Dear Human Resources

Our regular columnist, Mike Davy, Chief Member Advocacy Officer at MAS, shares his heartfelt insights into leading people.

One of the challenges I see at play in senior leadership roles is trying to find the perfect blend between creating a safe, empathetic, nurturing team environment and an expectation for high performance and execution.

Let me explain. I’ve experienced teams that are high on the softer skills: highly empathetic and caring. People love working there. Yet execution lags and poor performers linger.

I’ve also experienced teams that churn out execution, but people are afraid to speak up, engagement is poor (or worse, artificially high), and people eventually burn out. It’s the team that only the driven want to work in, for a while, anyway.

Both scenarios are more common than we’d like to admit.

In our team, we talk a lot about ‘high performance through high trust’, and, for me, the foundation of that is psychological safety grounded in inclusiveness and acceptance. Sounds like a mouthful, but what if the pursuit of ideals such as true diversity and high performance is best found in the pursuit of inclusiveness and acceptance? What if, by breaking down the barriers for people to be themselves and operate in their uniqueness, we foster the environment necessary for people to be their most creative and industrious? And maybe then that also creates the right environment to have tougher conversations when execution doesn’t quite meet expectations.

If you’ve got kids (mine are aged 16 and 12), you might see this in practice sometimes. When our kids feel safe, if they know love and acceptance are unconditional (in practice, not just words), they’ll try new things and respond to feedback well. But if they don’t, survival mode kicks in, and you’ll get minimum viable response. Or worse. How often do we see this in our teams?

I’ve seen this play out in another way, too. I met a young boy aged 18-months who came from an orphanage overseas. I had the privilege of observing him as he grew up, adopted by a loving family in Aotearoa. It took years to unwind the institutionalised reactions of a young boy in survival mode through repetitive demonstrations of love, acceptance and behaviour that created healthy connection. But at the end of the process (spoiler alert, it never really ends), you have a child willing to give things a go, embrace a new life and new experiences, and be corrected when they stuff up.

Yet, sometimes I think we expect all these things won’t be true of the teams and people we lead.

So, my ask of the Department of Resources for Humans (aka HR) is please help me find the best resources to foster inclusiveness, acceptance and psychological safety. Topics like vulnerability, empathy, telling my truth (and accepting yours), understanding different styles and cultures, setting high standards, embracing authenticity, and creating a culture of accountability are probably going to be on the list. But I’m sure you’ve got more to help us reap the benefits of true diversity, where everybody (anybody) in a team feels confident to be their best.

Mike Davy is MAS’s Chief Member Advocacy Officer and has been on the Executive Team for the past eight years. He believes that when people can bring all of themselves into their work and connect with passion and purpose, they’ll achieve great things.