Part 5

The transcription discusses the connection between psychological safety in healthcare, leadership, and teams. It uses the analogy of a canoe with rowers and non-rowers to illustrate teamwork dynamics. Leadership and followership are explored, emphasizing that these roles are more about context and influence rather than positions of authority. The importance of positive leadership-followership relationships for team function, productivity, and creating psychologically safe environments is highlighted. Research shows that a psychologically safe environment enhances patient safety outcomes. Alright, so how does psychological safety in the healthcare system specifically link with leadership and teams? So one scenario that pops in my head is you're in a canoe, there's ten people in the canoe. You've got someone that's at the front, you have people that are rowing, and you have people that aren't rowing. Your whole goal is everyone is rowing and on the same path to get you to where you need to go. But you definitely know who is not rowing and you definitely know if your leader is, you know, standing there beating the drums or if they are in the boat rowing with you too. So we honestly pulled a lot of our information from the book, An Occupational Perspective on Leadership by Sandra Dunbar-Smalley and Kristen Winston. So we will be quoting them throughout this section, but that is from them and we will make sure that they get the credit for that. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about this idea of leadership and teams. There's two pretty distinct roles that people take up in a team. You are the leader or you are the follower. Now I feel like there are certain connotations that immediately pop into your head about both that can be negative and positive. There's automatically assumptions that you make when you hear those words. But let's kind of talk about the difference between what true leadership and true followership is. So from the book, Dunbar-Smalley and Winston say, In reality, leadership and followership are less about a position and more about a role given in context within given context. Leaders may have a position and not necessarily be leading or have loyal followers and followers may not hold position of authority, but may at any given point be influencing their peers or those in higher positions. All right. And then kind of switching over to followership. So the book defines it as individuals who function within the influence and guidance of a leader. But at the same time, the book also states that leadership and followership can be kind of fluid. So, again, to what Megan was just talking about, you know, there may be a leader, but their people may not necessarily be following them or they may not be a great leader. So if you all haven't taken a look at the chapter yet, this is chapter 11. I highly recommend that you do, because there's a lot of followership models in that chapter that we're not going to go, you know, word for word definition on. But I do think it's really helpful to know, because even though you're a follower, you can still be, you know, a positive follower, more of a leader type follower, or you could be a negative follower and be bringing your team down. Yeah, I love that you just said that, Gracie. I also think, too, the term follower doesn't just mean like you're being told what to do. Like you get to decide if you're bought into the leadership's mission. And it's a difference between like I think of like team scenarios like, oh, we won the game or we lost the game, not they lost the game. So it's are you bought in as well. And I know Maria had a lot of really good ideas of what leadership and followership look like in her clinics. And so we'll make sure to let her speak on that. Yeah, I think that's all great. And hearing from Maria kind of just solidifies this idea that the relationship between leaders and followers is so important to getting good function within a team and having good team dynamic and promoting those psychologically safe environments that we discussed. There's some data in the book that talks about when you have positive leadership and followership relationships, not only does it improve quality work, it improves output and productivity. And it allows more discussion and more, again, those psychologically safe environments for people to speak up and disagree and challenge one another in, you know, a controlled setting, but also. Impactful. Yes. Where you feel safe enough to fail with the opportunities. Yeah, that's exactly what I was getting at. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I know, too, just going off of what Ashley is saying is, you know, you know, if you list something that's like, all right, who has been a good leader in your life? You can think of someone who has been a bad leader in your life or had a negative impact on you. You can think of someone. I think we've all had experiences. I know Keith has had multiple positions that he has been a leader, a follower. So, Keith, we'd love to hear kind of more on a good scenario that you've been in and maybe a bad scenario that's impacted you and what that kind of looks like. So kind of relating leadership and followership to psychological safety. There is a really big relationship between the three of those, because as a follower, if you don't feel safe enough to speak out and to do your job and to get your tasks done, then it's going to have a negative impact. And as a leader, if you don't feel like you can effectively communicate with your followers or the people on your team, this can also have, you know, like negative consequences and things like that. Research actually shows that a psychologically safe environment improves patient safety outcomes. So this plays a big role between the three of them as well. Yeah, I would also say to kind of go with that. Just cut that. Just cut that. Well, I have to say that last one in the mic. Cut it? Just take a pause. I had a good idea.