This was an absolute masterclass of leadership in action. You know those moments where everything is ‘great’ “we have an awesome team” “things are going well” but there also feels like there is something that is not spoken.
While facilitating a team planning day, I couldn’t grasp it or articulate what it was, I just knew that I couldn’t quite reach them.
At the beginning of the day, it was discussed how they were wanting connection as a leadership team and to know one another more yet as a facilitator it felt like there was something in the way. During one of the introductory activities, I also observed a lot of individuals doing the same thing rather than working together.
With permission from the leader I was about to delve in, not really knowing whether there was any substance to what I was sensing.
So in came the curiosity, the space to ponder and the planning went on hold for a while.
I owned that I might be off track and gently called the room and as we waited in silence I could feel something was indeed rising.
And there it was – one of the team members had been offended by an exchange and had withdrawn, felt dismissed and no longer felt valued.
And while this wasn’t heated or attacking in tone, it was directed at one person, the leader.
I have been in many rooms where this then erupts into panic, anger, pointing the finger, dismissive gaslighting and going into task justification but this was a very different moment.
The Leader listened and took on board what was said and then responded calmly with I could feel that there was something that had shifted and I am glad you have expressed it now. I would like it if we could all discuss things at the time, and then they owned their humanness.
That response changed the room.
It gave others permission to speak a little more openly about what they were carrying and what was adding pressure to their roles. No one was forced to share, and it certainly wasn’t therapy or a trauma dump. It was simply time and space for some of the human stuff that inevitably sits alongside the work.
And you could feel the difference afterwards, shoulders dropped, people connected differently and there was a greater sense that they could move forward together. The very thing that they all wanted from their day together.
The team wasn’t in crisis. There was just something important that needed some air and they felt heard.
For me, the leadership was being able to hear something uncomfortable without immediately defending against it, staying curious about what might be happening, and making space for the people in the room.
And as a facilitator, sometimes that means the session plan and agenda has to wait for something far more important.
Feeling Heard
