Want to Increase Team Performance? Create Psychological Safety
Want to Increase Team Performance? Create Psychological Safety
There’s a new term that has been making its way into our field: psychological safety. And for good reason. As researchers study top performing teams around the globe, they are finding that the one thing these teams have in common is psychological safety.
Leading researcher, Amy Edmonson, describes psychological safety as a climate in which “people are comfortable being (and expressing) themselves,” based on “taken-for-granted beliefs about how others will respond when one puts oneself on the line, such as asking a question, seeking feedback, reporting a mistake, or proposing a new idea.”
Think about it: when you’re operating in a complex or uncertain environment (which company isn’t), you need all resources available to you. No one wants to be embarrassed, criticized or hurt. So if your team is afraid to ask questions, or they get shut down for suggesting a new perspective, or they get “punished” for pointing out an error, more of their energy will go towards “image management” and less will go towards solving real problems. This is what cripples the team’s collective intelligence, ability to learn, and ultimately, perform.
Building psychological safety is the most critical way you can invest in your team’s success. Don’t just take it from us. Here’s one of our favorite TedX Talks from Amy Edmonson on why and how you can be cultivating a safe workplace where people can show up as their best selves:
According to Amy, the three most important behaviors for cultivating safety as a leader are:
Demonstrate Situational Humility: “Frame the work as a learning problem, not an execution problem.” Admit that we’ve never been in this exact scenario before, so there isn’t a roadmap. To get through it, we need all of you working together on it.
Acknowledge Your Fallibility: Admit (out loud) that you may have blindspots. Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know. Invite others to speak up if you’re missing something.
Model Curiosity: Ask a lot of questions, and practice active listening. Be sure to express appreciation when people do speak up.
If this scares you, just know: this level of transparency and humility creates more trust in your leadership, not less. In this work, leaders must always go first, because leaders have the unique ability to either build psychological safety - or undermine it - on their teams.