In a recent podcast by The Economist1, Amy Edmondson, author of “The Fearless Organisation” stated that there is a misconception that psychological safety equates to happiness and comfort in a team.
Psychological safety is not the absence of stress and it’s not job security, it is the absence of interpersonal fear.
Amy Edmondson
What is Psychological Safety?
Psychological safety is the belief that individuals feel safe for interpersonal risk-taking. It gives team members the space to speak up and state their opinion or to make errors. Consequently, they can admit to having made the error without having to hide what was really done.
Consequently, psychological safety is prevalent in teams where individuals have mutual respect and trust. Generally, most of us want to be liked and want to be seen as competent at fulfilling our tasks. However, if there is fear of being laughed at when we state our thoughts, we prefer to keep quiet.
If psychological safety is absent in a team culture, usually there is negative prejudging amongst colleagues. This influences individuals to not be authentic and to have to hide their true thoughts and ideas.
Innovation Creates Growth
A psychologically safe environment encourages team members to share new ideas without fear of judgment, leading to increased innovation. Generally, when team members feel safe, they are more likely to take risks. They then learn from failures, and use setbacks as opportunities for growth.
In effect, it creates team spirit and collaboration. Basically, individuals listen to one another and support one another by asking for help and giving help where necessary.
In turn, it creates a team culture that allows for growth and high performance.
Open Communication
Trust, collaboration and innovation open the room for constructive feedback which fosters open communication. This in turn helps team members learn and grow collaboratively.
Google conducted a study called Project Aristotle to identify the key factors that make a successful team. As a result, the study found that the most important factor in predicting a team’s effectiveness was the presence of psychological safety.
The Leader’s Role
Team leaders play a crucial role in building this safe environment. Chiefly, it is the leaders who need to consciously give each individual the time and space in each meeting to express themselves and to ensure that feedback is given when learning is necessary.
Think about how you react when bad news is expressed. Do you get angry, show your frustrations or raise your voice to the person sharing the bad news?
Consider instead, to reward the person who admits to having made a mistake. Explain to them how they can learn from it and share their learnings with the others on the team.
Building Trust in Culturally Diverse Teams
Multicultural teams can often find it more challenging to build psychological safety. Culture influences the way we build trust and give feedback. Similarly, it also impacts whether it is acceptable to give one’s personal opinion in a public setting.
Leaders of multicultural teams need to first be aware of what cultural values might be impacting each individual on the team before they can consider the best approach to encouraging psychological safety.
For example, imagine you are leading a team where one individual has been brought up to always show that they are confident and need to be in the spotlight. On the same team, you have an individual who has grown up to learn that showing you are better than your colleagues is a loss of face. How would you encourage the latter person to speak up?
To conclude
We have seen briefly that psychological safety is not about comfort and happiness, it is a key factor in creating a team culture where individuals are encouraged to express their opinions, take risks and make mistakes all without the fear of being mocked, laughed at, or retributed.
Remember that a team culture reflects what is encouraged, reinforced and rewarded within the group.
What can you do to help build psychological safety in your team?
- The Economist Podcast, Boss Class 4, Inside The Yellow Line ↩︎
