationKey Points:Do we want more mistakes, or fewer mistakes? We want the right kind of mistakes. We need to distinguish between an operating environment and a test or experimental environment. It’s the difference between practice and the game. Each time we make a mistake, we learn about a cause and effect relationship. We learn what causes what. We learn what doesn’t work. That’s experimentation, that’s  discovery, that’s exploration, that’s problem solving. We are expected to fail and learn when we experiment and practice. We can't be afraid to do so.Today's key action:Share your next mistake.