‚Psychological Safety is a belief that the context is safe for interpersonal risk-taking – that speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes will be welcomed and valued even when I’m wrong. It’s a sense of permission for candor’ Amy Edmondson
Psychological safety is one of those basics in leadership. It’s worthwhile exploring how safe your team feels, and how that can be improved upon. Psychological safety in a team changes, as dynamics change all the time as well.
Psychological safety has a huge impact on areas such as:
➕ Performance levels of individuals and the team as a whole
➕ Problems solving capability
➕ Team and individual well-being, employee retention
➕ Innovation
➕ Managing the ongoing changes
There are a few helpful things to look out for to understand how your team is behaving when they don't feel psychologically safe:
⚠ Not everyone shares ideas openly
⚠ Ideas or questions start with an apology
⚠ 'Secret’ discussions by the coffee machine
⚠ (Un-)subtle reactions (raised eyebrows)
⚠ Nobody or always the same people speak up
⚠ Team events attendance is sketchy
⚠ Your thinking is rarely challenged
⚠ Failures are awkward and painful
⚠ The team has issues relating well under pressure
In a recent survey by McKinsey, 89% employees stated that they believed that psychological safety in the workplace is essential.
In fact, in project Aristotle Google discovered through mass survey that psychological safety was the main differentiator in high performing teams.
The good news is, we can do a lot to improve psychological safety! This can be learned and put into practice with great results.
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