Good Leaders = Psychological Safety = Good Business

January 2, 2022

A Hot Topic

Psychological safety is one of the most important ingredients to success in the modern workplace. It is currently one of the hottest topics in leadership training, although it isn’t a new concept.

It was first introduced in the 1960’s but received very little interest, particularly as it applied to work performance. It briefly surfaced in 1990 when Dr. Kahn defined it as being able to employ oneself without fear of negative consequences to one’s self-image, status, or career.

Then in 1999, Dr. Edmondson expanded Kahn’s definition to the level of a team and defined it as when members on a team feel safe for interpersonal risk-taking with confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, humiliate, or punish them for it. The interpersonal risks could be anything from speaking up, asking questions, voicing concerns, sharing mistakes or challenges, or being able to brainstorm half-finished thoughts out loud.

Having psychological safety ensures that workers feel respected, valued, and creates a culture that allows them to be their authentic selves at work. It nurtures the idea that mistakes and conflicts should be embraced as learning opportunities, and that it is possible to welcome these and discuss them openly, rather than hide them in shame.

Why Is It Important?

The reason we suddenly care so much about psychological safety is because research shows that it is the strongest predictor of team performance. Moreover, psychological safety has been found to lead to healthier group dynamics, greater innovation, more engagement at work, increased productivity, greater employee retention, and more job satisfaction. In fact, teams with high psychological safety were rated as effective twice as often, they brought in more revenue, and they were more likely to come up with creatively diverse ideas.

It is obvious that psychological safety is good for business, and knowing this, organizations are adapting and making it a priority. With many of us experiencing hybrid work arrangements, this puts psychological safety in the pivotal role of determining whether hybrid work will be successful or not. Why is psychological safety especially important with hybrid work?

First, psychological safety is built on the foundation of equality and fairness among everyone involved. But when you have some workers in-office, others remote, and others doing a mixture of the two, by definition, you have inequality. In other words, the working conditions of everyone is not equal in terms of access to resources, levels of autonomy, opportunities to socialize, discussions with team leader, or even how these discussions will occur, whether it is online or in-person. If in-office workers perceive that remote-workers have an unfair advantage with their added flexibility, or remote workers think that in-office workers get more one-on-one time with the boss, these kinds of beliefs can degrade psychological safety and ultimately hurt business.

Second, the boundaries between home and work are blurry with hybrid work, and yet many of us have been forced into this very situation. At the same time, the reasons for a leader to stay out of a worker’s home life are all still relevant today: There are legal and ethical issues related to asking personal questions, there is a potential for bias, not to mention the desire to respect another’s privacy. Yet for a leader to make informed decisions about scheduling and to be able to coordinate work tasks effectively across members of a team, leaders need to consider the worker’s personal constraints more and more – things like childcare, health, or other personal family matters.

If a worker is working at home, and there are problems at home that are affecting their ability to do their best work, it becomes relevant and important to talk about. Given that a leader can’t ask about personal constraints, the only alternative is if the worker were to volunteer the information themselves. To do this, the leader must nourish a workplace that is rich in psychological safety and create an environment that encourages workers to feel comfortable sharing aspects of their personal selves. At the same time, the leader has to trust that the worker is making the right decision for themselves, their family, and their work.

Although leaders are still responsible for the performance of their team, it is apparent that they have a direct influence on the psychological safety of their workers. By empowering leaders with the tools to establish and maintain psychological safety, this will impact everyone who works under that leader.

Six Practical Tips for Leaders

Here are 6 practical tips for any leader who wants to nurture psychological safety:

