How To Create A Culture Of Psychological Safety At Work
To create a culture of psychological safety at work, you must first understand what it means to be psychologically safe at work. Psychological safety is when people believe their ideas and opinions will be heard, valued, and supported by others. A recent study by Gallup found that employees who feel safe are more likely to experience greater success in their roles.
I was watching the video above as part of my weekly professional development goal and thought it was so good that I wanted to share it here and discuss some of the takeaways.
So how can you ensure your team feels safe enough to share new ideas?
Here are a few tips:
Explain to others the meaning and purpose of work.
The first step is to explain the meaning and purpose of work to others.
This can be done in a number of ways, but one of the most effective is through role modeling. By demonstrating your own commitment to psychological safety at work, you'll show others how they can do it too—and make them more likely to follow suit. Make sure that you're always committing yourself fully to projects that require collaboration, even if they seem like small tasks or insignificant parts of larger projects (like writing emails). You'll find that this approach helps build trust between coworkers over time because they see how much effort goes into everything you do as an employee.
Interpret when you need to create openness as a leader.
Openness is a key element of psychological safety. When leaders create an environment where people feel comfortable speaking up and making mistakes, they're creating a safe space for their employees to speak up, make mistakes, and be themselves.
To do this effectively as a leader, there are two things you need to do: first, interpret when you need to create openness as a leader; second, interpret what makes openness effective in your role as well as how it can be applied throughout the organization.
As a leader, model curiosity and ask good questions.
As a leader, model curiosity and ask good questions.
Don't be afraid to ask questions. In fact, you should make it your habit to ask questions all the time—of your employees and of yourself. Good leaders know that they don't know everything, and they want their people to feel comfortable asking them anything at any time, even if it's just out of curiosity or because they don't understand something (which happens often).
Don't be afraid to admit that you don't know something. Asking for help is one thing,g, but admitting that you need someone else's expertise is another.g but admitting that you need someone else's expertise? That can feel much more vulnerable! But this is what makes us humans: we're all trying our best with limited information at our disposal, so why not lean into those moments instead of hiding from them?
Distinguish between different types of risks and the failures they lead to.
Risk and failure are inevitable parts of life, work, and learning. We need to distinguish between different types of risks and failures so we can deal with them appropriately.
Failure is an essential part of learning; it's how you know what doesn't work so that you can improve your understanding or try something else. Risk is anything that has the potential to harm yourself or others (physical injury), damage property or equipment (financial loss), disrupt normal operations (time wasted), or cause embarrassment or harmful gossip (damaged relationships).
Point out the categories of action needed to create a culture of psychological safety.
Create a culture of psychological safety.
Give employees the opportunity to speak up.
Ask for feedback from your team members, and make sure you do the same with them. This can help create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas with their managers or coworkers. This will increase engagement with the organization's goals and objectives and improve performance overall.
Celebrate risk-taking at work by recognizing people who are willing to step out of their comfort zone to grow professionally or personally by taking on projects that may seem scary but lead to new opportunities (like learning something new about ourselves).And don't forget to celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how big or small!
You can take steps that will lead to psychologically safe workplaces where employees feel they can take risks without being judged or demeaned by their colleagues or leaders.
Psychological safety is a state of openness, honesty, and respect in which people are able to work together productively. It enables people to take risks, learn from mistakes, and try new things. Without psychological safety, teams cannot be effective because they cannot challenge one another or learn from each other's perspectives.
Psychological safety is an important factor that affects team performance; without it, there will be no progress or innovation within your organization.
Final thoughts on creating a psychologically safe work environment
When we work together to create a psychologically safe workplace, we can build better teams and achieve more. By taking the time to understand what psychological safety means, how it works, and why it's important, we can all be part of this movement towards greater wellbeing in our workplaces.
