What Leaders & Employees Get Wrong About Psychological Safety
The good news is psychological safety continues to trend in discussions around organizational development, culture, and the “new” “world of work”. The less-than-good news is that the popularity of coverage has led to misunderstandings of what psychological safety is and is not.
As a result, you and your employees might be pursuing the wrong strategies, supporting the wrong behaviors, and, overall, having the wrong end-goals in mind (including the idea that psychological safety is an end-goal kind of thing). Each of these undermines the very advantages psychological safety is meant to deliver.
For example, both leaders and employees often confuse psychological safety with comfort, consensus, or total openness, rather than recognizing it as an environment where candor and accountability drive better outcomes.
Since true psychological safety is a critical ingredient for innovation, communication, collaboration, productivity, reduced turnover, job satisfaction, and leadership effectiveness, clarification may help.
The following spotlights common misconceptions that both leaders and individual contributors bring to the table. By clarifying what psychological safety is and is not, leaders and employees can begin to challenge assumptions and miscommunicated messages in the popular press and build the culture that today’s workplaces demand.
Common Leader Misunderstandings
Believing psychological safety means there should never be conflict or disagreement. A “nice” environment is not necessarily a psychologically safe one.
Assuming psychological safety is achieved simply through policy or top-down decree, rather than being built gradually through interactions and team rituals.
Equating psychological safety with getting your way. In reality, psychological safety ensures input is considered, but it’s not a guarantee of consensus or approval.
Thinking that psychological safety is a fixed attribute in an organization, rather than something that fluctuates and needs continual reinforcement.
Common Employee Misunderstandings
Mistaking psychological safety for immunity from feedback, organizational changes, or even layoffs. Constructive candor, not job security, is the core principle.
Believing psychological safety is simply the freedom to “bring your whole self,” without boundaries or consideration of context, norms, or professional standards. Aim for “best self” rather than “whole self”.
Assuming it’s unsafe anytime ideas meet challenge or pushback. Constructive dissent and debate are hallmarks of a psychologically safe team.
Expecting psychological safety to mean comfort rather than openness to discomfort or difficult conversations that drive progress or prevent repeated errors.
Over-relying on leaders to create psychological safety, rather than realizing that every team member contributes to building or eroding it in daily interactions.
Next Steps for Leaders and Employees
I tell my clients all the time, “Culture is a verb.” At least that should be the mindset. And psychological safety is a component of culture. This ties into the point above that psychological safety is not a fixed attribute.
It will take time and likely outside expertise to help you integrate a palpable sense of psychological safety into your daily work environment and help you determine the most effective, appropriate actions to maintain it. If you want to explore what that can look like, schedule a 15-minute call with me here to start.
Between now and our call, here are a few actions to noodle on:
Every individual, myself included, can get better at receiving and giving feedback. Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen have an excellent book to help you get started. It includes advice on becoming a learning organization and a growth-mindset-oriented organization. These attributes support psychological safety.
Distinguish between careless mistakes and mistakes that are the result of ideation and experimentation. The new book, Right Kind of Wrong, by Dr. Amy Edmondson, can help. Dr. Edmondson helped identify psychological safety and its importance in the workplace. Her new book builds on that effort.
Lastly, Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris is particularly helpful for highly educated, highly skilled individuals. In it, you learn how to, well, learn; learn in a way that breaks you out of default thinking and behavior patterns that keep you and your colleagues stuck in the status-quo, or worse.