915: INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP: The Importance of Establishing a Sense of ‘Place’ to Create Safe Spaces

Shameless Leadership

As you spend time within your team and organization ideating, creating, and growing, are you conscientiously co-creating a place where each person can participate fully with their best gifts? Is there enough safety and trust for people to take creative risks and ask seemingly silly questions? Have you created a culture where people feel safe to make mistakes?

An excerpt from an exhibition on place at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC defines “place” as… “about geography - but also about memory and imagination. People make places even as places change people. Places are secured by individual and collective struggle and spirit. Place is where culture is made, where traditions and histories are kept and lost, where identities are created, tested, and reshaped over time.”

When we think about the places you co-create with those you lead, how are you creating a place with intentionality and sensitivity to the impact that place will have on all those who inhabit it? People make up a place and each person’s unique gifts, talents, and struggles make that place entirely unique. For a place to be secure enough to build culture and traditions, there must be a foundation where the basic needs of security and safety are met. People must have enough trust in this place and the people who inhabit it that they can show up without fear of judgment, criticism, or harm. From there, the people can co-create a place where members can connect with others over shared values, common goals, and a similar sense of meaning and purpose.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of place, the steps to take to establish place, and how to overlap and collaborate with other people in other places in mutually beneficial and ethical ways.

Links and Resources Mentioned:

• Shameless Leadership Episode 906: The Myth of “Safe Spaces”
• National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Gonzaga University Center for Community Engagement

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