Imagine if you will the situation that I am about to describe; it was a real situation (with some poetic licence) although I have changed identities for the sake of anonymity. The situation comes from the British education system and is not at all unusual.
In a well respected school a team existed that taught a 'core' subject. They were an eclectic mix, having members who had experience in industry and academia as well as those turning to teaching as soon as they left university. They also had expertise in most essential areas (e.g. special needs, safeguarding, data and assessment, teaching and learning, English as an additional language etc). This expertise was mainly concentrated in the more experienced staff, however, the others were keen to learn. A new Head of Department had recently been employed. He was enthusiastic, very confident, driven and had high expectations of students and of staff (in terms of the grades that he expected staff to achieve for students). He had been employed because of his 'excellent people skills'.
The new Head of Department, who we will call Chris, quickly unveiled plans to replace the existing curriculum which he didn't consider fit for purpose (despite other successful schools using the same scheme). The new curriculum would have many PowerPoints that everybody could share. Every teacher had to use the new PowerPoints. The backgrounds would all be the same, exam board logos would be on every slide and every lesson would have exactly the same format. New assessment schemes were introduced, some were embedded into the new PowerPoints, and every teacher was observed teaching.
Chris didn't believe in discussing his plans because staff were just expected to comply; on several occasions Chris was overheard saying that if somebody didn't want to comply then they would simply have to leave. When some of the more experienced staff questioned the rationale behind his plans (because they didn't seem to be aligned with good practice), their views were summarily dismissed. However, on several occasions Chris realised that these staff were making valid points and changed his plans but didn't tell anybody; he simply carried on as if the new plan was what was originally communicated.
Some staff, notably those that were very career orientated, were quick to align themselves with Chris. They never spoke out of turn at least in his presence. They were known to report back to Chris if anything was said that wasn't fully supportive of his ideas. Chris relished this and ensured that these people were praised by senior staff. However, these same staff never really excelled in their roles. Notably, several staff who were quite robust and used to being able to express their opinions (professionally, politely and in a appropriate forum) were given negative reviews which led to the school preparing to put in place formal support to ensure they improved; the evidence for the negative reviews didn't exist and unions became involved (British education is quite heavily unionised). These staff began contributing less and less and started applying for new jobs. They all secured new employment and went on to be very successful...elsewhere.
Under Chris's leadership meetings were an interesting affair. Chris wanted meetings to be used for training; a positive indication that he felt staff learning and development was important. The training rarely occurred even when it was on meeting agendas.
At the beginning staff attended meetings diligently and on time. However, they rarely said anything despite having things that they wanted to say. They listened, occasionally asked for clarification, but didn't question what was being said. Under the guidance of senior leaders, Chris would ask for opinions and views. However, he never tried to understand the views expressed. He preferred to dismiss and ridicule the opinions in a manner that staff found humiliating. On the few occasions that they did express a view rooted in their area of expertise, discussions were closed down quickly by Chris or his inner circle. Staff were simply expected to do as they were told. Staff who were also members of other teams started to make their excuses and stopped attending.
Monitoring of classroom practice increased substantially. At least, the announcements of new monitoring came thick and fast. However, it wasn't always carried out. When it was carried out, often with staff being told that it was nothing to worry about and that staff should simply do their normal lessons (as per Chris's plans), they rarely got feedback; opportunities to stimulate and support learning were missed. However, senior leaders were told who was weak and who wasn't; Chris's inner circle always received positive reviews and the negative views Chris expressed flew in the face of the evidence. Punishments often came out of the blue as a result. Finding teachers working late with tears in their eyes became common place. On other occasions, monitoring wasn't announced; when one experienced teacher went to work despite having two hours sleep because he had to admit his wife to hospital the previous night, he was observed in the very first lesson that he taught. Chris was aware of the seriousness of the situation and observed the teacher anyway. HR and senior leaders agreed that it was a mistake.
