The Leaders Guide to Psychological Safety.
How do you know if your team is safe?
There are signs.
A quick definition of psychological safety.
Psychological safety = absence of interpersonal fear.
When you don’t have safety, you hide your uncertainty from the boss and others.
When you have it, you feel okay to ask for help, without your position being a casualty.
You can share vulnerabilities (e.g. when you don’t know the answer or you’ve made an error). As a result, your team can work together, faster, getting greater things done.
Psychological safety is the #1 factor of high performance.
Psychological safety is #1 predictor of high performance at work. Ensuring your team is safe for employees is also one of your duties of care, as a leader.
So, how do you ‘get’ more psychological safety in your workplace?
You can’t decide if your team is safe.
Safety is an individual construct. Firstly, someone who fears you isn’t going to tell you they don’t feel safe. Secondly, what feels cosy for someone else, is terrifying for someone else.
But a lack of safety leaves clues: people who are in ‘self protection mode’.
Do you have safety in your team?
When people are in self preservation mode they’re protecting themselves because they either don’t feel safe or the environment isn’t safe.
At work, this can look like:
Hiding mistakes from you.
Withholding information from peers.
Being charming to higher ups but cruel to team mates.
Gossiping about someone else's errors.
You mightn’t be the cause of them feeling safe (e.g. as a boss you’re not responsible for their whole world), but there are things you can do to help work feel safe.
Six strategies to increase safety in your team.
1. Increase your trust score.
To help people feel safe in your leadership, try increasing your trust score.
In one study of 87,000 leaders, the most trustworthy had a foundation of positive intent/relationship, showcased sound judgement and expertise, and were consistent.
Specifically:
Positive intent: being explicit about how you want to help someone succeed as a leader. E.g. You can tell if someone has a negative intent towards you, but you can’t always tell if someone has a positive intent. Sometimes, you have to be explicit.
Showcasing sound judgement. Most leaders can tell me about a conversation they’re putting off. Have you ever considered this leaves an impression on your team about your capability to approach hard things?
Being consistent sounds easy, but it’s wild how many leaders cancel or move their 1:1’s because something minor comes up. Being consistent also means managing your stress levels, as outlined in more detail below.
In our training, leaders often find one thing they can work on, even experienced ones.
2. Build positive relationships.
Teams with positive 1:1 relationships with peers and leaders are more likely to define themselves as ‘safer’ to perform in.
Low safety in a group often reveals a problem between two people. Conversely, working on 1:1 relationships in your team is a direct way to increase safety.
One way you can do that is by focussing exclusively on making life easier for your employee, within what’s reasonable. As one example, in a study when employees got 1:1 time with their manager who focussed on reducing roadblocks, psychological safety improved (12%+).
3. Be explicit that people are included.
Belonging cues (explicit actions showing someone is considered) increases safety. In one study, it was found that belonging cues also directly minimised ‘bad apple behaviour’, leading to higher rates of safety.
Showing someone that you’ve considered them, leverages our psychological need to experience likeness with others. As a result, interpersonal fear reduces.
4. Distribute share of voice.
You may feel because no one speaks up, everyone is fine. But have you considered people are holding back because they want to respect your authority and you dominate?
An Australia study found distributing voices in a group improved performance by 40%. Specifically, when someone played the role of ‘conversational facilitator’, ensuring everyone got a chance to contribute.
Consider whether including a few more voices, with you speaking less specifically, could increase safety in your team.
5. Take ownership of your outbursts.
Feeling stressed is normal. But have you considered that to get a safe team, you yourself must show you’re a safe person to be around?
When your stress shows in outbursts, or bouts of silence, you erode safety in your relationships. People pull back as a result.
Safety is produced with certainty. We regulate around what we anticipate.
6. Cultivate a culture of feedback in your immediate team.
People are 3.6x more engaged with regular feedback. And great feedback lands when there's 'safety' in the relationship.
It’s also true that the higher the safety in a relationship, the less defensive people are getting feedback. A safe relationship isn't the absence of feedback. It's the presence of great feedback.
Even if you’re the top boss, you can’t totally control psychological safety.
But there are risks you can proactively manage, to cover your duty of care.
Do your leaders need to understand psychological safety more deeply?
Our leadership programmes help leaders become aware of the role of psychological safety and focus on actions to increase it. Bring our leadership programmes to your workplace.