Building a Culture of Emotional Support for Creativity

Have you ever seen a band where every member starts playing a different song? That's because it doesn't happen. Even if the members aren't the best of friends off the stage They still trust one another to perform. This can be said about teams anywhere Although liking each member of your team is beneficial (And obviously, something we strive for) It's not entirely necessary - At least not as necessary as building trust and emotional intelligence (EQ). Let's start with the basics 👇 ✳  Why is Trust & EQ Essential? Communication ⇢ EQ leads to better understanding & (hopefully) fewer misunderstandings. ⇢ Trust promotes open communication, which helps to solve conflict & brainstorming. Collaboration ⇢ EQ increases empathy, which improves teamwork & cooperation. ⇢ Trust reduces the fear of being vulnerable. This increases overall support. Performance ⇢ EQ enhances interpersonal skills, which in turn boosts team efficiency. ⇢ Trust establishes a commitment to team goals by minimizing distractions. ✳  How Can You Build Trust & EQ within Your Team? Lead by Example ⇢ Display EQ and trust as a leader. YOU set the tone for your team. Encourage Open Communication ⇢ Utilize 1:1s and Team Meetings to encourage open discussions on important topics. Respect Feelings (And recognize them to begin with...) ⇢ LISTEN and show EMPATHY. Acknowledge your team's feelings. Provide Support & Feedback ⇢ Give your team constructive feedback in a way that reinforces trust. Create Team Experiences ⇢ Team building activities that are NOT work-related can do wonders for building trust. Take Accountability ⇢ When team members feel accountable to their peers, they are more likely to act in ways that will build trust. Be Reliable ⇢ Consistency in both your words and your actions will develop trust over time. By focusing on building, and maintaining, trust and EQ You're setting your team up to perform together. PS - How have you built or experienced trust-building within your team? --- 📣 I'm Angela, bringing you daily insights on marketing, tech, and leadership at 8 AM EST. If you like what you see, let’s connect or chat in the comments! #marketing

Think of psychological safety as the collective emotional intelligence of a group. Have you ever seen a team full of individuals with low EQ who maintain high psychological safety? Probably not. 👤 EQ: Improves your individual ability to interact effectively. 👥 Psychological Safety: Improves your team's ability to interact effectively. Let's start with EQ: We improve our emotional intelligence when we learn to interact more effectively. This includes improving our perception, our intent, and our skills in our interactions. The goal is to improve our delivery system to become more effective. But what about psychological safety? We increase the levels of psychological safety on our team when we increase the instances of rewarded vulnerability in our interactions. The goal is to increase inclusion, learning, contribution, and candor within our team. Recognizing that psychological safety is the collective EQ of a group has been a crucial “aha moment” for many of our L&D and HR clients. Can you see how the two work together? ⭐ Building individual self- and social awareness helps a team identify acts of vulnerability as they interact. ⭐ Monitoring and improving self- and social regard motivates teams to validate their colleagues' unique workplace vulnerabilities. ⭐ Improving the skills that team members have to interact effectively gives them better tools to reward the vulnerabilities of others. This relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological safety is the anatomy of culture in an organization. Both should be at the foundation of all development efforts. An organization that cannot recognize the relationship between psychological safety and emotional intelligence will struggle to (1) Gather cultural data that can be used tactically, (2) target the root cause of cultural distress, and (3) program meaningful, effective intervention.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 Creating a culture innovation and change is a simple formula, but is not simple to cultivate. It requires leadership. 1. All innovation and change is brought about by teamwork and collaboration. 2. And teams and collaboration are brought about by communication. 3. Communication requires psychological safety and trust between managers and colleagues. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩. Communication is usually top-down rather than bottom-up, sideways, and top-down. 4. To create communication between people in all directions, the culture and leaders must promote empathic listening skills. Empathic listening goes beyond hearing the other person and feeling what they mean--sensing what they are trying to convey--rather than judging and rejecting. 5. To get beyond and transcend judgment, we must become vulnerable. Being vulnerable means surrendering our ego and being open to others' ideas. Becoming vulnerable requires Emotional Intelligence, specifically self-awareness. The ability to understand who we are and what we tend to do based on our beliefs. It is recognizing our weaknesses and blind spots caused by our biases and our need to look good to others and have all the answers where there are none. When we all can self-reflect as individuals and see we are the cause of our environment and what we are getting, we begin to see the possibilities of what can be. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞? 10 RULE BREAKING NORMS: 1. Look at what you defend. 2. Watch for where you stop and hesitate. 3. Look for when you feel insecure and want to say something to "look good." 4. Watch for when you judge something or someone as good or bad and right and wrong. 5. Listen without judgment. Observe without labeling. 6. Instead of persuading, be persuaded. 7. Allow communication to flow rather than try to control. 8. Use brainstorming and an outside facilitators for change and innovation 9. Create an idea lab. Consider all possibilities. 10. Blow up old protective rules of managing others, such as having all the answers and controlling, and allowing people to "own" their results. In my consulting with clients, they institute these "10 Rule Breaking Norms" to bring about change and innovation. It's remarkable to see how quickly people "buy into" the new ways of interacting to develop breakthrough ideas and solutions. Your partner in success, Joe Murphy ♻️ Cool to forward to your network ________________ THE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY 𝑪𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝑨𝒍𝒍 𝑳𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒔 Over 600 worldwide sessions | Over 45,000 attendees | 4.9/5 Sat Score _________________ 📽 New videos daily, Mon-Fri at 5 PM ET, on success and leadership 🔔 Join over 40,000 over-achievers today #LeadersatAllLevels #Xfactor #TheLeadershipAcademy Infographic: Nature of work