To what extent is feeling safe in your team environment important.
Members in a team do NOT feel safe when AGREEMENTS are ignored or when their BOUNDARIES are in constant danger of being breached... but more often it is because a team member feels slightly uncomfortable, or uneasy letting others know what their boundaries are... OR feel it too rude and officious to enforce a boundary and letting a person know that they just overstepped it. So it becomes an inner tug of war that never gets resolved and builds more unwanted stress.
Penciling in boundaries that you insist others in your team are to observe has its risks. It can quickly alienate you from the rest of the team BECAUSE if done inappropriately will be perceived as being SELFISH.. and will be brought up in your next performance review. So our fear can have merit.
However its not easy to always communicate openly from the heart because others may take advantage of your good nature.
Take a moment to think about one of your boundaries that gets breached
that can at times leave you feeling sad, humiliated, resentful, undervalued, powerless BUT a boundary that you are afraid to reinforce because it will make your environment feel unsafe because of the consequences you fear may result and STOPS you from being the person you WANT to be?
Then ASK yourself..
TO what extent is learning to overcome the inner struggle to better know when enforcing a boundary is appropriate (and to better differentiate when you are just being obnoxious) Important?
