What is Psychological Safety? Building S.A.F.E.T.Y.? one brain at a time.

Feeling exhausted, worn out, beaten up, or generally stressed and undervalued? Or are you living the dream, your work is meaningful, you feel free to be your authentic self and express your ideas? Or maybe you are somewhere in between. Wherever you find yourself, psychological safety is likely playing a significant role in determining your experience.

Understanding Psychological Safety

Most of us understand the importance of protecting ourselves and those around us in a physically safe way. For instance, we teach our children to look both ways before crossing the street to ensure they stay safe from oncoming traffic. We might also insist they don't express their anger through physically hitting others. As such, there are well-defined parameters about what is socially acceptable, what's helpful, or harmful when it comes to our physical safety and our interactions with others.

Psychological safety, however, is a new frontier, and we are only now beginning to understand its importance and impact. For example, research shows that a ‘hit’ to our psychological safety can have a deeper and longer-lasting impact than a physical ‘hit’. In fact, social rejection has the same impact on the brain as a punch to the face.

The difference is that over time the pain associated with a physical attack is difficult or impossible to recall, while recalling a memory of social rejection, many years after the fact can elicit the same strength of emotion as it did at the time of the event.

When we experience an attack on our psychological safety, our brain is triggered into a stress response where our cognitive abilities are compromised, and our higher, logical brain - responsible for thinking, creativity, decision making and self-control - goes offline. In this derailed stress state we can find it difficult to concentrate, make decisions or control our emotions. So on a personal level, maintaining psychological safety is an important factor for optimizing our performance, engagement and wellbeing.

Watch this video to learn more.

Its Link to High-Performing Teams

From a broader perspective, psychological safety is critical for effective teamwork. At the Academy of Brain-based Leadership (ABL), we define Individual Psychological Safety as:

"A state where one's brain needs for Security, Autonomy, Fairness, Esteem, and Trust are satisfied within a social environment."

When individuals achieve this state, it opens the door to Team Psychological Safety, which Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson describes as:

"A belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking."

In environments where team members feel psychologically safe, they are unafraid to express themselves and feel accepted and respected. This openness fosters thinking, creativity, innovation, and growth, leading to more effective collaboration and improved team productivity. Edmondson found that psychological safety is most critical for teams during times of uncertainty and interdependence—situations that describe most functioning teams.

And Google's Project Aristotle further underscored its importance. In their quest to build the perfect team, Google analyzed hundreds of teams over two years and discovered that psychological safety was the most significant factor in team success, outweighing background, experience, or education.

So the data from both scientific and industry research suggest that paying close attention to psychological safety has tangible benefits, not just to personal health and wellbeing, but to workplace productivity and performance.

So if the implications of harming psychological safety are so damaging, and the benefits of protecting psychological safety so great, why don’t we give it the same attention in society as we do physical safety?

The Root of Psychological Safety

The fact is, until more recently we haven’t had the knowledge or tools to unpack psychological safety. The logical starting place was its root – the brain, yet we lacked the ability to measure, track or implement strategies for something so personal, subjective and invisible.

Thanks to breakthroughs in neuroscience research the landscape has changed. We have now gained valuable insight into the brain, its operating principles and the nonconscious drivers that impact our sense of psychological safety. In our experience psychological safety is built one brain at a time. Through brain-based awareness, strategies, language and tools we now have what we need to be able to communicate, protect and nurture our own and other’s psychological safety.

Introducing the S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Model

It’s crucial, now more than ever, to create some self-awareness around what drives and triggers our psychological safety. Based on neuroscience research, the S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Model was created to do just that ….. help you understand how you derive your psychological safety and how you are driven.

The S.A.F.E.T.Y.? domains are universal social drivers that all brains require to feel psychologically safe, and when they are not met we experience stress. They are Security, Autonomy, Fairness, Esteem, Trust and You.

Security

• Security is the brain's need for predictability.
• The higher brain can be seen as a big prediction machine, always wanting to ensure that things in our world are familiar.
• Change is threatening to the brain, which craves consistency, commitment and certainty.
• Security makes the brain feel that its environment is safe. A lack of security leads to a negativity bias.

