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Psychological Safety in the Workplace
With continuously evolving consumer and business needs, it’s not surprising that we have seen so many products and services become the new convenience and essential tools for people and companies. In fact, innovation is critical for companies to grow and succeed in this increasingly competitive economy. Netflix shook up the video rental industry, Airbnb changed lodging forever. These companies entered their markets as disruptors and continued to grow by building their offerings through new products and features. If you look at each of these companies, you’ll see that they all have been able to cultivate a work culture where psychological safety enables innovation within the workplace.
Table of Contents
Psychological safety is the belief that people can share their thoughts and ideas without fear of being punished or ashamed. In a company where psychological safety is felt by its employees, people have empowered curiosity and tend to be more comfortable with taking risks, challenging the status quo, and making mistakes. With the journey toward innovation being filled with new challenges and unknowns, building a foundation of psychological safety is essential in enabling innovation for an organization and its people. But how can we build psychological safety within our work environment? According to Timothy R. Clark, Ph.D., author of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, in order for employees to truly feel a sense of psychological safety, companies will have to create an environment that satisfies four stages: inclusion safety, learner safety, contributor safety, and challenger safety.
Stage 1: Inclusion Safety
Inclusion Safety is a need for people to feel like they belong and that they are welcomed and celebrated for who they are. As individuals, employees come to us with unique backgrounds and perspectives, and we want those unique voices to be heard. However, if employees don’t feel a sense of connectedness with their team or the company, a company may not be able to unleash the benefit of a diverse workforce and the potential of innovative ideas that may come from it. For leaders, it’s important to build connectedness within teams and cross-functionally by aligning employees with the mission of the company. With a purpose-driven organization, it’s easier for people to be connected to the impact that they make and the feeling that everyone in the organization is working toward the same goal. Moreover, it’s important for leaders to create a space where people can be their authentic selves and that their voices are heard. Supporting employee resource groups, learning from them and proactively being an ally to everyone, especially those who are underrepresented can further strengthen connectedness with each other in the workplace.
Stage 2: Learner Safety
Learner Safety is present once employees feel a sense of empowered curiosity. When this stage of psychological safety is reached, employees are not afraid to make mistakes, try something new, and ask each other questions. They actively pursue discovery, solve difficult problems, and are more comfortable with uncovering the unknown. Learner safety is not just simply achieved by encouraging employees to learn. As leaders, it’s important to also provide the right environment and resources for learning. And more importantly, leaders need to nurture a work environment where employees see mistakes as an opportunity to learn and make progress. A good way to build this mindset of welcoming mistakes as a common part of progression and learning is to add it to your team norms. This sets the expectation that it is okay to make mistakes if .we leverage the learning that we gain from them. This can be put into practice through retrospective meetings in which teams identify what went well, what did not go well and what can be done better.
Stage 3: Contributor Safety
Contributor Safety is the stage of psychological safety in which employees feel that they have made a significant difference at work due to their skills and abilities. In this stage, employees get a sense of confidence and validation from the trust and autonomy that they receive from their team and their manager. Employees can get a sense of contributor safety from empowered accountability. This means that employees are trusted to make decisions and are given the freedom to navigate additional responsibilities to make significant contributions that align with company goals. Role clarity and effective onboarding is key at the beginning of the contributor safety stage. It’s important for new hires or employees who attain new roles as part of their career progression to have clarity on their responsibilities, goals, and what set of expectations they need to be aware of. From there, employee one-on-ones, career development conversations, performance management, and role progression play a big part in further supporting employee contributor safety. In fact, career progression can greatly increase contributor safety. However, as people leaders, we must remember that career progression does not always mean a promotion; it needs to be customized to the goals of the individual. For some employees, progression in their career may mean leaving your team and gaining the skills to transfer to another department.
Stage 4: Challenger Safety
Challenger Safety is a stage in which employees feel such a strong sense of psychological safety that they are comfortable challenging the status quo. Employees that progress to this stage are empowered to speak up because they believe that even if they end up being the odd one out of their team, they will not be reprimanded or humiliated. This sense of challenger safety can lead to conflict and difficult conversations. However, these disagreements can also lead to better products and services because members of a team are able to see their blind spots from the constructive feedback and different ideas they receive from others. It is important for leaders to harness the power of these positive conflicts by creating an environment where these disagreements don’t become interpersonal conflicts. Setting the right norms for the team can keep these challenger discussions productive and positive. A great way for our teams to engage in positive and productive challenger discussions is to practice active listening. This means that our leaders and team members engage in a conversation where each person listens to understand instead of listening to respond. From there, it’s important to focus on the ideas, thoughts and the situation being presented versus the people involved. And while keeping the team’s goal in mind, every team member must align or compromise on a decision based on their discussion. It’s critical that the team moves forward together and commits to the group’s decision on a path forward.
Teams who successfully build a foundation of psychological safety through these four stages promote psychological flexibility and psychological resilience in the workplace. Psychological flexibility is a term that was coined by Todd Kashdan and Jonathan Rotterburg in their analysis published in Clinical Psychology Review in 2010. It is the ability to be present and to accept that obstacles will occur along with opportunities. Psychological flexibility measures how an individual responds to every situation they encounter while being fully aware of their emotions and thoughts. Individuals that have psychological flexibility can shift and rebalance their perspectives and keep an open mind to adjust their stance as needed. On the other hand, psychological resilience, a term originated by psychologist Emmy Werner in the 1970s, is the ability to cope with challenges. When an individual is fully aware of their mental and emotional state, psychological resilience enables them to manage any stressors that might affect them and be able to bounce back from a crisis to a pre-crisis state. Both psychological flexibility and resilience strengthens a team’s ability to innovate and move forward despite unexpected challenges. They play an even bigger role when companies face adversities that are out of the team’s control, such as a pandemic or economic downturn.
Leaders who are intentional in building a work culture supported by psychological safety understand its importance to enabling innovation and unlocking their team’s potential. In a recent study released by Ecsell Institute, managers with higher ratings in areas like psychological safety lead teams that bring in an average of $4.3 million more in revenue per year. Moreover, managers who received a rating of 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale for their overall performance as leaders received an average of 84% in their psychological safety score. On the opposite end, managers who scored a 6 for their overall leadership performance received a psychological safety rating of 36%. This study also confirmed the importance of the four stages of psychological safety based on the four things that managers can do to increase psychological safety according to the results of the research: encourage unique opinions, avoid micromanagement, support smart risk-taking, and move quickly past mistakes.
By investing in psychological safety, leaders are also investing in the growth of their teams and their potential to discover innovative products, services, or processes that will significantly and positively impact the success of the company. Innovation allows companies to stay ahead of their competitors and capture bigger markets as they grow. Those who are not able to rise to the challenge of evolving consumer and business needs may get left behind. However, with a foundation of psychological safety, the path toward innovation remains strong even with the adversities that we may face. ◆
Andy Santos is the Director of People and Culture for SpotHero and a member of IPMI’s Allyship & Equity Advisory Group.
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Andy Santoshttps://parking-mobility-magazine.org/author/andy-santos/
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Andy Santoshttps://parking-mobility-magazine.org/author/andy-santos/
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Heather Matthews, CAPP, PMP
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