Safety First, Always
Theme: Safety
Introduction
I’ve written newsletters about the importance of being prepared for emergencies in the workplace and created a free Office Emergency Preparedness Checklist (it’s not something that most places think about unless legally required to). But being a safe place is more than just knowing what to do when the worst happens. Safety is more than just physical. It is also mental and emotional.
When your team members feel safe, they are more likely to not only stay, but appreciate their time there, and work hard to make sure the mission is a success. From a business and management perspective, you want your team members to stay as long as possible. The cost of hiring, onboarding, and training a new team member is more expensive than keeping your experienced team members who already know what they’re doing in the organization.
As a leader, you want to be sure that you are not only making sure that your team is BEING safe, but also that everyone on it is FEELING safe.
Key Insights
Safety that leaders are responsible for is a matter of monitoring how their teams interact with their environment, each other, and those they serve. Mindful leaders have a responsibility to maintain the physical, mental, and emotional safety of all people within all physical and cyber spaces in which they lead.
Physical: Being and feeling physically safe is anything having to do with the body.
Making sure everyone is doing everything properly to make sure they stay alive and uninjured.
Making sure that no one is being physically sexually assaulted or feeling sexually harassed.
Making sure they entire staff is as safe as possible from possible communicative diseases (especially when working in close quarters)
Mental: Being mentally/psychologically safe is knowing that you can share your thoughts and opinions without fear of negative consequences.
Making sure that everyone feels comfortable returning to the physical office before demanding it after a work from home period
Recognizing the rights and autonomy of each person over their own personal health and space.
No one is yelled at, gaslit, manipulated, or feeling bullied.
Emotional: Being emotionally safe is knowing you can share your feelings without fear of punishment or humiliation. Mindful leaders validate feelings, as well.
No one has their ideas shut down or disregarded because they show emotion.
No one is accused of overreacting or being hysterical when you don’t want to hear what they have to say.
Listen to all sides of a disagreement when meditating issues.
Listen to both what is being said and what they are trying to say. Ask clarifying questions.
Examples
I’ve worked in dangerous locations, where they trained us on how to handle ourselves when we were outside of the building and in the surrounding neighborhood. Places where, if you are there long enough, you are able to pick up on who is a safe person in the neighborhood, who is a dangerous person in the neighborhood, and who is not from around here. I had countless safety incidents while working there, even when it was one of our top priorities. You can’t prevent every bad thing from happening. But it was the reaction of the leadership after my experiences that either helped me to feel more safe, or showed me that MY safety was more of an inconvenience than a priority.
When a confused, aggressive, unhoused individual tried physically pushing his way past me to get into the building that I was releasing children out of (by myself), so I got physically between him and the children until one of the parents had to come and physically threaten HIM, my Executive Director at the time was so upset about the incident that she made a new rule to make sure that there would always be more than one adult helping to release the children, and making sure everyone was safe. Her care for the situation did make me feel safer in the aftermath. Like she was someone I could go to if there was an issue.
Side note: at the time, I didn’t see the need for this rule for a few reasons. 1. I was young and figured I survived it. It was just me, so it was no big deal, right? 2. My biggest responsibility was volunteer coordination, so I spent most of my time trying to find, train, schedule, and keep volunteers happy. I was making myself sick over this aspect of my job, and I didn’t want to lose volunteers because they didn’t want to stay an extra 15 minutes. 3. My office-mate at the time (a nearly 7 foot tall middle-aged white man, who became my next ED), didn’t think it was a big deal, because HE never felt unsafe and never bothered to be one of the people making sure everything was safe outside. This should have been a red flag for what I would experience in the future, but again, I was young and inexperienced… and that’s why I’m doing this now. Please learn from my mistakes!
In stark contrast, a few years later, when I was the #2 in the organization, only outranked by my former office mate, and had a minor stalker situation, in which he demanded to know why I was late to a meeting that I warned everyone I would be late to (in front of the entire meeting), to then hear about the work-adjacent stalker (delivery guy got my phone number off of a package being sent to me, and proceeded to text me at all hours flirting with me–already married with a baby– and telling me exactly where my office was located in our massive building), and responded with “bummer. Let me know if he gets in the building,” I didn’t feel super safe or supported. IF I had time to “let him know,” he was never quick to come when asked for help, and he was on another floor of the building. Even his buddy from the building (different organization), who I had long lost faith in being a decent leader, did more to help me than my own leader did. Although, only after trying to chastise me for it, before realizing that I was being harassed, and I had done nothing wrong.
Just because YOU don’t feel unsafe, doesn’t mean other people don’t. How you react to that feeling from others tells people what they need to know about who you are as a leader.
What This Means for Neurodivergent Leaders
As the mindful, ND leader that I know you must be (if you are bothering to read this), I know you have likely had times when YOU felt uncomfortable or even unsafe in a situation. I’m still learning to listen to and recognize those feelings, since I grew up in a time when you just powered through. My hope is that you are not dealing with that same need to deconstruct.
In my experience, we can either be really good at listening to our own feelings and the feelings of others, or we can be super good at discounting or flat-out ignoring both of them altogether. I can also say, in my own experience, you can start out as the latter, and learn to be the former. It’s a matter of shifting our mentality when confronted with feelings (our own, or those of others) from fear of them, to wanting to understand them better.
And since we’re really good at hyperfocusing to understand things better, I really think this is one reason we can shine in Mindful Leadership.
Tips & Action Steps
Focusing on safety is integral in building and maintaining trust with your team. If they can trust that you are looking out for their well-being– physically, mentally, and emotionally– even if they don’t seem to hold the same value for their own safety, they are less likely to want to leave the team/organization/cause.
Check in with your team members regularly. One-on-one (can be casual). The more they see you, the more they will feel they can trust you, and the more they will feel comfortable sharing safety issues with you.
Take concerns seriously.
Find out the whole story before you start chastising or punishing. (Check with both sides if both are on your team or in your organization. Often offenses are made because one party doesn’t realize that what they did is wrong.)
Ask “how do you feel about that?” or “How does that make you feel?”
Validate their feelings.
Help your team members come up with a plan of action when they are having issues.
Go to bat for them when needed.
Recognize people’s limits and autonomy. They do not have to stay if they do not want to. They will not want to if they do not feel safe.
A good start, if you haven’t already, is to have the team and physical space prepare for the event of a disaster. Check out my free Office Emergency Preparedness Checklist for ideas!