Autonomy

• Autonomy is the feeling of control over one's environment (whether real or perceived).
• A sensation of having choices within any given situation is rewarding to the brain.
• Lack of control, powerlessness, or helplessness, has a major impact on both our psychological and physical health.
• Autonomy reduces stress, pain perception and hypertension.

Fairness

• Fairness is our need for exchanges within our environment to be fair, both to us and to others.
• Fair exchanges are intrinsically rewarding to the brain. We all want to see and feel that we are treated fairly.
• Unfairness uses the same brain networks as disgust. It elicits the same primal emotion.
• When we perceive we are treated unfairly, our braking system weakens and we tend not to make rational decisions.

Esteem

• Esteem covers our view of ourselves and how we compare to others, and how we think other people view us.
• Our reward areas are activated when we think others regard us highly.
• Threats to our esteem can increase our fear and negativity bias response.

Trust

• We are social animals who thrive in communities. Our brains empathize most with those who are similar to us and likeable: our in-group.
• The brain treats strangers as a threat, categorizing them as 'foe', and processes them as part of our out-group.
• We are able to override this nonconscious out-group bias towards strangers by engaging our higher brain and finding commonalities with them.
• Stress can severely decrease our ability to override this bias.

You

• Individual variables make you you, and account for your moment-to-moment moods and motivations.
• Your past experiences and genetic influences help determine your responses to the other five SAFETY domains.
• Aspects that can impact this domain are your personality; your biases, patterns, habits and triggers; your past experiences; your future plans; your current situation; and your current outlook.
• The impact of this domain can be so strong that it can outweigh any or all of the other five.

Now while we all need these domains to feel psychologically safe, they tend to exist on a continuum, whereby some are more important than others. Understanding which domain is most important to you will help you generate some self-awareness around potential sources of stress, and what you can do to manage your brain’s safety to optimize your health and performance.

Building Psychological Safety with the S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Assessment

The S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Assessment a validated tool to quantify which of these domains is most (and least) important to your brain in your quest for psychological safety. The professional report reveals your brain’s S.A.F.E.T.Y.? profile and preferences to help build self-awareness around what triggers your brain, how it may impact others and how to manage those triggers.

In a team environment sharing team member’s profiles and how they derive their sense of psychological safety, as well as the team’s S.A.F.E.T.Y.? profile helps to build awareness and appreciation for the diversity of S.A.F.E.T.Y.? needs on the team, and the practical strategies to nurture needs to foster psychological safety.

What's your top Psychological Safety domain? Take the S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Assessment to find out

For a deeper understanding of the brain-based approach to building Psychological Safety read the book ‘Psychological Safety: The key to happy, high-performing people and teams’.

Linkedin Live REPLAY: Psych Safety for People & Culture Professionals

Watch the replay here.

Drive breakthroughs in engagement, well-being & performance with an Accreditation in S.A.F.E.T.Y.?

Become an Accredited Psychological S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Practitioner and be at the forefront of human development with neuroscience-based training, skills, and tools to support the people, groups, and organizations you work with.

This 8-week virtual accreditation equips you to use the S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Assessment and Toolkit to conduct personal S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Assessment debrief sessions.

With a S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Accreditation, you will help individuals:

• Make sense of their brain's safety needs and 'hot buttons' using the S.A.F.E.T.Y.? Model & Assessment
• Nurture their psychological safety & wellbeing
• Mitigate their biases to improve decision making
• Manage their hot buttons & stress for improved health
• Communicate their needs to deepen relationships
• Embed new habits and behaviors to improve overall effectiveness
• Enhance team dynamics

Reserve Your Spot Today!

About the Academy of Brain-based Leadership

At the Academy of Brain-Based Leadership, we provide diagnostic tools and workshops to help individuals and teams understand their triggers and manage their psychological safety for improved wellbeing and performance.

Contact us to learn more about our workplace solutions.