Staff trust in leaders is crucial. Without it we have major breakdowns in communication and workplace culture. The most recent example of this is the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. An FT article I read last week attempted to delve into the reasons behind a wider break down in staff trust in leaders across the public sector. This piece cited CIPD research into employee trust in leaders and quoted the institute as saying that this type of trust was much higher in the private sector.My consultancy recently conducted similar research asking 2,000 people whether their leaders explained the reasons for change to them and were interested in them as individuals as opposed to being interested in the tasks they were responsible for. We also asked whether leaders were brain-savvy that is worked in a way that engaged employees. The results for the public sector are not great, in line with the CIPD data, but it is not much better for the UK as a whole. 47% of employees feel threatened by their leaders. Clearly there can be no trust when people feel a sense of threat.
This finding is so important because if we look at how our brain works neuroscience tells us that when we feel threatened our executive functioning brain is impaired and when this is felt very strongly or over long periods, like the current economic crises the executive functioning in the brain can close down all together for periods of time. This cuts off access to rational thinking and importantly creativity and innovation. As the CIPD report points out creativity and innovation are potentially a way out of economic crises. Mitigating a sense of threat in the brain is also essential for engagement and encouraging people to speak up and take a risk. All things that leaders and staff in the NHS are being asked to do.
In my view leaders in the public sector, and elsewhere need to learn about the brain, how it works and how they can modify their own behaviour to help their teams feel less threatened and more open to change, trust and engagement. In my experience leaders like to know about the brain and once they understand the way it functions are more willing to modify their own behaviour to help engage their teams. Also we shouldn’t forget that the very leaders we want to act differently are probably feeling pretty threatened right now and could do with understanding why they lack courage, creativity and feel like they want to run away. All symptoms of a threat response in the brain.
So what can HR do? Well a little education can go a long way. Given the whole neuroscience field is quite new for many HR professional that probably means updating their knowledge in this area. We have made a short video summarising the neuroscience of engagement which can be accessed on our web site. http://www.headheartbrain.com/the-latest-engagement/
Hopefully you will find this a useful start.