The importance of psychological safety for diversity and inclusion; Why and how inclusive leaders foster a speak-up culture

Before Elon took over, I was engaged by Twitter for a global virtual town hall conversation with a senior leader on psychological safety and its intersection with inclusion. I stumbled across the transcript of our discussion over the weekend and am pleased to share it with you.

Leader

Over my career, I’ve learned that the best ideas, decision-making and problem-solving result from integrating different perspectives, skill sets and experiences. In turn, I believe that one of the most critical leadership skills is being able to foster work settings where all employees openly exchange and debate different ideas and perspectives. Today, I’m pleased to be joined by Felicity Menzies, CEO and Founder of Sydney-based diversity and inclusion consultancy, Include-Empower, to learn more about cultivating a speak-up culture.

Felicity, thank you for joining us. It might be helpful to open our discussion by understanding how fostering a speak-up culture relates to workforce diversity.

Felicity

Thank you. It’s great to be here today with you discussing this topic because often employers understand that diversity is a tool for innovation and higher quality judgement and problem-solving without awareness that capturing those advantages requires both a diverse workforce and a context where all employees are empowered and willing to voice their ideas, perspectives, and concerns.

Leader

So, fostering a speak-up culture is essential for inclusion. Is that correct?

Felicity

Yes, that’s correct. Diversity and inclusion are terms that are often used interchangeably, but they mean different things. Whereas diversity is the representation of individual differences in a workforce, inclusion involves the active integration of those differences into decision-making and work practices, which, in turn, requires the open exchange and constructive challenge of different points of view and ideas.?

Leader

I’ve heard the term ‘psychological safety’ used in the context of fostering a speak-up culture. What is psychological safety, and why is it relevant for fostering a speak-up culture?

Felicity

Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson, who coined the term ‘psychological safety' in 1999, defines it as a ‘‘shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.’’ Essentially, psychological safety involves a context in which team members trust and respect each other and perceive that they will not be dismissed, penalised or negatively judged by their colleagues or managers for speaking up with novel ideas, admitting mistakes or failures, or challenging the status quo. In such contexts, team members are willing to share novel ideas, speak up on sensitive issues and engage in constructive debate.

As Amy notes, it’s important to understand that working in a psychologically safe environment does not mean that people always agree with one another or accept others’ ideas for the sake of being nice. Instead, it’s about feeling safe to voice new opinions, raise concerns, constructively challenge, or admit mistakes, knowing that you will not be shut down, dismissed or penalised when you do. It’s about being respectful but candid.

Leader

Intuitively, given that the best solutions come from integrating different ideas, it makes sense that a workgroup’s performance would be linked to perceptions of psychological safety. Still, what evidence is there that is the case?

Felicity

Several studies support a positive relationship between psychological safety and group performance. For example, Google’s 2015 study ‘Project Aristotle’ found that psychological safety was the most significant success factor underpinning high-performance teams across the organisation. Contrary to their expectations, the researchers reported that the capabilities of the individual team members mattered less for team performance than how team members shared information and collaborated. When individual members attached a low interpersonal risk to voicing their ideas or making mistakes, they were more likely to share novel information or challenge the status quo. In turn, the group was able to access and integrate a greater diversity of thought to drive innovation and improve judgment and decision-making.

Employees in psychologically safe teams were also less likely to want to leave Google, brought in more revenue and were rated as effective twice as often by executives. Creating workplaces where all employees feel safe to speak up drives not only fresh thinking and better solutions but also increases employee engagement and individual performance. Being valued for your contribution is a significant motivator.

Leader

What interests me about the Google study is that the researchers found that psychological safety varied across teams. What are some of the factors that influence perceptions of psychological safety?

Felicity

That’s a great question.

First, it’s useful to note that perceptions of psychological safety across workforces are generally weak. In 2017, in a world-first, The Australian Workplace Psychological Safety Survey collected perceptions of psychological safety from a diverse cross-section of workers. Overall, only 24 per cent of respondents reported feeling safe to take risks at work and reported feeling least confident to speak up in formal meetings. In the same year, Gallup reported similar results from a survey of American workers. More recently, business school, Hult Ashridge, released the results of their global survey ‘Speaking Truth to Power at Work’. Results showed that employees are more likely to raise issues of malpractice or unethical activity than challenge ways of working or offer ideas. 73% of respondents indicated that they could assist their organisation’s performance with an idea, but 38% of these have not spoken up via official channels. This represents a significant untapped resource. So, when talking about psychological safety, we usually start from a low base.

Further to your point, employee surveys show that perceptions of psychological safety vary significantly with context, leader approachability, and across diversity dimensions such as age, rank, race, gender, income, and education level.

Leader

I’m interested in learning more about those variables, but first, why do such a large percentage of employees find it hard to speak up?

Felicity

It’s commonly assumed that whether someone speaks up is a matter of individual confidence, but the research shows that speaking up is also relational and contextual rather than simply personal courage.

When we propose a new idea or challenge the ideas and decisions of others, we bear interpersonal risk—the possibility of being discredited, penalised or humiliated if we fail or make a mistake. Alongside physical safety and security needs, all humans share psychological needs—the maintenance of high self-esteem and connection with others. Our universal needs motivate us to avoid situations that potentially bruise our ego, resulting in social exclusion or loss of status, or may attract tangible penalties such as financial punishment or reduced opportunities for career progression. If we perceive those risks are present, we play it safe and stay silent.

Leader

So, leading on from this, is it correct to say that perceptions of psychological safety vary in different contexts because they involve different degrees of interpersonal risk?