That year, a year in which student outcomes should have increased, they decreased. This was in part due to staff absence that had increased and staff turnover that had also increased. The staff that had left tended to be those with specific expertise. Expertise that every department and every school needs. The remaining staff became very defensive and spent a high proportion of their time collecting evidence to protect themselves.
Big questions...
It was painful to watch this team working under their new leader. They had so much potential, but it simply was not realised. This scenario raises some big questions for me. Questions that many of us could learn from:
a. Why didn't it work?
b. What could Chris do to recover the situation (other than resign)?
We could consider the leadership style that Chris adopted. He wanted change and he wanted it fast (possibly so that he could impress his superiors). So, he adopted a coercive leadership style that was flavoured with pace setting. Unfortunately, he neglected to build the relationships that are essential to keeping team members on board and in the building when these styles are used. Chris also exhibited behaviours that are associated with a personalised need for power; he created tense working relationships with anxious subordinates and, for those that came to know him well, projected his inadequacies onto subordinates. He might have benefited from building his expert and referent power rather than relying on more negative sources of power; but he failed to recognise this and so failed to do it. Trust and integrity, indicators of strong leadership, were lacking. Indeed, Chris rapidly developed a reputation of being somebody who would blame others for his own mistakes, somebody who didn't do what he said he would do and somebody who was a bully.
This style made it difficult for his followers to be strong followers who were courageous, challenging and focused on achieving the best outcomes from each situation. Chris didn't want complementary relationships with his staff; relationships that he could have used to drive change. He just wanted to issue instructions and have them followed to the letter; those that could not or would not do as told would simply be punished. If team members had followed Ira Chaleff's suggestions and been courageous followers they likely would have found themselves struggling to pay their mortgage!
However, it is easy to criticise leaders, especially inexperienced leaders, as they strive to perform and to drive their team's performance. A more productive way forward might be to determine what would be seen if we observed a strong, high performing team. Then, identify the underlying conditions, the enablers, that allow teams to perform in this way. Looking at it another way, rather than manipulating people in order to ensure performance, how can the environment be manipulated to provide the conditions within which employees are most likely to thrive, work smart, work thoughtfully and perform most highly? Through learning about this, we put ourselves in a position where we can decide how Chris should proceed.
How successful teams behave
Teams undoubtedly have a huge potential for success. But what would we expect to see if we observed a successful team? Professor Amy Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, provides useful insights in her books. She identifies four behaviours (four pillars) as drivers of teaming success:
1. Speaking up - honest, direct conversation between individuals, including asking questions, seeking feedback, and discussing errors.
2. Collaboration - collaborative mindset and behaviours - both within and outside a given unit of teaming - to drive the process.
3. Experimentation- a tentative, iterative approach to action that recognises novelty and uncertainty inherent in every interaction between individuals.
4. Reflection - relying on use of explicit observations, questions, and discussions of processes and outcomes.
Digressing momentarily, Professor Edmondson refers to 'teaming': 'Teaming is a verb. It is a dynamic activity, not a bounded, static activity. It is largely determined by the mindset and practices of teamwork, not by the design and structures of effective teamwork'. She has focused on flexible and transient teams such as those in hospitals. However, that is not to say that the principles can not be applied to stable teams; mindsets and practices are important in stable teams too. Can you imagine a team where members are interdependent but don't speak up, collaborate, experiment and reflect?
Returning to Professor Edmondson's four pillars, how might we summarise what we would hope to see in a productive team?
Firstly, the open and honest exchange of information and ideas. The importance of speaking up is also found in the roots of followership. In his book 'The Courageous Follower - standing up to & for our leaders' Ira Chaleff compels followers to be something other than powerless, submissive followers (of the type that Chris seemed to want). He encourages them to be courageous and to take an active role in taking responsibility, serving the leader and the organisation (in our context we might add that they should use their specific strengths to serve the team), challenging the leader and the group, participating and in taking moral action. Similarly, Kelley's followership styles include active roles that necessitate speaking up and Kellerman's typology also contains follower types that, at least when they are supportive of the leader, contribute and eager and energetic.
