Have you ever worked in a team where you didn’t feel you belonged, were uncomfortable asking questions, or possibly that your ideas or challenges were not welcomed?
If so, you were probably working in a team in which there was low psychological safety.
This can be an uncomfortable working environment; you feel isolated, the team is not making the most of all its potential individual contributors and you aren’t learning from each other and building on each other’s ideas.
Amy Edmondson, the Harvard Business School professor and author of The Fearless Organization coined the term psychological safety whilst researching teams and their comfort factor with making errors and owning them as part of team learning.
Edmondson describes psychological safety in her book as follows:
"Team psychological safety is a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences."
So how do we go about building psychological safety in our teams?
Timothy R. Clark developed the following four-stage model to propose how a team develops into a psychologically safe team.
Clark describes the four stages as:
Where a team is on the four-stage model is influenced by many factors, such as the team members, organisational culture, but also the team leader, how they show up and the team culture they espouse.
A leader who embraces diversity and encourages questions, ideas and constructive challenge is going to create a far more psychologically safe environment than a leader who has a team of "yes men".
So, in light of all this, some questions to consider:
As always, I hope you have found this blog thought-provoking and, if you have any questions or feedback, please get in touch.
From the author:
As coaching is not an advice-giving service, these blogs are not written with the intention of proposing solutions to common leadership challenges. Instead, they are thought pieces with the aim of prompting the reader to think more deeply about the topic and reflect on whether it warrants further exploration, with or without a coach.
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