Felicity

Yes, that’s correct. For example, interpersonal risk-taking is greater in ambiguous and complex environments when there is less certainty attached to our ideas. This is problematic because the most complex and ambiguous problems are those that would benefit the most from different perspectives, and increasingly, the nature of work is complex and uncertain. Now, more than ever, we need to create team environments where diversity of thought informs problem-solving and decision-making and drives innovation.

Interpersonal risk-taking is also higher when our counterpart has higher status or more power, experience or expertise than us. In these contexts, we seek to prevent being perceived as ignorant, incompetent or a troublemaker by refraining from offering novel ideas or admitting mistakes. For example, there’s a hierarchy to speaking up. Hult researchers found that the more senior the respondent, the less guarded they reported feeling. Junior employees say fear stops them from speaking up more frequently than senior respondents. Most organisations are hierarchical, but in some more than others, employees are acutely aware of status differences. In those organisations, people are overly cautious around those higher in the hierarchy. The more junior people may have unique sight of what needs to be done, but they are the least likely to raise things.

Leader

You also mentioned that psychological safety varies across different cohorts of employees.

Felicity

Yes, that’s true. While psychological safety may be absent in homogenous workgroups, diverse workgroups may have to work harder than homogenous groups to foster a speak-up culture. While diversity offers potential benefits, diversity also enhances the potential for language and other communication barriers. It heightens the risk of ambiguity, value conflicts, reasoning and decision-making differences, and stereotypes and bias threaten rapport and stifle the exchange of information and ideas. Minority group members experience higher levels of workplace anxiety linked to exclusion, discrimination, harassment, and incivility, which can deter individuals from speaking up. Research by Deloitte and Professor Kenji Yoshino from New York University explores the concept of covering—the active masking of difference by members of non-dominant groups to ‘fit in’ and side-step many of the minority stressors noted above.

That’s why it’s not enough for organisations to hire diverse talent. If employers want to unlock the advantages of a diverse workforce, they must foster a psychologically safe climate where all employees feel free to contribute novel ideas and share information.

Leader

What role do leaders play in psychological safety?

Felicity

Leaders play a significant role—studies show that perceptions of psychological safety vary with leader approachability. This is one of the main drivers behind marked variations in perceptions of psychological safety across departments or workgroups. Leaders who are emotionally volatile, resistant to and critical of new ideas or ways of working, or that lead with a command-and-control style damage perceptions of psychological safety. A single instance of a team leader critiquing, talking over, or otherwise dismissing a concern raised by a junior team member can damage perceptions of psychological safety for the whole team.

However, because psychological safety is a group-level phenomenon, what matters is not only leaders' behaviours but also all group members' behaviours. Leaders must pay attention to the responses of others as well as their own responses.

Leader

So, what practical ways do leaders and co-workers promote a safe environment for all team members to speak up?

Felicity

For leaders, it’s essential to provide the rationale for speaking up. It’s important to be explicit and to regularly communicate to team members that the best solutions come from the successful integration of different ideas and that everyone’s contribution is expected and necessary for success. Leaders should reinforce that in a disruptive and complex environment, no one person, including themselves, can have all the answers. They must make it clear that innovation through creative collaboration is the nature of work and that everyone is expected to contribute to decision-making and engage in candid and constructive debate.

Alongside setting clear expectations for fresh thinking and constructive challenge by leaders, psychological safety is strongest in contexts where team members and leaders practice curiosity, emotional intelligence, and collaborative problem-solving.

Leader

Could you tell me more about those three traits? What does it mean to be curious?

Felicity

Curiosity involves actively seeking out different perspectives and approaching interactions with a learner rather than a judger mindset. Curiosity is a close cousin of humility—the curious know that they have biases and blind spots and that there is more than one way to interpret the world, and their view is limited. They actively invite the expertise, perspectives and ideas of different team members, ask them to address gaps in their understanding and remain open when confronted with new and contrary information. Curious individuals ask, “what can I learn?” rather than “how can I prove I’m right, and you’re wrong?”

Leader

The second trait you mentioned was emotional intelligence. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Felicity

Yes, absolutely. Emotionally intelligent individuals mindfully monitor their responses in real time, ensuring they don’t embarrass, reject, dismiss, or ignore the contributions of others. They respond to others with empathy and regulate their emotional response to bad news, acknowledge the contributions & achievements of all colleagues, and give credit where credit is due. Emotionally intelligent individuals provide support when colleagues or subordinates encounter difficulty or challenges and steer clear of blame. Emotionally intelligent individuals ask, 'How can I better connect to foster trust?”

Leader

The third practice you mentioned was collaborative problem-solving, which I assume contrasts with competitive problem-solving.

Felicity

Yes, collaborative problem-solving involves consciously integrating different perspectives and ideas to create a better solution rather than debating the merits of competing solutions. Collaborative problem-solving adopts a win-win lens to workplace discussions and decision-making and emphasises collective goals and success. In collaborative problem-solving, group members share their ideas, take the perspective of others, confirm their commitment to resolving conflict for mutual benefit and integrate diverse perspectives to create new solutions. This can be contrasted to a competitive workplace culture where colleagues argue, sometimes aggressively, the merit of their ideas in a win-lose fashion.

Leader

Thanks again, Felicity, for joining us today.

Felicity

Thanks so much for hosting me today; it’s been a pleasure to chat with you. I’ll close off our conversation by reminding listeners that although research shows workforce diversity offers potential advantages, diversity, per se, is not enough. Without psychological safety, individuals may be reluctant to speak up, and you may miss out on breakthrough ideas, learning from mistakes, and the raising of valid concerns or red flags.