Give a Safe Space to Express Ideas

When leading a team, it’s important to create an environment where everyone feels safe to express their ideas regardless of their experience level.

Early in my career, I was leading a team of six. One of the software engineers approached me with an idea; I knew it wouldn’t work. Instead of telling him, he’s wrong. I told him to set up a meeting with the rest of the team.

In the meeting, the team agreed his approach wouldn’t work, but they took aspects of his solution and incorporated them into the final solution. If I had told the software engineer no from the get-go, the engineer wouldn’t have felt heard, and we would’ve had a less robust solution.