It can feel like a perfect storm. Delivery expectations, technology transformation, policy reform, and shifting economics are all asking more of teams, at a time when the environment around them feels enormously uncertain. For many leaders, the question becomes how to keep teams functioning well within it.
Adding to this, emotional agility researcher Susan David shared that people are not only bringing their whole selves to work, they are bringing their whole world view and stresses too. Emotions are heightened, and at times leaders can feel like they are walking a very thin line. Therein lies the risk.
Often, psychosocial obligations are seen as safety compliance or a HR initiative, rather than sitting with operational leaders and managers. While work design forms the foundation of psychologically healthy environments, for teams, psychological health is shaped in the day to day experience of work, how it is led, and through small interactions that build over time. This is often where psychosocial risk is either reduced or reinforced.
By the time a psychosocial issue has reached HR or is put in writing, it is rarely one issue. There are often interconnected factors at play. In some cases, an early conversation might have resolved misaligned expectations, compounding stress, or poor behaviour. “Why didn’t they say something?” is often easy to lament. But for those conversations to happen, team members need to feel they can raise concerns, leaders need to notice the signs and step in, and there needs to be a level of self awareness and communication that can resolve and repair.
In culture reviews with clients, we are seeing the impact of the behaviour that is modelled and reinforced within a team, setting the bar for what is raised and what gets smoothed over. These simmering grievances carry risk to employers and their officers if they are not addressed. In human dynamics, you cannot remove all risk, but leaders can play a key role in reducing it.
Every organisation’s context is different, so we will not cover work design here. However, there are some common patterns where leadership behaviours can minimise risk and set the foundations for productive and healthy environments.
Leadership behaviours that make a difference
Build trusting relationships with your team, from a distance
Put time and effort into building trust with your team members in ways that are honest, authentic, and consistent. When there is trust, feedback conversations and raising problems are more likely to be received as constructive rather than criticism. As part of building trust, understand what people need to work at their best, what motivates them, and where they want to stretch. Over time, they may also share more of their personal context.
There is a caveat: every team member is paying attention to their own and others’ relationship with their manager. The moment there is a perception that a favoured or social relationship is providing unfair advantage, concerns around favouritism or procedural fairness can arise. While everyone wants to belong, and you may have previously been part of the team, as the leader there needs to be appropriate separation. This is particularly important when you are holding competing perspectives and balancing both team and organisational context. Having your own support network, whether peers, a mentor, or a sounding board, becomes important.
Creating opportunities for team connection
Relationships are built through familiarity, proximity, and consistency. Our experience of each other develops over time, and we come to trust in who we believe that person to be. With geographically dispersed and hybrid teams working under increasing demands, it is easy for regular connection to drop away. Without that glue, collaboration can become a bottleneck rather than an enabler. When things go wrong, people may move more quickly to judgement and frustration, which can become a starting point for conflict.
Simple, consistent rituals can help here. These are not large interventions, but small, repeatable practices that create opportunities for connection, alignment, and stability, even when much is uncertain. These create a predictable way for teams to connect, raise issues, and stay aligned. For example, regular check ins that ask “what else do you need”, or monthly “Fess Up Friday” sessions to normalise that things go wrong and how they are resolved. Over time, the right rituals help strengthen relationships and make it easier to resolve issues through conversation.
Setting expectations early
Unspoken expectations often lead to frustration later. Taking the time to clarify what success looks like, both in terms of outcomes and how the team works together, creates a shared reference point. This can happen at induction, at the start of a project, or as part of a periodic reset.
In one to one conversations, it can be useful to understand people’s working preferences, how they work best, and how they prefer to receive feedback and recognition. Modelling feedback conversations by inviting feedback on your own leadership can also be valuable. Not everyone will feel comfortable initially, particularly given the power dynamic, so offering your own reflections can help open the conversation.
At a team level, capture these co-designed expectations in a simple ways of working agreement. Not as a document that is filed away, but as something that can be revisited. This can include how the team will interrogate ideas, raise issues, and call out missteps constructively.
Consider equity, not just equality
While equal access to development and resources may seem fair, it does not account for different starting points. Taking a more tailored approach, based on what each person needs to succeed, helps create a more equitable environment.
This may involve understanding capability gaps, adjusting levels of support, and being transparent about why different approaches are taken. Creating opportunities for team members to support each other and share knowledge can also build capability over time and reinforce pro-social behaviour.
Role model responding, rather than avoiding
How leaders respond to poor behaviour, performance concerns, or conflict sets the tone for what is acceptable and what is worth raising. Avoiding these conversations, or reacting without reflection, can reinforce patterns that are difficult to shift.
While every situation is different, starting with an assumption of positive intent can help frame your response. Rarely are people trying to do a poor job or create issues. Approaching conversations with curiosity, and seeking to understand what is driving behaviour, is often a more productive starting point, particularly where expectations have already been established.
Holding space for emotion
Trust is often strengthened or eroded in moments where emotions are heightened, both positive and negative. How leaders respond when someone achieves something significant, is under pressure, or experiencing personal challenges shapes whether people feel supported and valued.
It can be easy to assume we know our team members well, or that they will speak up if they need something. Noticing when something has shifted, and checking in, can make a difference. Sometimes that simply means creating space to observe and listen.
This only touches on some of the elements leaders are navigating when supporting a psychologically healthy team. The level of complexity and ambiguity that leaders are working within often requires broader capability and the capacity to respond in real time.