Practical tools for champions: how HR and people leaders can build psychological safety

What is Psychological Safety?

As work places become more diverse, dynamic, human and less mechanical, it becomes imperative to create a culture based on trust and mutual respect. As the world tilts further into an idea-driven economy, companies are beginning to realize that an environment that supports open communication, free flowing ideas, minor conflicts and shared accountability, makes for better and more productive teams.

Psychological safety encourages people within a group to offer opinions, suggest ideas, ask questions, raise concerns, and admit mistakes without fearing negative consequences. While this might sound like an anarchist's dreamland, in operation, it encourages mutual accountability and trust. Because everyone thinks together the idea becomes the team’s idea and not any single individual's idea. This is also true when the idea fails.

The goal of psychological safety is to get everyone to feel their true and comfortable self in the work space. It stems off the idea that, when relaxed, teams can come up with immensely brilliant ideas that help the company grow. It is free of discrimination of any kind. It acknowledges everyone’s individual identity and respects them, but it uplifts the team’s ideal over all of that.   Have you ever questioned your boss’s decisions in your own mind, but felt it was safer to just not say anything out loud? In the African setting, where respect for elders trumps personal disagreements, psychological safety is particularly important. The average African employee is in a constant battle to either express her/his thoughts to an elderly boss or just remain quiet. If you have ever been in this situation, it means there’s no psychological safety in your workplace.

Psychological safety has four key elements:

● Willingness to help: Employees believe asking for help is appropriate, and their colleagues are willing to provide it

● Inclusion and diversity: Employees feel a sense of belonging and that their diverse experiences and expertise matter

● Attitude to risk and failure: Employees view mistakes and failures as acceptable in favor of learning

● Open conversation: Employees perceive conversations as open, candid, and safe to contribute to

For a workplace to be psychologically safe, it must meet all four dimensions.

Psychological safety has become a hackneyed term in the work space in the last 10 years. You might have come across a couple job ads where ‘psychological safety’ falls among the perks of being a staff in their organization. The truth is; psychological safety cannot be a buzzword, it's either there or it is not. Once you become part of the team, you sense, even from your first day! That's how telling it can be.

What it looks like

Psychological safety develops over time. When it exists, members of a team can be themselves, and they share the belief they can take appropriate risks, and they can and should:

• admit and discuss mistakes,
• openly address problems and tough issues,
• seek help and feedback,
• trust that no one on the team is out to get them, and
• trust that they are a valued member of the team.

For example, when an employee makes the decision to pose difficult questions to their boss about a tough issue, there is a risk the questions may be misperceived as a personal attack or as unproductive, which depending on the leader and the team could put the worker’s job or reputation in jeopardy. But in a psychologically safe environment, the question is taken at face value and whether or not there is malign intent is never the question.

What you can do to build psychological safety

Dynamic teams have fluid membership that can span industries, functions, time zones, and languages. They vary greatly in size and scope and often operate under constantly changing conditions and tasks.

As the world becomes more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, implementing psychological safety becomes increasingly crucial for navigating new challenges. One key attribute of dynamic teams is their ability to experiment, leverage diverse backgrounds and expertise, and work creatively to find innovative solutions.

Below are a few ways HR and people leaders can help build psychological safety successfully across all levels of the organization:

Leaders can

• Celebrate learning from mistakes and build “lessons learned” debriefing sessions into every project.
• Lead by example to show how to raise problems and tough issues for discussion in a constructive, non-judgmental manner.
• Encourage all team members to raise problems or tough issues that may be on their minds.
• Applaud thoughtful risk taking and demonstrate it yourself.
• Publicly recognize and celebrate the unique skills and talents brought by each member of the teams you lead.

Organizations can

• Train leaders and managers on concrete steps for fostering psychological safety.
• Examine the organization to see if there are unnecessary hierarchies, chains-of-command, or professional boundaries that discourage communication from front-line workers to upper management.
• Provide ways to recognize and celebrate employees’ unique skills and talents in organization-wide communications.
• Repeatedly emphasize that the organization will not tolerate any employee deliberately undermining the efforts of another employee.

Employees can

• Focus on finding solutions with questions like “what can we all do to help solve this problem?”
• Ask others for their opinions—with questions like “I’d love to get your feedback on that idea.”
• Actively listen to the ideas shared by your colleagues and ask respectful questions.
• Extend kindness and respect when team members share ideas even if you disagree with them.
• Provide feedback in a respectful, thoughtful way.

Creating a psychologically safe workplace takes time, effort, and vulnerability—making some leaders shy away from it.

However, leaders who are courageous enough can unleash their team’s full potential by cultivating a culture that values open communication, sharing ideas, supportive discussions, and growing from mistakes.