Although psychological safety has entered the literature almost half a century ago, its impact on teams and companies has been more researched in recent years. (Baer and Frese, 2003; Schaubroeck et al., 2011, Frazier et al., 2017). But there is no doubt that it was Project Aristotle that put it at the center of teams and workplace literature. To recap, Google in 2015 did a study, Project Aristotle, among its teams and found out its successful teams have 5 elements in common: psychological safety, dependability, structure and clarity, meaning, and impact of work.

Psychological Safety is defined as a shared belief that people feel safe about the interpersonal risks that arise concerning their behaviors in a team context (Edmondson, 2018). it’s a shared expectation held by members of a team that teammates will not reject or punish them for sharing ideas, taking risks, or providing feedback.

By all means, it doesn’t mean that everybody is nice to each other all the time at the office. But it means that people feel free to “think out loud”, openly challenge each other and work through conflicts together — knowing that it is safe to do so.

A research done by Loignon and Wormington (2022) with nearly 300 leaders, it was found that teams with high degrees of psychological safety reported higher levels of performance and lower levels of interpersonal conflict.

However, according to a research result by Ipsos (2012), only 47% of employees across the world described that their workplaces are psychologically safe and healthy. If psychological safety is important for the team and organisational performance then it seems there needs a lot to be done on that front. Another research done recently, 2019, by Gallup shows similar results with just 3 out of 10 employees strongly agreed that their opinions count at work.

So how do we create a psychologically safe environment at work?  According to Timothy Clark (2020) there are four stages of psychological safety:

Stage 1 — Inclusion Safety

It is a basic human need to connect and belong. Organisations , first need to create inclusion safety where people feel they are accepted as they are.

Stage 2 — Learner Safety

At this stage, people feel safe to learn and grow. In this stage, people feel safe to ask questions, give and receive feedback, and make mistakes.

Stage 3 — Contributor Safety

People feel safe using their skills and abilities to make meaningful contributions.

Stage 4 — Challenger Safety

People feel safe speaking up and challenging the status quo.

Creating a psychologically safe environment at work is a challenge for leaders and especially senior leadership teams. It is the leaders’ role to support the culture of a psychologically safe environment but they also need to create that safety for the senior leadership team.  

Just look at the 4 stages above and honestly answer the question: where is your organisation at those stages? And where is your team?

References:

Baer, M., and Frese, M. (2003). Innovation is not enough: climates for initiative and psychological safety, process innovations, and firm performance. J. Organ. Behav. 24, 45–68. doi: 10.1002/job.179

Clark, T. (2020). The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation. Berrett-Koehler Publishers ISBN:9781523087709, 1523087706

Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., and Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: a meta-analytic review and extension. Pers. Psychol. 70, 113–165. doi: 10.1111/peps.12183

Gallup (2019) https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247361/change-culture-listen-best-people.aspx (accessed January 17, 2023).

Google (2015). Five Keys to A Successful Google Team. Available online at https:// rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team (accessed November 17, 2015).

Ipsos (2012). Half (47%) of Global Employees Agree Their Workplace is Psychologically Safe and Healthy: Three in Ten (27%) Say Not. Available online at: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/half-47-global-employees-agree[1]their-workplace-psychologically-safe-and-healthy-three-ten-27-say (accessed January 17, 2023).

Loignon, A. and Wormington, S. (2022). Psychologically Safe for Some, but Not All? The Downsides of Assuming Shared Psychological Safety among Senior Leadership Teams. Center for Creative leadership  

Schaubroeck, J., Lam, S. S. K., and Peng, A. C. (2011). Cognition-based and affect[1]based trust as mediators of leader behavior influences on team performance. J. Appl. Psychol. 96, 863–871. doi: 10.1037/a0022625