Emotional Support

This week I explore the ‘emotional support’ element of my ‘leading hybrid teams’ model.

This model highlights the areas in which leadership competency needs to be elevated to successfully lead high performing hybrid teams.

As a leader of a hybrid team how do you provide emotional support?

What is it?

What is emotional support? Leaders show emotional support for their employees by offering genuine encouragement, reassurance, and compassion.

The repercussions of the pandemic will be felt for some time to come, and everyone will have different experiences and extenuating circumstances. Emotional support for every employee, wherever they are located is paramount. It helps them overcome the challenges they may be facing currently and help them deal with future challenges as well.

The foundation of emotional support is the ability of the leader to make the team feel safe and supported.

Psychological Safety

Google’s famous Project Aristotle project set out to discover the dynamics of effective teams. The researchers found that what really mattered was less about who is on the team, and more about how the team worked together. The most important of five dynamics uncovered was psychological safety.

Google defined it as follows quoting the pioneering work done in this field by Harvard Professor, Amy Edmonson.

Psychological safety refers to an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk or a belief that a team is safe for risk taking in the face of being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive. In a team with high psychological safety, teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members. They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.

Support

Google also did research to discover what makes a great manager. They found that a great manager possessed 10 key behaviors with the top 5 being:

1.     Is a good coach

2.     Empowers team and does not micromanage

3.     Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being

4.     Is productive and results-oriented

5.     Is a good communicator – listen and shares information

Emotional support is provided by establishing a safe environment in which everyone feels safe to share their concerns and challenges, and a leader who is a coach providing information and support.

Providing emotional support

There are many ways, you as a leader, can provide emotional support to your hybrid team.

1.     Check-in often and ask

You must stay connected with all of your employees including those working remotely. It is often easier to sense if someone needs support when you are co-located with them. When you check-in on a regular basis you have the chance to understand their challenges which in turn provides you with opportunity to offer support.

When you want to show emotional support, it is important to ask questions such as “How can I support you?” If you know the challenge that is being faced, make the question more specific and reference the specific situation. Use open rather than closed questions that can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no. This invites explanation and helps keep an open discussion flowing.

2.     Listen

There is no point in asking if you are not going to listen. You must listen actively and empathically.

When you really listen to someone you give them your full attention. You display open body language (physical or virtual); you avoid distractions like your phone or email; you acknowledge their words by nodding or making noises of agreement; you avoid interrupting unless you are seeking clarification when you don't understand something that has been said; and you summarize what you have heard to make sure that was what the other people intended.

When you listen actively and with empathy, you are showing the other person that you care about them and want to support them, whatever they may be facing 

3.     Show Empathy

It is paramount that you have empathy for everyone in your team. Everyone is different and experiencing different challenges. It is easy to think we are empathetic but often hard to practice it.

The 2021 State of Workplace Empathy study report stated:

“Our study unearthed key findings that clearly depict a new outlook for empathy:

·       Leaders are struggling to reconcile empathy gaps with employees.

·       Employers’ pandemic response has changed employee expectations.

·       DEI efforts are not consistently reaching or resonating with all employees.

·       Mental health benefits are linked to empathy, but mental health issues are still stigmatized.

·       The youngest generation in the workforce already is more critical of organizational empathy.

·       CEOs see the value of empathy but fail to acknowledge how their organization needs to improve.”

I believe that empathy is not as simple as walking in someone else’s shoes. It is about understanding how others feel walking in their shoes.

It is about removing your filters and biases and really understanding the feeling of others in their context and reaching out with help and support. You must really feel what the other person is feeling.

Watch the brilliant video on empathy versus sympathy from Brené Brown.

4.     Be vulnerable

It is possible that you have experienced the stresses and anxieties being experienced by your employees. When you share those feeling with your team, they will do the same.

There is still an assumption that vulnerability is a sign of weakness when in fact it is a sign of courage.

Showing your vulnerability doesn’t mean you spread doom and gloom which will not help your team in the slightest. You need to spread optimism and hope for the future.

However, sharing the fact that you have felt anxious about leading the hybrid team and that you are on a learning curve shows your team that you are not superman/woman but rather just as human as everyone else with the same emotions. Sharing encourages sharing and sharing one feelings and emotions can alleviate the fear and anxiety.

Lead with compassion

As stated in a McKinsey article “When people exhibit fear and a desire for protection and self, preservation, compassionate leader validate those feelings as normal.”

Leaders who lead with compassion make every employee, regardless of their proximity, feel genuinely cared for.

Compassionate leaders listen - they really listen and hear what is really being said. They are servant leaders and put the team’s needs before theirs.

The understand the perspectives, motivations, and challenges of others. They then use their power to make the lives of others better.

When you show compassion, you create a safe space for open and honest conversations.

Summary

Emotional support for employees regardless of their location is crucial. Often those working remotely feel less cared for than those in the immediate proximity of a leader. That cannot be allowed to be a new reality.

Emotional support comes from leaders who lead with vulnerability, empathy and compassion and have the wellbeing of every employee as an overarching priority.