Psychological Safety: The Reality
According to McKinsey, Psychological Safety means:
Feeling safe to take interpersonal risks, to speak up, to disagree openly, to surface concerns without fear of negative repercussions or pressure to sugarcoat bad news.
Like this, people can come to work free of the anxiety, stress and psychological suffering that afflicts many of today's working environments.
And that is a great thing.
However, many of us know, both anecdotally and from experience, that not all workplaces are quite like this. Sure, they should be, but they aren't... and probably won't be in the foreseeable future.
These places are plagued by weak management, poor leadership, aggressive behaviour, bullying, criticism, disrespect and the whole spectrum of negative human behaviours, creating a traumatic atmosphere of fear, vulnerability and unhappiness.
Some label these environments toxic - meaning poisonous and unhealthy. We know that in extreme cases they can even lead to the ending of life.
So how on earth do we begin to change these toxic cultures into psychologically safe and life-affirming places to work?
As ever, the answer lies within is, not in the world around us.
Scroll LinkedIn and you'll find a morass of advice telling you how to identify toxic people, how bad they are for you and how their behaviour should be 'called out' and rectified immediately, whilst you should have the right to be treated with the respect you deserve and protected from this kind of abuse.
But however right they are, the phenomenon persists: other people will, sooner or later, say or do something that evokes a painful, emotional reaction in you.
And whilst you blame them for how they make you feel, you make yourself a powerless victim, utterly at their mercy and everyone else's who doesn't behave in the way that you would like them to.
Now, if that doesn't sit well with you, let me make a couple of things very clear:
What I am suggesting is that real Psychological Safety comes from within you. It is the result of knowing that what you feel is a direct result of what you think - not directly the actions of another. Which is why one person might be deeply offended, traumatised even, by what another would consider mere 'banter'.
It's not about becoming insensitive either, in fact being alert to these inner dynamics makes you more sensitive and discerning. You begin to observe and realise that some of these toxic behaviours come from those that are themselves deeply insecure and desperately compensating for their perceived lack of Psychological Safety. That's no excuse, just a fact.
You also stop trying to change other people - usually an impossible task.
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And when you are an observer of the behaviour, rather than a victim of it, you are so much better placed to respond intelligently and effectively to it, in a way that will begin to mitigate it, rather than enflame it. At the same time, you become less likely to attract toxic behaviour and more an exemplar of how to respond to it.
Creating a psychologically safe workplace can only be done through enabling people to establish their own, personal psychological safety. It has to start with the individual and within the individual.
How do we do it?
Through programs that deliver:
(Drop me a line to find out more.)
Trying to change other people's behaviour, to make them conform to your idea of good behaviour, is in itself a psychologically unsafe practice. It will generally require negative, critical judgement of the other - in fact just more of what you are trying to resolve!
There are, of course, limits. If an individual won't accept an invitation to change unacceptable behaviour then they have no place in the team or organisation.
Yet who's to say that your behaviour doesn't challenge another's psychological safety at times and that the bad behaviour you see around you isn't a projection of your own inner dissonance?
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