However, the emphasis in the followership literature is decidedly more combative (and more passive in some typologies) in nature than that discussed by Professor Edmondson and it focuses on different interpersonal (and interdepartmental) interactions. That is not to say that disagreements wont occur. Whilst people communicate honestly and directly, disagreements will occur. The emphasis is just on the open and honest exchange of information as a vehicle for enabling progress. It allows strengths of individuals to be recognised and utilised, mutual respect to develop and collaboration to be facilitated. Jim Collins might say that it allows confrontation of the brutal facts that feed decision making. Jeffrey Pfeffer would recognise it as essential to to closing the knowing-doing gap; an issue that prevents well-informed people from doing what they know is the right thing to do.
A second theme is that learning is a good thing and that it is expected. If we are to learn, then we must expect to fail; so failure, in many contexts (but not all), is also a good thing. The necessity of learning from failure and the contribution it makes to success is now widely recognised. Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, frames failure rather well as experimentation. Experiments fail but useful information is obtained and, so long as it is recognised, this enables learning and progress to happen.
Looking at this in the context of the education system is quite helpful. Teachers perform a complex role; they have to make sense of a constant flow of information about students and from students and they have to make the right decisions quickly. The progress that students make, and their life prospects, depend on the quality of these decisions. In this scenario failure ought to be expected so many opportunities for learning exist.
However, teachers regularly have their work scrutinised and in too many schools the threat of punishment for being deemed less than perfect hangs like the sword of Damocles. The end result is that too many teachers feel compelled to make things look right rather than ensure that they are right (or, at least improving). So, the true position of each student is all too often only seen once their final exam results are available. At this point it is too late to learn because the students have entered the big wide world, their grades are written in stone and their skill sets and mindsets are what they are. Even if learning were possible, it most likely wouldn't happen because the threat of punishment makes the teachers very defensive (for example, during appraisal meetings).
This is not to say that every school and every education system operates like this. In Finland, a country which regularly heads the international league tables for education, they work very differently. Teachers are highly respected for their skill sets. They have a voice and they are listened to. Their teaching load is reduced to enable them to plan for the changing needs of their students and reflect on each students emerging needs. There is explicit recognition that because people within the system must act, there will be failure and hence opportunities to learn. So, the teachers are learners too. The results speak for themselves.
So there we have it, we would expect to see people communicating, working together and learning all in the pursuit of improving performance. So, how might Chris create a climate in which teamwork thrives and success is substantial?
Organising to Learn
I have taken the title for this section directly from one of Professor Edmondson's books (Teaming - how organizations learn, innovate and compete in a knowledge economy). This is because the ideas in this section are hers or heavily rooted in hers. It also summarises very neatly what we (and Chris) ought to be trying to achieve.
Professor Edmondson highlights four foci. I have summarised each one but for a more complete understanding see the book:
1. The power of framing - 'A frame is a set of assumptions or beliefs about a situation'. These can happen automatically or they can be developed. In a situation where working as a true team and learning is required, it ought to be an explicit process. This then serves a secondary purpose of enabling dialogue that holds leaders to account.
2. Making it safe to team - 'Psychological safety describes individuals' perceptions regarding the consequences of interpersonal risks in their work environment'. Or, do individuals feel that it is safe to express their view at that point in time? If open and direct conversations are to happen, then psychological safety is important. The specific benefits that Professor Edmondson has identified in research are: it encourages speaking up, enables clarity of thought, supports productive conflict, mitigates failure, promotes innovation, moderates the relationship between goals and performance, and increases employee accountability.
3. Failing better to succeed faster - Failing, for most people, is tough. It is especially tough when at work where judgements that people make of you now can affect your success in the future. However, failure also provides the opportunity to learn. Learning from many small failures ought to lead to large amounts of learning that is embedded in, and highly relevant to, the workplace. So failing, in all but routine operations, has benefits.
