It’s important for leaders to build positive team environments that inspire and motivate team members to deliver results. You can develop your skills as you lead others with resources from the Leadership Learning Hub and the helpful advice below.

Onboard Thoughtfully

Onboarding is one of the first steps in building a successful team. Start off on the right foot and know that it will take time for your new teammate to understand enough about the job and the organization to ask the tough questions. People don’t know what they don’t know for days, weeks, or months into their new role, so be patient.

Consider whether it would be helpful to:

• Assign an onboarding buddy who can answer questions and help the new team member feel supported
• Schedule a quick check-in at the end of each day for the first few weeks, weekly or bi-weekly after the first month, and monthly for months three through six or longer
• Schedule a check-in for the employee’s one-year work anniversary

Being willing to teach, and having patience and resources readily available provides a positive experience for your new teammate, encourages them to stay long-term, and helps your team find success faster.

Build Relationships and Trust

Great teams get along and enjoy natural collaboration and productive meetings. Trust is a necessary ingredient for that to happen. As a leader, you can build trust by coming through for others – and giving employees the opportunity to come through for you. There are a number of ways you can grow trust and strengthen relationships among team members:

• Keep the lines of communication open. Set clear expectations. Be available. Be approachable. Listen attentively.
• Be a credible resource. Do what you say you will do. Reliability, honesty, and consistency in your words and actions are critical!
• Take every chance to celebrate. Recognize your team’s achievements and contributions. Let them know you see their effort, recognize their skills, and give credit where it’s due.

Provide Performance Feedback

Providing performance feedback means having a direct, clear and respectful conversation about an employee’s professional progress.

• Celebrate progress and success. Cite examples of the employee’s skills and performance that you appreciate. Refer to the employee’s Individual Development Plan to track progress and set new milestones. Help your team member feel confident they are on the right path and recognized for their accomplishments.
• Address issues. Performance reviews are your chance to address issues before they impede success. Provide time for the employee to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and to ask for help. Support your employee’s success by providing tools, training and other resources to help them make any needed changes. Document issues and the points at which you have addressed them with the employee to help identify patterns of behavior and measure improvement.
• Setting Expectations. Performance feedback is an ongoing discussion. Set the expectation you’ll discuss matters again. Set clear, realistic, measurable milestones, and ensure the employee understands your expectations.

Manage Conflict

While most conflict is rooted in simple miscommunication, it doesn’t take long for misunderstandings to escalate.

Good conflict management requires respect, responsibility, and communication from all those involved. Listen attentively to each side of the argument. Own mistakes and resolve them. Use clear, concise, non-accusatory words.

It’s important that leaders serve as examples of sound conflict management and ultimately support resolutions.

Provide Psychological Safety

It’s normal to feel stressed about work from time to time. Creating a safe space for teams means being understanding, flexible, and knowing when to step in to help a teammate carry their load.

• Safe Assignments. Set realistic expectations and deadlines achievable within an employee’s workload. Consider the employee’s skills and interests, and encourage collaboration. Provide opportunities to test new skills in different roles on the team.
• Safe People. Pause before responding when negative emotions are present, and speak calmly. Assume positive intent, and check for misunderstandings or miscommunication. Take time for self-care somewhere away from the workplace.
• Safe Leadership. Ask questions before making decisions. See mistakes as learning opportunities; admit to your mistakes and offer solutions for repair. Advocate for your team. Encourage and approve time off.

Have patience with yourself and others as you tackle stress and conflicts. Nothing is more important than people’s wellbeing.

Manage Change

Change raises many questions, and the best way to manage is to provide answers. Employees want to know why the change is happening, the associated timeline, and where they can find more information. Consider the following as you introduce change:

• Get answers. Answer the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the change as you introduce it. Be honest and transparent; if you don’t know the answer to a question, commit to finding and sharing it.
• Repeat your answers. Not everyone will fully understand all the facets of change when you first introduce it. Be prepared to answer the same questions multiple times and to send out reminders.
• Equip other leaders. Make sure other managers have what they need to manage change at their level and that you aren’t the only one who can answer employees’ questions.
• Encourage learning and have patience. Change takes time, and not everyone will get it right on the first try. Prevent problems when you can, address conflict when it arises, help others get unstuck, and know mistakes are learning opportunities.
• Lead by example and take your own advice. Show yourself the same grace you do others as you navigate through the transition. Be honest about what is and isn’t working well to implement change in a way that works for everyone.

Think Strategically

Not all strategic thinking is innate. You can learn to think differently. Ask yourself and your team to practice strategic thinking skills:

• Observation. What are the hard facts of this opportunity?
• Analysis. How do those facts limit or expand choices?
• Inference. How is the project like others done before?
• Communication. What is everyone else thinking?
• Problem solving. Where do we go from here?

