Psychological safety

Psychological safety is critical for team cohesion, honest feedback, and employee wellbeing.
People have interpreted the definition differently over time, but broadly speaking, psychological safety is the ability to bring up genuine opinions, ask questions, or own up to mistakes at work without risking being ostracized, damaging your social capital, or being punished.

Professor Timothy R. Clark has expanded on Amy Edmondson’s work by putting together four stages of psychological safety:

Inclusion safety: Team members feel that they belong to the group and are included as a valued member of a social unit. 
Learner safety: Team members feel safe asking questions, recognizing where they can improve, making mistakes, and giving and receiving feedback.
Contributor safety: Team members feel confident contributing their skills, abilities and opinions, and are empowered to do so.
Challenger safety: Team members have no problem challenging the status quo and asking probing questions such as “Why do we do it this way?” or “How about we try it this way instead?”

Psychological safety also now explicitly includes feeling you are given the same ‘safe’ treatment regardless of your identity.

The definition expands once again with remote teams. While the fundamental premise is the same, remote and distributed teams must also consider how people existing in different physical environments or different cultural norms affect psychological safety.

Psychological safety allows team members to bring their whole self to work in a safe environment for interpersonal risk-taking where team learning is encouraged.

With Psychological safety;
Ø  Teams can experiment and grow
Ø  Teams can challenge each other & reach more informed decisions
Ø  Teams can make continuous improvement a reality

Without Psychological safety;
Ø  Teams are reactive and hesitant
Ø  Teams are scared to challenge established ways of doing things
Ø  Teams preserve the status quo and do not inspect and adapt their work

When a team is willing to take risks and stick their necks out for each other, they create networks of dependability and trust. From there, a team can assign duties without ego and plan projects focused on outcomes, not politicking. When teams make a concerted effort to build psychological safety, they set the business up for success.

While it’s tough to draw a direct line from psychological safety to profits, it makes sense when you think about it. If team members can build trust, and take risks, they can also innovate, practice teamwork and show radical candor, without fear of reprisal.

#inclusiveworkplace #leadershipmatters #greatplacetowork #teamworkmakesthedreamwork