4. Teaming across boundaries - Teams are often heterogeneous in multiple dimensions (e.g. gender, attitudes, opinions, seniority) so it is highly unlikely that everybody will share the same world views. This can be a great strength but only if the boundaries aren't a barrier to sharing of information and views. The most common boundaries are physical distance (differences in location), knowledge-based (differences in organisation or expertise) and status (differences in hierarchical or professional status).
At this point it is probably pertinent to acknowledge that together with the focus on open and direct dialogue, psychological safety, acknowledging failure and learning from it and spanning boundaries, there must be an emphasis on high performance and meeting demanding goals. The foci are enablers for high performance.
We might therefore imagine any of the situations below; we would want to be operating in the Learning Zone (the image was taken from an article by Professor Edmondson in the Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2008/07/the-competitive-imperative-of-learning).
Using this work as a lens through which to view Chris's approach, what would we see? What does he, or his successor, need to work on if the team is to become an impactful one?
Chris's Team - moving forward
If you recall, Chris employed pace setting and coercive leadership styles; this is quite common in education amongst newly promoted leaders who are keen to show their mettle. He did this with little regard for building the relationships that might have ensured the longevity of his team and the success of his tactics. He also employed questionable strategy with quality assurance activities that, along with clear favouritism, resulted in fear that paralysed individuals but reinforced their resolve to leave.
Professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton of Stanford University identify fear as a deliberate management technique (see 'The Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton). However, they also identify it as a technique that reinforces a knowing-doing gap where employees might know what to do, they simply do not out of fear of reprisals. This is reinforced by the manner in which Chris treats his staff differently; his actions (and inactions) have introduced another source of a knowing-doing gap. That is, when colleagues turn into enemies as they strive to progress and not become a target. This causes productive interactions to become quite limited. So we might predict that even if Chris's team had remained intact their performance would have been weak. Chris's own attempts at driving up performance were preventing progress being made!
Looking at it another way, Professor Dennis Tourish of the University of Sussex, would identify Chris's attempts to silence some team members whilst embedding follower behaviours that could be described as colluders and conformers as problematic. He has studied these behaviours in depth (see his book 'The Darkside of Transformational Leadership) and they often lead to disaster and unethical leader behaviour. Information needs to be allowed to flow up and down the hierarchy and Chris's behaviour wasn't allowing this.
This brings us back to psychological safety. If we return to the figure above, in which quadrant would Chris's team be in? They certainly are not in the learning zone because psychological safety didn't appear to exist. We can rule out the comfort zone for the same reason. However, those staff that worked hard to ingratiate themselves to Chris could be considered to be in the comfort zone; they fulfilled a role but their focus was self-promotion and being seen to do the right things all whilst they underperformed (their behaviour and Chris's response allowed this to be hidden). The anxiety zone is home for most of the staff. They worked in an environment of fear and although they knew expectations were high, they did not know what those expectations were (indeed expectations seemed to change without notice).
For me then, if Chris is to remain as the leader he needs to change his ways; if he wont, then his position is untenable. He needs to:
a. Clearly frame the work of the team
b. Establish psychological safety and the interpersonal skills required to capitalise on this
c. Rebuild the trust that he has lost
d. Ensure clarity around what is expected in terms of performance
I shall focus on the first three and, for now, assume that standards of performance will be established. The first three require some further clarification.
Framing
Chris needs to consider framing from several perspectives. Given the position of his department, he needs to address these perspectives explicitly so as to signal that clear changes need to occur and that he is serious about ensuring that they happen. By doing this he would be committing to personal change and a change in his direction as a leader that might enable his staff to see him in a more positive light.
