4 Steps To Psychological Safety

At the end of a training on resilience and self-leadership for a large bank, participants brought up the importance of being able to share when something is troubling us, or not going according to plan that might affect the team.

That could not be more true. Psychological safety is the foundation of successful teams and organizations. So much so, that a now famous Google study on team effectiveness, revealed that psychological safety was the No1 predictor of high-performing teams. Teams where members felt safe to take risks and share ideas consistently outperformed those without this safety net.

Amy Edmondson's work in this area is beautiful. She talks about 4 important steps to create psychological safety and I believe that perhaps the most challenging among them is inviting feedback.

Few leaders are comfortable hearing what they don’t do well, and as a result, many miss opportunities to encourage their teams to speak up.

Think about it: how many times in your career have you been asked to give your manager honest feedback, and actually did so?

Psychological safety is built when we feel safe enough to address uncomfortable topics, knowing that our input will help improve the way we work, without fear of repercussions.

So if you're a leader, ask yourself some questions:

• "Does my team feel safe enough to speak up?"

• "Do I regularly or ever receive unfavorable or uncomfortable feedback?"

As Edmondson says:

“It’s not about being comfortable. It’s about candor, about making people feel like they can speak up.”