Psychological Safety: Imperative in Today's Workplace Landscape"
Reflecting on the challenges brought about by the pandemic, the National Safety Council aptly pointed out, "The pandemic starkly demonstrated how connected psychological safety is to work life, productivity, and overall worker health. However, following the immediate importance of the pandemic response along with a rising focus on mental health and wellbeing, psychological safety has remained a lower priority for organizations when compared to other emerging safety factors." This revelation sheds light on a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of workplace safety – psychological safety. In this blog post, we delve into the significance of psychological safety in the workplace and how it's intricately linked to both individual and collective well-being.
As someone who provides trauma-informed practice consultation, coaching, and training across fields and organizations, I notice discomfort when I first mention psychological safety, especially when addressing professionals and workers outside of behavioral health and psychology fields, which is most of the time. Staff and leadership have explained feeling uncomfortable talking about feelings in the workplace, and one person wrote on a post-training evaluation that they "didn't need to learn self-help at work." These reactions are common and understandable, yet I've noticed a continued shift with the organizations I work with as we have navigated the multiple impacts of the pandemic, national racial uprisings, and continued global unrest and violence.
Psychological safety can be defined as everyone in our organization feeling comfortable being themselves, speaking up, and sharing their thoughts or concerns without worrying about being judged or punished. It's about creating a work environment where we trust each other and know that our ideas and questions are valued, helping us work together effectively and safely. When we read this definition, we can see that psychological safety isn't about therapy or self-help at work but about the culture of our workplaces. It involves trust, non-judgment, collaboration, learning from mistakes, and fostering healthy relationships.
When an organization contacts me about needing help with their workplace culture, I observe several common dynamics and challenges. Often there are breakdowns in communication, fear of open conflict, lack of conflict resolution skills, role and decision-making confusion, and lack of trust. These challenges and more lead to a lack of psychological safety and ultimately ineffective teams, programs, departments, and organizations.
Google was struggling with effectiveness on their teams, so they set out to do research on what is needed to have an effective team. Their research shows that there are five elements needed for a strong, collaborative, and effective team dynamic: 1) psychological safety, 2) mutual trust, 3) structure and clarity, 4) meaning, and 5) impact. See the image below for a visual of this model.
Model for Effective Teams from Google Research
Psychological Safety: Psychological safety refers to the way an individual perceives the consequences of risky behavior in interpersonal relationships, i.e., the likelihood of being perceived as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or intrusive. It means whether or not you can believe that even if you act in a certain way, this team will be okay. Team members with high psychological safety feel comfortable taking risks with other team members. There is room to believe that no one will make fun of or punish you for admitting your mistakes, asking questions, and presenting new ideas.
Mutual Trust: When team members trust each other, they work together smoothly and produce top-notch results. But when trust is low, people might start passing tasks around, which can slow things down and even pose safety risks. Building trust means getting along well, talking openly, and looking out for one another's success and safety on the job.
Structure & Clarity: In our workplaces, it's not just about getting the job done efficiently. It's also about feeling safe and supported while doing it. When every team member understands their role, the process, and the impact they have, it creates a sense of trust and psychological safety. This means people can speak up, share ideas, and take healthy risks without fear of judgment or reprisal. It's a vital aspect of a thriving team and a successful organization.
Meaning: For teams to be more effective, they need to feel a sense of purpose in the work itself or its results. The meaning of work is personal and varies from person to person, such as gaining financial stability, supporting the family, helping the team succeed, or supporting the environment.
Impact: Everyone should feel like what they do really matters. When they see how their own efforts fit into their workplace goals, it makes a big difference in how they feel about the impact they're making.
To get you started, I've provided one reflection question for each category:
Psychological Safety: Have there been instances where you felt hesitant to take risks or share your thoughts due to concerns about how it might be perceived? What could have improved that situation?
Mutual Trust: How do you think trust impacts the efficiency and quality of our team's work?
Structure & Clarity: In what areas of your work do you need more clarity? Your role? Duties? Expectations? Processes?
Meaning: What is meaningful to you about your work?
Impact: How do you perceive the impact of your individual contributions within the broader context of your team or department?
One of the best first steps in addressing and supporting increased psychological safety in the workplace is to assess the individual and collective experiences of your colleagues. As always, when embarking on processes such as this, it's important to be intentional and thoughtful about seeking out feedback to gain clarity and a sense of the current state of your team or department, especially if there is a high lack of trust and conflict and people are guarded about their feelings, opinions, and ideas. Trauma-informed approaches are always helpful in these processes because it's easy to have great intentions about helping and making decisions that actually create even more mistrust, conflict, and weariness.
I'm here to help if you aren't sure where to start or are worried about next steps.
