Psychological Safety for Organisational Leaders
By Robert Holmes and Marina Maydanov
This is the second in a three-part series on psychological safety and its role in our society, organisation and for us as individuals. In the previous article Trust, commitment and the emergence of psychological safety we discussed why psychological safety has emerged as a trend now and how it relates to trust. We looked at the decline of trust in leadership in Ukraine, and in government in Australia and how trust is the basis for psychological safety.
We looked at the ways in which fault lines emerge, down which society divides as distrust engenders division and people opt out or away from each other. Social Scientist Robert Putnam has demonstrated that this atomisation of society is affecting everything from recreational groups, parent-teacher associations, volunteer clubs, churches and labour unions. He observes that as social trust has declined, people have become more isolated (and lonely), less politically engaged and more paranoid about their neighbours.[1] How often now, instead of engaging in a healthy discourse or debate, individuals choose to be silent or find means to silence others when in disagreement.
Alexis de Tocqueville once observed of American society, “Personal liberty must be fiercely protected, but also carefully balanced by commitment to the common good… [relentlessly exercising] individual freedom at the expense of others has the power to unravel the very foundations of the society that guarantees it.”[2]
Unsafe behaviours
Have you ever posted a comment on an article, or posed a question in a reddit group and set off a firestorm of reactions? The comments can run very quickly to extremes, and even become very personal as people start to attack both the post and the person. There seems to be a certain kind of freedom or liberty people take when in the anonymous online world that they are not granted here in the real world. There is no personal responsibility or consequence for such a behaviour. That’s why cancel culture is so rife in cyber-space and much less prevalent here.
We have all participated in meetings where the issues of diversity, equity and inclusion are raised and discussed. It is, after all now a mandatory part of training and onboarding employees since the introduction of ISO 45001 (OH&S). At one such meeting, an attendee disclosed that they needed to leave the meeting early to be home when their son arrived. The host seemed miffed by this excuse, so pressed the man on the issue. He explained that his son was autistic and likely to act out if not greeted at the door by dad – his usual and expected routine. This kind of flexibility in organisations is called making a reasonable adjustment.
This was met with stony silence in the group. Many topics in our society are still heavily taboo. Such reactions make everyone feel uncomfortable, frankly it left many of us feeling unsafe with that host, who was a leader in the organisation. That feeling – felt online and in personal meetings – is a violation. That lack of safety cascades into other things like unexplained absenteeism, delayed work product, silence or minimal participation by staff at meetings and an increase prevalence of bullying in the workplace (up 41% in 2019 from 2011).[3]
Joining the journey to safety
“Social capital is not just about who you know, but also about the bonds of trust and reciprocity that exist within a community.”
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone.
Putnam identifies several strategies for rebuilding social capital, including strengthening family and community relationships, promoting cultural diversity and inclusivity, encouraging grassroots activism, and supporting institutions that foster social connections. All of these are built on the foundation of trust and psychological safety.
Rebuilding social capital requires a stock of active connections among people who trust, share a mutual understanding, share values and behaviours that bind them together in loose networks and communities and make collective action possible.[4] For people to turn up, and offer themselves to a collective action requires psychological safety – the belief that we will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, asking questions, raising concerns or making mistakes.
What are the benefits?
Many organisations, including our own, are on the journey to re-establish psychological safety at work. Why? Because it’s important for employee experience and demonstrates good leadership. Together, these enable the performance of the group of people contributing to the success of the joint enterprise. Psychologically safe employers attract a broader range of staff because they are inclusive. There are organisational gains such as deepening resilience, employee participation, productivity, and enhanced innovation. Lastly, because there is a new international standard on it (ISO 45003), being adopted state by state and it will affect the management of human resources both here and abroad.
Psychological safety is important to individual, team and organisational resilience. It is not only fundamental to addressing absenteeism and poor work performance, but also:
- enables better personal interactions,
- empowers people to contribute, and
- forms the basis of high performance in a team.
Lastly, it is fundamental to wellness and resilience in an organisation. A natural outcome of making it safe to express your opinion, turn up as your whole self to work, and be accepted whether you make a mistake or not is an increase in almost every measurable aspect of wellbeing and resilience.[5]
It makes logical sense really. Wellbeing is rooted in being able to be authentic to yourself, managing your state, speaking your truth, and being heard. Wellbeing is much more than handing out a free pass to the local gym or running meditation classes at lunch. It needs to connect with genuine efforts to move the dial on psychological safety and you will have a more resilient workforce.
How organisations can pay attention to it
Where people trust their leaders, and experience trust and respect from their colleagues they will be themselves and take appropriate interpersonal risk with candour and full participation. These kinds of teams thrive and enable full contribution from all members that benefit the organisation. We all aspire to have such a positive experience – a team or workplace that ‘floats your boat or add a bounce in your step’.
Organisations attempting to enhance psychological safety work on developing two things in their culture at the same time: mutual respect and also permission given to the actors in any interaction. Teams with low interpersonal respect and permission (like our first example) tend to exclude people. Those with moderate respect and permission are more learning and see higher levels of contribution. High performing teams see more genuine and respectful challenge and healthy debate around ideas (not personalities).
The journey involves co-developing both mutual respect and permission at the same time (as shown in this diagram):
We move through four stages of psychological safety (moving from bottom left to top right in the diagram above):[6]
- Inclusion Safety – members feel safe belonging to the team. They are comfortable being present, do not feel excluded, and feel like they are wanted and appreciated.
- Learner Safety – members are able to learn by asking questions. Team members here may be able to experiment, make (and admit) small mistakes, and ask for help.
- Contributor Safety – members feel safe to contribute their own ideas without fear of embarrassment or ridicule. This is a more challenging state because volunteering your own ideas can increase the psychosocial vulnerability of team members.
- Challenger Safety – members can question others’ (including those in authority) ideas or suggest significant changes to ideas, plans, or ways of working.
Conclusion
Society is dividing along fault lines… disintegrating, atomising as people distrust and move away from one another, creating an internal disgruntlement within us. To combat this, we seek to create social cohesion by building the experience of psychological safety, based on the foundation of trust.
In the next article we discuss psychological safety in practice and building your team for success.
[1] Putnam, R., (2000). “Bowling Alone” chapters 2 & 3
[2] How Government Can Help Americans Find the Common Good Again | TIME, April 2023
[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-07/workplace-bullying-continues-to-affect-thousands-of-australians/11671062
[4] Rowland, S., (2016). Measuring social capital. A review of Bowling Alone and its implications
[5] Zhu, H., (2021). “How To Lead Teams Through Challenging Times. Participative Leadership and Team Performance: Team Resilience and Psychological Safety.”
[6] Clarke, T. R., (2020). “The Four Stages Of Psychological Safety”
