Any team building activity is pointless if leaders don’t buy into the plan. Great team success starts with leaders creating a culture of Psychological Safety, the #1 factor in team success. I’ve spent 100s of hours blogging or otherwise promoting the importance of YES AND IMPROV to teach Psychological Safety. This blog on leadership is WAY overdue.

I’ve lead 1000s of private improv workshops at this point for various corporate teams, leaders, teachers etc. A major issue teams pose to me is, “BUT WHAT ABOUT MANAGEMENT?”

MOST OF THE TIME, if a company calls me, that team leader understands Psychological Safety and wants me to bring my unique methods that not only inspire the need for Psychological Safety but how to lead Improv games in a way that teaches the skills one needs to truly do their part to create a safe working environment for all, unlock individual and team creativity, and inspire all to bring their A game every day.

Leaders v Bosses v Managers

Let us start by sharing something I say daily at these sessions.

I hate bosses. Despise managers. But I LOVE LEADERS.

Walt Frasier

For sake of this article, these definitions regard quality of work and style, not actual titles.

• BOSSES – Those that DEMAND results, with zero respect for underlings.
• MANAGERS – Those that manage expectations, or otherwise simply implement the desires of their bosses, usually demanding results, or merely regurgitatingcompany policy etc.
• LEADERS – Those that embrace a service mentality, providing the tools, mentorship and safe space for their individual teams to give their best, freely, willingly and as a team achieve best possible results.

Bosses and managers may or may not achieve goals. Leaders often exceed goals because their team delivers beyond the head’s ability to concieve of all the possibilities.

Managers and bosses treat their underlings as servants, or at best appendages to their intent. Leaders empower their teams, LISTEN (#1 trait in a good leader) and benefit from the full force of their teams creative intelligence.

1. Leaders have to LEAD BY EXAMPLE. Don’t be a boss. Don’t be a manager. Don’t treat your team as just more hardware, aka human computers. Leaders serve our teams, not the other way around. Your team will be a reflection OR rejection of you. If you lead with anxiety, that is what you will get. If you DEMAND results, you will get resentment. This is obvious regarding managers of the most menial professions too, but in an office of professionals of highly educated individuals, you are hampering your team with old school boss and management techniques. Unlock their best work.
2. #1 skill in Improv AND Leadership? LISTENING! Listen to your team!!! Their ideas, their needs etc. What do THEY need to succeed?
3. Give EVERY person on your team agency. I work in schools where teachers/admin tell students YOU HAVE AGENCY. I say NO THEY DON’T. Calling classes they are forced to take “electives” is the first red flag of the not understanding the word. Psychological Safety means EVERY player on your team feels heard and valued. THEY FEEL VALUED. It’s not enough to say you value their input.
4. Psychological Safety, especially through YES AND… might require an overhaul of office etiquette and time management. That HOUR discussed might not be the place for a round table. So you need to create time and space. Sometimes it takes a solid MINUTE to give an individual agency. That minute will save you hours, weeks, months of passive aggresive responses from unheard individuals. One minute might provide the clarity for an individual to discover the illuded solutions.
5. During an hour meeting, start from a psychologically safe space. Don’t let minute ONE feel like minute 59. Start with 2 minutes of fun. Try starting an improv game or other ice breaker. HAVE FUN! Conference rooms don’t have to be as dull as their interior decorator.
6. Before that hour, before you get too desperate, start a new project creating Psychological Safety. Create a culture, from DAY ONE, where EVERY player has space to contribute, at some point. Show, and honestly have interest in THEIR success, growth, mental health at work.
7. Have the SERVICE mentality. Serve your community the way a religious or political leader should. Meet their needs. Provide the tools, the software, the hardware, the mentoring. Don’t give them food, teach them to fish. (Although food always makes folks happy at meetings 😆)
8. Our #1 Rule HAVE FUN but never at another’s expense. Create a culture where EVERYONE feels safe. This means no more bad jokes from the bar that will make someone feel bad. Ive never heard a great joke at a bar. The best is at someone’s expense – usually women, non Caucasian, LGBTQ+. These jokes have NEVER BEEN welcome by many and should not be office fodder in 2023 (I said the same thing in 2003 btw).
9. YES AND… Adopt a culture of saying YES! Accepting everyone as they are today. Accepting their ideas, backgrounds.
10. Create a space that safe – physically, mentaly, emotionally – for EVERYONE. Lead by example. DON’T TRY TO IMPRESS ME. That’s ego and insecurity. Instead lose yourself in the work. Especially when in a scene with me, dont look to my approval on every joke. Treat ME as an equal, or (repectfully) as a subordinate. I am a resource. I am here to serve my team.
11. DON’T TRY TO BE FUNNY. Don’t permit bad jokes from the bar that leave most cringing. Encourage laughter, fun, but remember rule #1. When we TRY to be funny, we are jerky.
12. DON’T TRY TO BE CLEVER. That’s ego and insecurity. When you try to be clever, you get disconnected, elitist etc. Instead TRUST you and your team to be clever, creative etc.
13. CLEARLY COMMUNICATE NEEDS/GOALS FOR THE TEAM I have many times told my team, I dont like this thing we are doing BUT that’s on me, because we never discussed it or set up guidelines, parameters etc. No expectation was set AND I let it go too long without formerly addressing the issue. It only becomes a “problem” if issue continues after we have establish protocols, expectations etc.
14. SURROUND YOURSELF WITH WHAT YOU NEED, NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR. My proudest moment as a “boss” was when I brought three (out a potential eight leaders on my team) into a meeting. “You three are here because you know how to tell me what I need to hear.” I surrounded myself with leaders that made me and my company better. I surrounded myself with folks that were blunt with me. They didn’t sugar coat or whine. They were confidently respectful in their discourse. They had the success of our company and our whole team as part of their personal ambition. I did not promote middle managers, I promoted leaders, surrounding myself with talent that knew more than me in many areas.

OR consider the alternatives….

Most great American companies and small businesses were started by individuals whose creativity and intelligence were ignored by bosses and managers – OR far too often squashed by old school office politics fearing internal competition. Classic stereotype of middle managers exists for a reason. If this is you, I thank you for your years of service to ME as a comedian.