In this lesson, we look at what you can do as a leader to help your team feel safe when changing and exploring.

There are two perspectives to be mindful of. One is the everyday team spirit – are people comfortable talking about problems and mistakes, asking questions and sharing thoughts? The other is when someone makes a mistake – how is that handled in the team?

Let’s look at them one at a time, everyday team spirit first. What can you do?

1. Be generous with praise – why are they all, individually, important to the team? 
There is nothing like praise to build trust, and it prepares people for mentally tough situations.
2. Include the team when solving problems. Invite questions, opinions and ideas.
3. Admit when you don’t know or when you’ve made a mistake. This allows others to do the same.
4. Ask for feedback and don’t argue when you get it. Be interested!

These things are not difficult. The challenge is remembering to do them all the time. Then you can nudge the others to start supporting each other, but you have to go first.

Now to the handling of mistakes. When leveling-up, people will occasionally mess-up. The way you handle their mess-ups is crucial for if they – or others in the team – will find the courage to level up again. So, what can you do?

5. Show your support when someone is in trouble. Take care of the person first, then the problem. Treat the problem as the team’s problem – don’t let people carry the load themselves.
6. Focus on the learnings from a mistake, that’s where you can capture some value from the experience. Evaluate without blaming.

You can’t stop people from making mistakes – that would stop all exploring – but if you can reduce their fear of messing up, they will explore more and be less tempted to cover up mistakes.

In the level-up-course, the learning zone model shows how people feel psychologically safe in the comfort zone. To explore, they have to level up from there, but you don’t want anyone to slip into anxiety. When the psychological safety grows as quickly as the ambitions – that’s the combination that brings your team to the learning zone.

Nudging your employees to level-up will be so much easier if they feel reasonably safe when exploring the unknown.