PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY MATTERS!

Research shows that, psychological safety is a precursor to adaptive, innovative performance - which is needed in today’s rapidly changing environment - at the individual, team, and organization levels. For example, successfully creating a network of teams - an agile organizational structure that empowers teams to tackle problems quickly by operating outside of bureaucratic or siloed structures - requires a strong degree of psychological safety.

 

Why is psychological safety so topical now?

As mentioned above, the knowledge about the added value of psychological safety has been known for quite a long time. How is it possible that the theme now receives so much attention? Of course, there has been a lot in the (local and international) news. And especially about cross-border behaviors, that employees hardly dared to report these. Apart from the examples from the media, there was already an increased attention for psychological safety. This has to do with 3 situations, from large to small:

 

It seems as if the world is running faster and faster: innovations with an ever-shorter lifespan, more complex knowledge, social media, more uncertainty (a.o. volatile economy, the war in the Ukraine), too short of capable employees with the right knowledge and skills (competencies).

 

Organizations have changed: people working in organizations have to deal with that ever faster turning (VUCA-) world, so that means getting straight to work and achieving results.

 

People have changed: people want more and more self-direction, more connection, and more and more learning. Both connection and autonomy really lead to a challenge. You can see that with hybrid working. It is not either-or, but and-and. You can see it in the youngest generation of employees as well. They want to decide for themselves when they work, and where. Actually, it is not surprising that psychological safety is the means to achieve good results as an organization.

 

What is psychological safety?

Psychological safety refers the belief that one can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation. It is mainly about the subtle interaction between people. That you give your opinion, suggest ideas, can contradict the manager, challenge each other to do better. That everyone can participate and that you are jointly responsible for a positive climate. It is based on the “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” Psychological safety means an absence of interpersonal fear. When psychological safety is present, people are able to speak up with work-relevant content.”

 

Psychological safety has been well established as a critical driver of high-quality decision making, healthy group dynamics and interpersonal relationships, greater innovation, and more effective execution in organizations. Psychological safety leads to better team performance and results, to inclusion, to better ideas, to learning, to innovation, to more happiness at work and even more.

 

Psychological safety is different from social safety and emotional safety. Social safety refers to 'being protected and feeling protected from danger caused by someone else's actions within a social setting'. Think of rules, agreements, procedures, a confidential advisor, those kinds of things. It is about norms and values. "That's how we work here". Emotional safety and or security refers to willingness to reveal how one really feels. Psychological safety and social safety are two sides of the same coin. They complement and support each other and lay the foundation for emotional safety.

 

Psychological safety at work is built in teams and that is how it spreads throughout the organization. They certainly influence each other. You can probably imagine that if you dare to say what you think, addressing someone on behavior becomes easier. If you focus on psychological safety in addition to social safety, there will be fewer excesses and if they arise it will become easier to know. Psychological safety also lays the foundation to give and receive honest feedback.

 

What is the role of leadership development regarding psychological safety?

Leaders can build psychological safety by creating the right climate, mindsets, and behaviors within their teams. In our experience, those who do this best act as catalysts, empowering and enabling other leaders on the team - even those with no formal authority - to help cultivate psychological safety by role modeling and reinforcing the behaviors they expect from the rest of the team.

 

Research finds that a positive team climate - in which team members value one another’s contributions, care about one another’s well-being, and have input into how the team carries out its work - is the most important driver of a team’s psychological safety. By setting the tone for the team climate through their own actions, team leaders have the strongest influence on a team’s psychological safety. Moreover, creating a positive team climate can pay additional dividends during a time of disruption. Research also finds that a positive team climate has a stronger effect on psychological safety in teams that experienced a greater degree of change in working remotely than in those that experienced less change during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

During the pandemic, we have seen an accelerated shift away from the traditional command-and-control leadership style known as authoritative leadership. Research finds and confirmed in practice that team leaders’ authoritative-leadership behaviors are detrimental to psychological safety, while consultative- and supportive-leadership behaviors promote psychological safety. The results also suggest that leaders can further enhance psychological safety by ensuring a positive team climate. Both consultative and supportive leadership help create a positive team climate, though to varying degrees and through different types of behaviors.

 

With consultative leadership, which has a direct and indirect effect on psychological safety, leaders consult their team members, solicit input, and consider the team’s views on issues that affect them. Supportive leadership has an indirect but still significant effect on psychological safety by helping to create a positive team climate; it involves leaders demonstrating concern and support for team members not only as employees but also as individuals. These behaviors also can encourage team members to support one another.

 

What’s more, the survey results show that a climate conducive to psychological safety starts at the very top of an organization. We sought to understand the effects of senior-leader behavior on employees’ sense of safety and found that senior leaders, given their role and authority,  can help create a culture of inclusiveness that promotes positive leadership behaviors throughout an organization by role-modeling these behaviors themselves. Team leaders are more likely to exhibit supportive, consultative, and challenging leadership if senior leaders demonstrate inclusiveness - for example, by seeking out opinions that might differ from their own and by treating others with respect.

 

Conclusion:

A lack of psychological safety at work has major business repercussions. First, when people don’t feel comfortable talking about initiatives that aren’t working, the organization isn’t equipped to prevent failure. And when employees aren’t fully committed, the organization has lost an opportunity to leverage the strengths of all its talent.

 

People need to feel comfortable speaking up, asking naïve questions, and disagreeing with the way things are in order to create ideas that make a real difference. Psychological safety at work doesn’t mean that everybody is nice all the time. It means that you embrace the conflict, and you speak up, knowing that your team has your back, and you have their backs.

 

According to Dr. Amy Edmondson, author of The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, people must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions out of left field, and brainstorm out loud in order to create a culture that truly innovates.