For years I told myself the culture on my team was just banter. We were close, we worked hard and the jokes were part of it. Then a quiet member of the team resigned and told me in her exit conversation that she had dreaded coming to work. I had laughed along with things that, looking back, were not jokes at all. I cannot undo that, but I changed how I lead.
I set clearer expectations, I stopped excusing cruelty as humour and I started asking people how they were really doing. The team is calmer now, and no one is pretending.