Ensure equality/fairness between in-office and remote workers – All workers should have the same access to resources and opportunities to avoid any ‘us’ versus ‘them’ thinking. It should all be fair. Establishing rituals or regular gatherings that include everyone (whether real or virtual) helps emphasize the collective bond of the group and establish cohesion.
Frame any work challenge as a puzzle that needs to be solved together – Whether it is adapting to hybrid work or a supplier on strike, sharing the challenge makes it everyone’s problem. With this promotion of ownership, it is possible to solicit input on planning, decision making, and problem solving.
Enhance interpersonal trust and respect in the workplace – This is a biggie, the foundation of psychological safety itself. And it should make you weary to know that it will take time and effort to build and merely seconds to destroy. Here are some tips to building interpersonal trust:
- Be vulnerable and humble – Share yourself with others at work. Admit that you’re also learning as you go and share your own insecurities and challenges. Model the behaviour you want to see, whether it is asking for help, admitting mistakes, or respectfully challenging a proposal. You can also begin to expand the range of work/home issues that are safe to talk about, such as childcare, physical and mental health, and extended family.
- Invite and welcome it when others share themselves – Make efforts to get to know people outside of work. Show genuine interest in who they are as people to learn what is important to them. When they do share, be sure to:
  1. Show engagement – use active listening, ask questions, offer input, give eye contact and be aware of your body language
  1. Show empathy and understanding – recap what you heard and validate what was said
- Welcome mistakes – Agree to share failures and realize that mistakes are an opportunity to learn and grow. Don’t punish people who try something different or slightly risky, even if it doesn’t work. Instead, encourage learning from failure and openly celebrate those opportunities. When people trust that they can safely make a mistake, this leads to more innovation.
- Welcome challenges/conflicts – Like mistakes, conflicts and challenges provide a chance for growth when a dialogue is sparked, and a productive debate ensues. The result can be stellar work. The trick is to do it in a psychologically safe way because our instinct is to feel threatened with conflict. A good strategy is to have some guidelines in place for things like how you would bring up any concerns at work, how you can share ideas in a respectful manner, or how to mediate a discussion between two opposing views.
- Understand each other’s preferred working style – Ask how you can best support others in their work and share information about your personal work style preferences (scheduling, resources). Be available and approachable and offer to help and support if needed. This builds trust because it shows that you care about the other’s work situation.
- Create a safe space to workshop problems – Encourage brainstorming sessions to voice new, untested, and maybe wild ideas. This should be a safe place where half-finished thoughts can be voiced without fear of criticism or consequences.
- Role model ethical behaviour – Research has found that with high levels of psychological safety, the boundaries between what is and is not ethical behaviour can become blurry. This is a natural result of the increased trust, but nonetheless, it can decrease psychological safety. A good leader always follows the guidelines of the organization and holds that ethical line firm.
Make psychological safety a priority – Your workers may not immediately see the benefits of psychological safety; all they know is they’re being encouraged to be more vulnerable. But making psychological safety a priority is a responsibility that falls on leaders for many reasons:
1. Share the many benefits of psychological safety – It is up to the leader to show how working this way not only helps the company with greater innovation, but it benefits the worker too: They have more engagement at work and also feel more included.
1. Make psychological safety discussable at work – Just like we’ve all heard of a ‘toxic work environment’, psychological safety should be a common term that is openly discussed at work. The old work model of the terrified worker being barked orders by an authoritarian boss is long gone because it isn’t the best way to get things done. We know now that we work much better when we feel safe to produce and create, and speaking up about this shouldn’t be taboo.
1. Make psychological safety an explicit priority – It shouldn’t just be discussable, but it should be embedded as part of the organization’s culture, present at every level and in every corner. Leaders should always be aware of the current level of psychological safety and take measures to improve it on an ongoing basis.
Understand that psychological safety is fragile – Although psychological safety is very slow to build over time, it can be broken in an instant. Once broken, it can be repaired, but it will take longer each time it is broken. It is important for leaders to be extra vigilant for anything that could detract from psychological safety. There are obvious detractors, such as ignoring someone’s input, degrading their ideas, or laughing at someone’s question, and these are easy to identify. But sometimes the detractors aren’t as obvious, such as when someone says: ‘I haven’t seen you in the office for a while – isn’t it great when we can have meetings face-to-face?’. Obviously, there are better ways for a worker to express that they are happy to be together and value everyone’s input, and as a leader, you need to mitigate any potential areas of tension quickly.
Decrease role confusion – When workers are uncertain about their role in the organization, this can decrease psychological safety. It is important that leaders establish a clear description of workplace expectations (how work gets done, where, and when) that meets the rhythms of your organization.

Being aware of the importance of psychological safety in the modern workplace is the first step for leaders, and we are here to help in any way that we can. Please contact us at info@primebenefitsgroup.com. Let’s work together and create solutions that work best for you and your organization.

Additional Resources

Amy Edmondson’s Ted Talk on Psychological Safety