Firstly, he needs to recognise that teachers do not join the industry to generate numbers. They join because they care passionately about making a difference to the lives of young people. It is about opening doors, building skill sets and building mind sets...not numbers. This provides Chris with an opportunity to build commitment by framing tasks and work in the context of how they will benefit the students (which in turn benefits the school; an important consideration in the current hostile climate).
Secondly, if individuals have to complete complex tasks it is inevitable that failure will happen due to their complexity. Chris's team needs to know that this is okay and that failure is an opportunity to learn. Of course, when failure does happen, Chris's response needs to confirm that he truly believes this. His behaviours must be consistent with his spoken words else he will make a poor impression and it is unlikely that anything will change.
Thirdly, Chris needs to publicly acknowledge that collective interdependent efforts enable greater performance than acting as individuals. This is because individuals within the team have complementary strengths and they can compensate for each others weaknesses. So, if people stand together, and use each others complementary strengths, performance must increase. Again, his behaviours will be important. For example, the carefully crafted inner circle that he developed will have to be disbanded or everybody must become part of the inner circle. He can't allow his behaviour towards people to reinforce the existence of this favoured group even if it happens inadvertently.
Psychological Safety
In the scenario described above, individuals rarely contributed to meetings even when they had things to say that might have been useful. This is not surprising given the hostile manner in which Chris responded to contributors. However, silence can be dangerous because important information may not be brought to the attention of the team. It also seems that Chris was actively embedding a culture of silence where speaking up doesn't occur but also those that do speak up aren't listened to thoughtfully; contributions simply aren't valued. Furthermore, there was a problem with some staff who curried favour with Chris for selfish reasons, even when it involved putting other people in harms way. I think it is fair to say that psychological safety did not exist and that this was rooted in the actions of some team members as well as Chris's actions.
There are numerous reasons why the absence of psychological safety could be harmful to the team and its performance; they are discussed above.
Professor Edmondson has developed a Leader's Tool Kit for Building Psychological Safety. The Toolkit has three parts:
1. The stage is set: Leadership tasks involve framing the work and emphasising purpose in order to share expectations and meaning.
2. Participation is invited (a very different leadership style to the Chris employed): Leaders ensure that speaking up is welcome by acknowledging gaps, asking good questions and modelling intense listening. They might also set up structures and processes for encouraging feedback (e.g. creating forums for input and providing guidelines for discussions).
We might anticipate that Chris's team members will be reluctant to participate because they would expect a negative response. How Chris responds is therefore critical.
3. Leaders respond productively: Leaders improve the orientation towards continuous learning through expressing appreciation and destigmatising failure whilst sanctioning clear violations. This is essential because other team members will be watching how Chris and his inner circle treat early adopters of participation who were prepared to take a risk. If the way in which early adopters are treated has not changed, if they are now welcomed, then it is unlikely that the early majority, who would follow the early adopters, will receive the feedback that they need to persuade them to participate. The end result is that a tipping point will not be reached and participation will not happen and attitudes towards Chris and participation will not change.
Details of this Toolkit can be found in the Professor Edmondson's book 'The Fearless Organization'. It provides a very strong account of psychological safety and I would recommend it to everybody.
Chris therefore has a clear strategy to use when building psychological safety within his team. However, it will undoubtedly involve a good deal of soul searching on his part as the approach is counter to the one that he has taken.
Chris does face another challenge because of his past actions and the behaviours he reinforced in some followers. That is, will his team trust him and will team members be able to trust each other to the point that they can work as an interdependent team that capitalises on each others' strengths?
Trust
Trust is a complex subject that has been the subject of a substantial body of research. We might define it in two ways:
Trust exists when two people avoid acting in a way that is harmful to each other.
Trust exists when one person will make sacrifices in order to benefit another person.
We can also think about whether trust exists in three ways:
Whether somebody is trusting by nature (traits or dispositional factors). This can be affected by the environment; if somebody's trust has been abused in the past then they are less likely to trust now.
The interactions between two people or interactions that have been observed (relational trust). This could be somewhat problematic for Chris due to his behaviour towards team members in the past.
