Trust, commitment and the emergence of psychological safety
By Marina Maydanov, B Int Rel, B Transl, LLM, MSyl and Robert Holmes
This is the first in a three-part series in which we will cover:
- Why psychological safety has emerged as a trend now and how it relates to trust,
- The theory and practice of psychological safety and why its important to you as a leader,
- Psychological safety in practice and building your team for success.
On February 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. Those events were preceded by a series of escalating events such as Russia’s annexure of the Crimean Peninsula and the downing of flight MH17 (2014); naval incidents in shipping lanes (2018, 2019) and in port (2022); NATO prohibitions, cyber-attacks and finally close border military build-up. Ukraine, under the leadership of its new president, rallied government, military forces, church and local authorities, volunteers and ordinary civilians. In a war where there was such asymmetry, the Ukrainians managed to defend themselves against the blitzkrieg.
Such unity demonstrates an extraordinary level of trust and commitment placed by the people in the government. At the time of writing, the warfare has lasted nearly two years, and the situation has drastically changed. Trust in President Zelensky and his leadership has declined by 22% from a high of 84% in December ’22. Overall trust in the Ukrainian government has fallen from 74% to just 26%.[1] We will examine what caused the reduction of trust and how that relates to the issue of psychological safety at a community or societal level.
What is psychological safety?
Harvard researcher Amy Edmundson coined the phrase ‘psychological safety’ as part of her work in human dynamics. She was exploring the relationship between how teams interacted and the behaviour of their leaders. She defines psychological safety as: “A firm belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, asking questions, raising concerns or making mistakes”.[2]
Amy is not simply talking about being nice or agreeable, avoiding conflict or in some way giving in to others (i.e., lacking boundaries). For people to experience that kind of safety at work or in society, a number of things need to be true. There needs to be a climate where people are comfortable being and expressing themselves without self-editing. Individuals should be able to share information and knowledge, inquire freely, express doubts and concerns, question and be able to articulate half-formed ideas in front of their peers and leaders. If they can, there will be a free exchange of thoughts, productive disagreement and debate over ideas. But we need to be confident we will not be blamed, shamed or otherwise experience retribution or embarrassment.
The second thing to be aware of is how trust and psychological safety go hand in hand. Trust is a belief that the person (system or process) you are dealing with is safe, reliable and will not harm you. Psychological safety simply does not exist without trust. As trust goes up, the opportunity to develop psychological safety goes up, and vice versa. This works for individuals, teams, groups, systems and large social cohesions.
An emerging societal trend
Whilst the idea of psychological safety had its beginning in corporate team environments, it is now making impact across larger social groups (such as movements or denominations) and societies (people gathered to ideologies, governments or identifying with a country). Analysing the importance of psychological safety at the level of society helps to understand the scale of its impact.
Psychological safety is becoming both mainstream and making an impact upon large social groups. The release of ISO 45003 in 2021 marked the first global standard giving practical guidance on managing psychosocial health in the workplace. We are now seeing this standard being adopted (and in some cases legislated) at the Commonwealth and State levels across Australia. Why has psychological safety as an issue emerged now? What makes it resonate deeply within our society to the extent that we pass laws to underscore its importance? What has changed in the society and the ways we interact?
The 21st century has brought with it a real polarising, divisive force in contemporary societies. Sadly, the premise in Voltaire’s era, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” is now sorely eroded. A person’s right to freedom of speech for example, has transformed from a mechanism for open debate into self-permission for online verbal abuse and cancel culture. Truth (based on established facts) has been silenced by the individual’s demand to be right. As a result, people are afraid to express a potentially unpopular view or ask a challenging question. Democratic ways of life are slowly giving a way to mimicry used as a survival tool in the modern online and offline worlds, creating a pernicious environment for psychological safety.
Division in the Ukrainian society
Going back to the Ukrainian example, when the war first started, people were queuing to join the Ukrainian army. Now, according to the Ukrainian government officials, approximately 4.5 million men are hiding from military service and ready to illegally cross the border or pay a bribe to avoid receiving mobilisation papers.[3] There are many cases of officials taking men from the streets, their homes or gyms by force to join the military service.
The question is… what has changed? Why are Ukrainians no longer willing to defend their country, homes and families? During the war, the Ukrainian nation has noticeably divided along a series of fault lines: the language you speak, the church you belong to and the kind of military service experience you’ve had. In this last case, there are a series of smaller fault lines: are you in Ukraine or overseas; have you served yet or not; are you fighting on the frontline or the rear; did you get injured or not? As a result, Ukrainians are fighting Ukrainians on the internal battlefield, and not joining the battle against the still real and existential threat.
To use the first fault line by way of example, there is now a strong national message against the use of the Russian language. Remember that until 1991 Ukraine was part of the USSR. Russian was the official language and the rest of the USSR languages counted as regional or languages of minority. Today, cancelation and prohibition of the Russian language and culture has become part of the Ukrainian government’s mono-ethnic and mono-cultural policy. This has created great distrust, fear and concern by the large proportion of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians. A policy used strongly and enforced bluntly creates interpersonal fear. “[If] you use force, you create fear. Fear destroys trust. Trust is the basis of harmony. The hardliner believes harmony and unity can be brought by force. That’s totally unscientific and totally wrong.” Dalai Lama XIV.[4]
Relevance to the Australian society
How does this experience jibe with the Australian experience? Whilst we are not engaged in a military conflict, we continue to struggle with strife in our region. There were the economic sanctions from China, geopolitical tensions over Taiwan and shipping in the South China Sea, recent naval infractions against our divers, cyber-attacks that shut down our ports and according to ASIO unprecedented challenge from espionage and foreign interference.[5]
Australia is also on a dangerous path to polarisation and we have our own versions of those fault lines: political left vs right, economic rich vs poor and indigenous recognition vs the rest in our Referendum on the Voice to Parliament. According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer[6], almost half of Australians say the nation is more divided today than in the past. Australians identify the rich and powerful as the major dividing force (72%), followed by hostile foreign governments (69%), journalists (51%), and government leaders (49%). All Australian governments are distrusted, and business remains the only institution seen as both ethical and competent. Such low levels of trust point towards a lack of psychological safety in our society. Nietzsche warned us, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
Unlocking the power to create trust
As we have seen, psychological safety is important to resilience of individuals, teams, organisations and the functioning of modern society. Noting the pressures Australia is facing, it is probably the best time to unite as a nation. Each and every one of us can play a role in rebuilding trust and psychological safety in our society. The recipe is simple: try not to judge, be kind and create an inclusive environment with mutual respect and permission given to individuals in any interaction.
Enable trust by acting with integrity, being reliable, open and honest (trustworthy = worthy of trust). Enable psychological safety in your family, in your neighbourhood, at work and volunteer organisations. Apply these principles in your organisational or team environment. We are all different, but we trust in exactly the same way.
In the next article we discuss the theory and practice of developing psychological safety and trust at the organisational level and its multidimensional benefits, noting that business remains one of the most trusted institutions for Australians.
FOOTNOTES: [1] Poll results of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 2023. [2] Edmondson, A.C., 2018. “Building a Psychologically Safe Work Place,” Harvard Business School of Leadership and Management [3] Ukraine proposes mobilizing 500,000 more troops - World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) [4] UNPO: Tibet: Dalai Lama Denounces China’s Hard-line Policies [5] Director-General's Annual Threat Assessment, ASIO, February 2023 [6] Edelman.com.au/sites/g/files/aatuss381/files/2023-02/2023 Edelman Trust Barometer Report - AUS 02-2023.pdf
The link to this article:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trust-commitment-emergence-psychological-safety-robert-holmes-fcawc
