Once considered as a ‘nice-to-have’, psychological safety is now gaining traction among leaders who recognize its impact in ensuring the safety, sustainability, and performance of an organization.
Lorenzo Gallinari psychologist and senior consultant with JMJ explores what the term psychological safety means, why it’s significant for your organization and how, as a leader, you can embed it within your workplace culture.
Psychological safety, at its core, is about creating an environment where individuals feel secure and free from fear in their work settings. It involves being able to express opinions, admit mistakes, take risks, and engage openly with colleagues and superiors. Picture the freedom a child should have when talking openly with parents or teachers—that same concept extends to interactions with managers and team members in the workplace.
As a leader, the higher you climb the hierarchy, the more significant your influence on this psychological safety net becomes, shaped by your behaviors and communication style.
The way leaders communicate, their tone, body language and how they convey messages have a profound impact on people’s perception of the work environment. For instance, when the CEO of a 100,000-employee organization addresses the workforce, their words and demeanor can either stir anxiety and fear or evoke confidence and trust.
In my experience, leaders’ self-awareness in this regard varies significantly. Some demonstrate a deep understanding of their communication style and its impact, while others are less attuned to it. This discrepancy is not entirely surprising, given that this critical skill is seldom addressed in formal leadership training and development programs and tends to be overlooked as a performance indicator for career advancement.
Effectively communicating the importance of psychological safety to leaders involves linking it to performance improvement. Consider safety performance for instance, which relies on detailed information about what’s happening in the business. This is only accessible when employees trust their managers enough to provide it. Without a psychologically safe environment, people may withhold information, hindering leaders’ ability to improve performance. In essence, creating psychological safety is pivotal for achieving meaningful organizational impact.
This shift in collective awareness is partly attributable to the digital age, where work and personal lives intertwine more than ever before. People are increasingly willing to discuss their work-related difficulties and mental health openly. It’s led to a greater awareness of what employees are willing to tolerate in their workplace, with a heightened emphasis on respecting mental health.
Leadership behavior is also evolving. The traditional, assertive leadership style of the past is no longer universally effective, particularly with the new generation of workers who are more connected to the global context. Transparency and collaboration have become key components of modern leadership.
It’s essential to differentiate between psychological safety, psychological well-being, and mental health. Psychological safety pertains to the workplace environment and refers to the freedom employees feel to express themselves, take risks, and voice concerns without fear of retribution. It’s about creating a space where open communication and trust flourish. On the other hand, psychological well-being encompasses the overall state of an individual’s mental health. It reflects how content and balanced a person feels in various aspects of their life, including work. In contrast, mental health delves deeper into an individual’s psychological state, encompassing conditions like anxiety, depression, and stress. While psychological safety contributes to psychological well-being, mental health is a broader concept that addresses specific mental and emotional conditions. All three are interconnected, and as leaders, understanding these distinctions can help you holistically support your team’s mental and emotional health.
The first step to creating a psychologically safe environment is acknowledging that it’s not just an employee benefit but a fundamental prerequisite for organizational growth. The next step is to gain a clear understanding of your existing culture. One objective method to gauge the perception of psychological safety within an organization is through cultural analytics tools. These quantify how freely employees feel they can communicate and how open they perceive their work environment to be. In addition, you need to make a candid assessment of leadership style and culture. Analytics platforms like JMJ’s Transformation Cloud™ and assessment tools such as DEV:Q
Cultural change is a gradual process, particularly in large, complex organizations. To approach it effectively, consider an incremental strategy, breaking down the task by vertical, function, or site. The initial goal is to establish pockets of psychological safety and integrate desired performance and behaviors into everyday operations. Creating opportunities to model these behaviors in daily business interactions is vital. Leaders should focus on creating a psychologically safe environment during meetings and other touchpoints. By focusing on specific areas within the organization where changes will have the most impact, you can build trust and engagement as you enroll leaders across the organization to appreciate the value it brings. You can’t create a psychologically safe workplace overnight, it takes commitment and effort from everyone in your organization and will ebb and flow over time as new projects begin, new team members and contractors are recruited, and new leaders are appointed.
Considering the growing significance of psychological safety and its role as a cornerstone of the modern workplace, there’s no better time to embark on this transformative journey. As leaders, you hold the power to create a psychologically safe environment within your organizations, and the impact it can have on employee well-being and organizational success should not be underestimated.
If you’re eager to explore this topic in greater depth, you might find value in watching my presentation from the Dansk Offshore Safety Conference last year. Titled “Psychological Safety: The Invisible Ingredient of Organizational Performance,” the video delves into the nuances of creating a psychologically safe environment and its transformative effects on organizational success.