Whether somebody thinks a second person can be trusted in a new situation (situational trust). We would be hard pressed to think of a situation where a person might be trusted in a new situation if they can't be trusted in the current one.
Trust is related to or complementary to psychological safety but it is different.;Chris really ought to give it some consideration.
We and Chris can also infer whether trust exists in his situation. In the situation described we might consider that trust exists between Chris and his inner circle because they are supportive of each other despite their behaviour towards others; their interdependence suggests trust exists in this situation. What if the situation were to change? Could they still trust each other? Given that this group have seen each other treating others poorly, situational trust can not be assumed to exist.
It is very unlikely that trust exists between Chris (and his inner circle) and the remainder of the team: The behaviour of Chris and his inner circle has been detrimental to other team members so interpersonal trust and situational trust will not exist and members of this group will probably have developed a trait that also discourages them from trusting others at least in the immediate vicinity.
A Digression: Trust vs Psychological Safety
Trust and psychological safety seem very similar. Anybody could be forgiven for thinking they are the same. So how are they different? Psychological safety is a group construct; it refers to whether a person feels that they can contribute without retribution or ridicule from group members. Trust, in this situation, is between individuals (trust can also be considered on an organisational level for example). Psychological safety refers to the present (does it feel safe to speak up now?) whereas trust considers whether there might be future retribution for what is said or done today. Lastly, psychological safety considers whether team members will give an individual the benefit of the doubt if they say or do something that the they disagree with. Trust asks the question of whether an individual with give another the benefit of the doubt.
Whilst they are different, they can interact. For example, I have been a member of a team where members did openly contribute (so psychological safety existed). However, when a certain senior leader entered the meeting the dynamics would totally change and contributions would cease; that senior leader had a reputation for making life difficult for those that expressed different views to them to the point that strong staff left the organisation because of this person. Sometimes, the impact of opposing this senior leader would take months to be realised. The lack of trust in that senior leader moderated the psychological safety. However, their impact on psychological safety could be minimised if a second senior leader, who happened to have a reputation of having strong values centred on honesty and fairness, were also present. Staff knew that he would not tolerate any unfair treatment and so felt it was safe to speak up in his presence because they trusted him; he would ensure that the truth prevailed even if it meant taking a personal risk. Once again, trust moderated psychological safety.
Returning to our situation, it is evident that Chris's previous actions would break down trust. So, what could he do to rebuild trust in himself and his inner circle? First and foremost, all actions that might be harmful to team members would need to cease. This would at least stop further damage being done; it would not rebuild trust. Rebuilding trust requires more than just stopping doing what was damaging; it is much harder than that. Chris would need to demonstrate that he can be trusted by putting himself in situations where trust is needed and demonstrating unequivocally that he can make the right decisions and take the right course of actions. Furthermore, rather than just showing that he wont cause harm to individuals when the opportunity arises, he needs to take it a step further and show that he will make personal sacrifices in order to help others (a deeper level of trust that simply not harming others). It is the public testing of his resolve to do the right thing that will prove to followers that he can now be trusted.
Chris clearly has some tough tasks ahead of him. It will take courage for him to accept his failings and to learn from them. Admitting them in public, even if only through his actions rather than words, will be particularly difficult. However, if he can do this, building trust and psychological safety and focusing it with an appropriate focus on performance, he could recover the situation.
Suggested reading
Bachmann, R. and Zaheer, A. (2008). Landmark papers on trust. 1st ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Edmondson, A. (2012). Teaming. How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy. 1st ed. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Incorporated.
Edmondson, A. (2018). The Fearless Organisation: How to Build Psychological Safety for Learning and Innovation. 1st ed. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.
Pfeffer, J. and Sutton, R. (2000). The knowing-doing gap. 1st ed. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.
Tourish, D. (2013). The dark side of transformational leadership. 1st ed. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge.
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