The Best Leaders Make it Safe for Others to Tell the Truth

Days before January 28th, 1986, as NASA was making its final preparations for the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, Allan McDonald, an engineer on the project, realized something was wrong. There was a cold snap surrounding Merritt Island, Florida, where the Kennedy Space Center was located. Temperature on launch day was forecasted at 20 degrees colder than during any previous launch.

McDonald worried that the cold would prevent O-ring seals within the shuttle’s rocket boosters from functioning properly, possibly bringing catastrophic damage to the ship. He brought his concern to NASA and refused to sign off on the launch recommendation report — a move that could jeopardize his career.

But NASA’s high-level managers were suffering from “go-fever.” They were in a rush to launch on deadline for fear of losing federal funding. They dismissed McDonald’s warnings and went ahead with the launch. McDonald watched in horror as his predication came to pass. Less than two minutes after launch the Challenger exploded, killing everyone on board. The cause of the tragedy, a post-mortem investigation revealed, was malfunctioning O-rings.

Although we tend to regard incidents like these as freak accidents at the time, history shows that in many well-known organizational disasters, failures, and mistakes, there’s almost always an Allan McDonald — someone who thinks, “Uh-oh, I have a bad feeling about this.”

As a leader, it’s imperative — even a matter of life and death at times (Especially, if you're in a high-consequence industry) — that you not only listen to concerns but make it easy for people to tell the truth

In addition to avoiding bad outcomes, making it safe to tell the truth can help your team achieve extraordinary results. Google’s five-year study on highly productive teams, Project Aristotle, found that psychological safety—team members feeling safe to speak up, take risks and be vulnerable in front of supervisors and co-workers—was “far and away the most important of the five dynamics (Pictured below) that set successful teams apart."

As a leader, you should want to hear the truth for many reasons, albeit less dramatic than the Challenger example, but still very important.

• To understand what it’s like to be in a professional relationship with you.
• To know your blind spots so you can address them.
• To assess whether your communication skills lift or diminish others.
• To have an accurate view of your performance and personal leadership brand/ reputation.
• To learn the reality about a business issue early on, so you can address it before it’s too hard, too late or too expensive to solve.

A wise Cherokee proverb applies to the last bullet point: “Listen to the whispers and you won’t have to hear the screams.”

Researchers have found that human beings are wired to lie. Absent safety, our old lizard brains crank up our sense of risk.

Here are some ways to make it safe for others to be truthful in your presence.

• Show sincerity in wanting to know their truth. (I say their truth because not everyone’s version is accurate, complete or helpful.)
• Convey that you respect their point of view and will be vulnerable (Click here to read Brené Brown’s definition of vulnerability), especially to employees junior to you.
• Prove through continued experience that you won’t dispute or challenge their position, defend your behavior or dismiss their feedback out of hand.
• Perhaps, most important show through new behavior that you value their risk taking and by extension trusting you enough to improve.
• Carefully consider the physical setting. Find neutral ground to show that you’re’ not above them or anything they have to say.
• Take notes and ask for clarification.
• Genuinely ask for specific examples.
• Encourage them to give feedback.
• Do not defend or refute.

It’s the leader’s responsibility to create an environment that encourages people to speak their minds. If you create the expectation and remove the barriers, you will begin to receive candid input. The more you listen and connect, the more you will build trust. Once trust is established, good ideas will flow naturally and people will use their discretionary effort for the greater good of the organization.

Listed below are four ways to start making it safer for your direct reports and colleagues to tell the truth. Doing these things will require the courage to stretch outside your comfort zone. Even so, it will be well worth it because the real magic occurs outside our C-zones.

1. Consider what you're doing to encourage or discourage others from sharing with you their truth about you.
2. Assess your current organization or team, is not saying anything "negative" or spinning rewarded? Is truth-telling unsafe?
3. Show that you value feedback by changing your behavior and thanking the giver.
4. Above all, when someone does take the risk to provide feedback, don't dismiss it, disregard it, or defend yourself. Listen mindfully, show appreciation, then discern on your own whether it's worthy of acting on. Some feedback will be more about the person offering it than you.

Click here to read a related post entitled: 33 Activities of Trusted Leaders

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

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