Strategic thinking means checking all the boxes that will need to be checked to achieve a goal. A critical element involves creating and retaining documents that enable current or future employees to look back at what was done and learn from your experience. Make sure great ideas are remembered.

Engage in Participatory Leadership

One of the strongest attributes you can bring to your team is participatory leadership. With this style, you help create an inclusive environment where employees feel comfortable sharing perspectives, exploring ideas, and providing new information. As a result, employees can learn and grow, and you can find the best, most informed answers. Be clear and candid about what is open for discussion and exploration. Even if you ultimately make a decision not everyone likes, employees learn the various considerations that go into making a decision.

Some things to consider:

• Make sure you have the right people at the table. Think about who is already involved and who needs to be. How can you bring missing perspectives or groups to the table? What are the equity, access, and inclusion issues involved? Engaging others early can lead to better working relationships and outcomes.
• Think beyond meetings. Meetings are great for getting lots of people involved at once. However, some people might feel uncomfortable speaking up in a traditional meeting setting. They might also need more time than they have in a meeting to process information, conduct research, and brainstorm ideas. Consider adding one-on-one discussions, surveys, and other opportunities that enable everyone to participate.
• Explore ways to enhance participation. You can’t always present a problem and expect people to immediately have answers or ideas. Consider how you can set up the meeting or discussion, how you plan to facilitate it, what questions will lead to a meaningful discussion, and how you can enhance equity, access, and inclusion.

If you encounter projects or problems that could benefit from expert-level facilitation, Management Analysis and Development (MAD) is an enterprise-wide resource that can provide hands-on help to address your immediate needs and model the participatory leadership style. MAD can help you gain deeper insights and make informed decisions by facilitating meetings, conducting surveys, and more.

Practice Servant Leadership

Public servants are motivated by community, empathy, and justice. We seek outcomes that benefit every Minnesotan’s wellbeing.

As servant leaders, we hold ourselves and others accountable for mistakes, behaviors, and growth. We conduct ourselves professionally and treat everyone with respect. We also commit to being lifelong learners, staying informed on creative workplace solutions, current events, and social issues.

It is important to be transparent in our work and decision-making processes. We owe it to Minnesota to lead with integrity and use our voices to advocate for others.

Creating a Culture of Inclusion

Culture is created through strong values that inspire enthusiastic and authentic participation. Hosting social events or guest speakers does not automatically create an inclusive culture. You must thoughtfully plan opportunities for genuine engagement – otherwise it’s just forced fun, and no one likes that.

Authenticity is the goal of inclusion, and essential to the culture we want to foster. We encourage authenticity and create a culture of inclusion through our language, acts of allyship, and trust within our teams.

Use Inclusive Language.

• Be aware of gendered terms. Instead of greeting groups as “ladies and gentlemen,” try using words like “everyone,” “folks,” or “people.”
• Be aware of ableist terms. Instead of saying “watch" or "listen," try using "access" to be conscious of those with visual or hearing impairments. Instead of saying “walk this way” try using the phrase “go this way” to be conscious of those using mobility aids.
• Use correct pronouns. Addressing someone by their pronoun is a sign of respect and dignity, and it’s okay to ask if you’re unsure. Introduce yourself with your own pronouns, then ask for theirs.

Act in Allyship.

• Encourage learning. There is always more to learn as language develops and communities grow. Stay informed and encourage your team to do the same. Approach new information with curiosity and an open mind.
• Call out bad behavior. Learn to recognize exclusive language, bias, or inaccessibility. Be ready to correct others’ mistakes and freely admit your own. Calling out bad behavior doesn’t always mean hard conversations or formalized warnings – but it might. Don’t tolerate disrespect or indignity on your team.
• Share the spotlight. Express gratitude for others and celebrate everyone’s accomplishments. Invite subject matter experts to share their experiences, enrich your conversations, and inform team decisions.

Build Trust.

• Extend an invitation. Assuming what your team wants, likes, and knows, erases the uniqueness of their experiences. Be intentional with surveys and listening sessions and provide multiple avenues for your team to submit ideas.
• Act on feedback. Asking for openness from your team but then ignoring all input will diminish your creditability. From strategic planning to choosing an icebreaker question, your team will feel empowered when you take their feedback seriously.
• Give yourself and others permission to feel. It takes consistent bravery, pride, self-awareness, empathy, humility, and openness from the vast majority of an organization to create an inclusive culture. Give yourself and others permission to express themselves as we learn together.

For more information on the Leading Others competency, visit the Leadership Learning Hub.