For Leaders, it’s interesting to consider how team members want to feel in their team. You may assume you know how your team wants to feel, but have you ever asked them?

Here’s how the Accountants wanted to feel in their team:

• Happy

• Proud

• Excited

• Content

• Joyful

• Grateful

• Relieved

• Curious

• Calm

Here’s how the Accountants didn’t want to feel in their team:

• Overwhelmed

• Stressed

• Hopeless

• Disconnected

• Bored

• Lonely

• Invisible

• Anxious

Here’s how the Social Workers wanted to feel in their team:

• Energised

• Confident

• Welcome

• Fun-loving

• Joyful

• Inspired

Here’s how the Social Workers didn’t want to feel in their team:

• Defensive

• Inferior

• Embarrassed

• Disheartened

• Overwhelmed

• Incapable

I used a summary of Brene Brown’s book, ‘Atlas of the Heart’ to prompt the conversation.

What surprised you about their answers?

As you consider the two different sets of responses, does anything surprise you?  I was surprised that ‘Joyful’ was mentioned by both teams.  It’s not something I’ve heard mentioned a lot. And then I was not surprised ‘Overwhelmed’ was mentioned by both teams. It is something I’ve heard mentioned a lot.

Questions for you to ask your team:

1. As a team, what emotions do we want to feel more?

2. As a team, what emotions do we want to feel less?

3. How can we move more away from how we don’t want to feel, and move more towards how we do want to feel?