Five Ways to Boost Psychological Safety

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What is the level of psychological safety in your organization? Before you answer, realize that your answer isn’t likely the one shared by everyone around you. Psychological safety – as defined by Amy Edmondson who coined the phrase – is a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. It is another article (or more) to discuss ways to assess how safe people feel in your organization. It is safe to say that whatever the level, it would be good for everyone if the level of psychological safety was higher.

What can we do as leaders in an organization to raise psychological safety for our teams and individuals? Here are five places to start.

Prioritize it. Few would argue that psychological safety isn’t important. But organizationally only so many things can be a true priority. If you want to improve psychological safety in your organization, communicate broadly that it is a goal, support (and fund) efforts from your HR and L&D departments to build necessary skills, and support it as part of your desired culture.

Describe it. It is easy to make an organizational statement saying, “Psychological safety is important.” For behaviors and perceptions to change, you must be more specific. Create a description of what it means in your organization and why it is important for you. To make it more real, share examples (both good and bad) to what psychological safety means in your organization.?

Expect it. When your organization makes it a priority and creates clear expectations about it, leaders will begin exhibiting behaviors consistent with increasing psychological safety. Until an individual leader sees this as an important expectation, they may value it, but not work to improve their related behaviors.

Listen carefully. After stating the goal, be ready to listen. Listening will be like an informal assessment of how you are doing. You will hear examples of when people feel safe, and when they don’t. You may start to get a clue of where in the organization things are better or worse in this area. As importantly, the act of listening to hear and understand is in itself a step toward creating a place where people feel heard and safe.?

Be patient. Psychological safety isn’t a light switch. If people haven’t felt safe in the past, one announcement, one workshop for leaders, or a month-long blitz won’t immediately change people’s feelings or perceptions. Boosting psychological safety organizationally (or as an individual leader) happens as people see a new set of behaviors become the new norm. And that happens over time, not overnight.

Creating a culture that feels safe to everyone is an effort worth making. Success will lead to higher retention, collaboration, productivity, innovation, communication and much more. These five ideas can put you on the road to those desired outcomes.

It’s your turn: what have you found helps build psychological safety in your organization?

A version of this article first appeared in our blog .

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Have a great week – The resources below will extend this article and support you in getting Remarkable Results.

You are Remarkable!

Kevin ??

Creating Powerful Teams and Culture in a Long-Distance World (A Virtual LeaderCon Event) – February 27th

Psychological safety is foundational for a healthy culture. Join me, Wayne, and 7 of the world's most talented leadership minds on February 27 as we take an in-depth look at the challenges facing us as we build culture in this new work world. Find out more and save your spot!

Announcing our new book – The Long-Distance Team. Pre order your copy today!

Wayne and I are proud to announce that our 3rd book in the "Long-Distance Worklife" series is on its way. You can find out more and pre-order your copy here.